August has always seemed to me a weird month. In my part of the world, August represents heat, storms, and a sense of rush that comes with the end of summer and realizing one hasn’t yet done everything they set out to do that season. Children lament the end of their daily freedoms as they trade swimming suits and comic books for school uniforms and algebra texts; these lamentations often take the tone of dirges sung at 1000 decibels the next aisle over from me in Target1. Outside of K-12 teachers, American adults generally don’t have the same lengthy summer vacation breaks that the kids do, so our lamentations center more on the passage of time, trying to squeeze as much enjoyment as possible into those last precious sunny days before the leaves turn brown and Old Man Winter arrives to remind us that all things eventually come to an end. In short, August is a month that is packed with activity, yet is still difficult to get anything done. For podcasters and small-time entertainers, that mindset can break you.
As I’ve stated in the past, many people don’t realize the full workload that goes into building a successful show. August is a prime example of how that breakdown occurs. Most people starting out don’t have tons of resources at their disposal, so they spend a lot of time using free programs and kludging their way through problems as they arise. For live streamers especially, it’s tempting to skip a week to go to a barbecue or go on hiatus for a month to take a trip. I’m not saying breaks are bad, either; taking time to recharge is vital to remain creative and relatively sane. But when the best weapon podcasters have to establish a solid fan base is consistency, there has to be a plan in place to still have fresh content releasing during that off time to keep their community engaged.
Using On Tap2 as an example, we had plans set up for those contingencies well before we did our first broadcast. Since I’m in the Eastern time zone and both Bio and Killer are Central, when we know in advance that one or more of us need a certain Friday off we make a point to pre-record episodes with some of our guests in the zones that are harder to logistically match up (like Porkchop, who in Hawaii is six hours behind me and still at work when we go live at 9:30 ET, or Karl, who in England is five hours ahead). Other times, we’ll plan a special theme night, like when the guys bowed out for an evening while I did Ladies’ Night with Vampy and Mysti. Killer is trying out the moderator chair this week for a similar thing, where he’ll host three of our other RCM show hosts to talk about their shared love of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series. And for those occasions when we can’t plan ahead (emergencies do happen), we have not one, but two people in the wings ready to fill in a chair as needed (cookies to Sayo and Varyar for that).
The result? Since our debut last February (going into our 31st week as of this writing), On Tap has never missed an episode, which I’m fairly certain is an RCM record. And you can see the difference it’s made in how the community interacts with one another: Teamspeak conversations are livelier. People collaborate more. Hell, our newest RCM show3 came about because Vampy was looking for someone with whom to do a Sims stream, and had no idea how into the game her future partner was until Dove sat in fourth chair to talk about her Sims Saturday blog. Our Saturday community activities are starting to pick up steam, too, and why? Consistency. Powering through when others would give up. Shrugging off the blaze of an August sun and the apathy of an August mindset to deliver something your fans look forward to, and somewhere along the way realizing that part of the appeal is the heart and soul you pour into it until you, yourself, look forward to it as well.
When one gets to the point where they’re doing something solidly week after week not because they have to, but because they enjoy it so much they can’t imagine not doing it – that is a true measure of success.
*****
1 In Walmart, they up it to 100,000 decibels to drown out the old ladies cackling over tabloids in front of the check-out counters. Seriously, though, going to either store on an August weekend without ear protection is not only ill-advised, but downright dangerous.
2 For the uninitiated: RCM On Tap is a sixty-ish minute round table discussion podcast that airs Friday nights at 9:30 ET at twitch.tv/rivalcastmedia. It was designed specifically as a behind-the-scenes look at the staff and community at RivalCast Media, with the premise based around a group of friends meeting up for a night at the pub to talk. Topics include current projects, origins of our names and how we got involved with different aspects of gaming and broadcasting, and other things that catch our fancy. There’s also a Magic Hat full of oddball icebreaker questions that we randomly pull from. You can catch past episodes at youtube.com/rivalcastmedia, but be forewarned that as with all shows, the first ones are a little rough 
3 Chaos Will Ensue streams Saturdays from 5 to 7 PM ET on twitch.tv/rivalcastmedia
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