Most stations think of remotes as something you do at a car dealership or a county fair. Those are fine. But the list of places where your station can show up, set up, and make an impression is a lot longer than you think.
Car dealerships. Grand openings. The county fair. If you've done remotes before, you've probably done those. And they work — they're visible, high-traffic, and easy to sell as sponsored events. Nobody's saying stop doing them.
But if those are the only places your station shows up, you're leaving a tremendous amount of community connection on the table. The best remotes aren't always the ones with the biggest crowds. Sometimes the best remote is the one where twenty people see you, and every single one of them remembers it.
Here are some places you might not have considered.
The most powerful remotes aren't one-offs. They're recurring. When you show up at the same place at the same time every week, you become part of the rhythm of the community. People start looking for you. They plan around you. That's when a remote stops being a promotion and starts being an institution.
Saturday morning, same spot, every week from May through October. You become part of the market. Vendors know you. Shoppers expect you. Do live breaks between songs, interview the farmer with the best tomatoes, announce what's in season. By August, people are coming to the market partly to see you.
A weekly "Morning Show from the Diner" where you set up at a corner table during the breakfast rush. Interview regulars. Read the community calendar over coffee. The diner gets mentioned on the air all week ("Join us Saturday morning at Mae's Café!"), you get a warm, human backdrop, and the regulars love being part of it.
Libraries are community hubs that are criminally under-promoted. A weekly "What's Happening at the Library" segment, broadcast from the lobby, promotes reading programs, author visits, kids' events, and community meeting room schedules. Librarians will love you forever.
An underserved audience that listens to more radio than almost any other demographic. Set up during lunch hour once a week. Play requests. Read birthdays. Interview residents about local history. The stories you'll hear are worth the trip alone — and the center's director will promote your station to every family connected to the facility.
Every town has a calendar full of events that draw crowds but rarely draw media attention. These are the remotes where your station earns a reputation for being everywhere.
Set up outside the elementary school on the first morning. Interview nervous kindergartners (with parents' permission), talk to teachers, play back-to-school music. Every parent within five miles will hear about it, and the school will share it on their social media.
Set up in the busiest trick-or-treat neighborhood or at the town's trunk-or-treat event. Costume contest on the air. Spooky sound effects from your ButtonPad. Interview kids about their costumes. It's pure fun, and families remember it.
The annual tree lighting ceremony, broadcast live. Countdown with the crowd. Interview the mayor. Play carols. If your town does a holiday parade, set up along the route and narrate the floats.
Towns that organize annual cleanup days rarely get coverage. Show up, broadcast while people work, interview volunteers, name the streets being cleaned. It's not glamorous, but it's exactly the kind of community-first content that makes people say "that's our station."
Set up at the courthouse or near a polling location (respecting legal distance requirements). Interview voters about the issues, not the candidates. Read results as they come in that evening. This is the day when local radio proves it's essential infrastructure.
Not inside the ceremony, but outside afterward — catch families as they pour out. Get the excited graduate on the air for thirty seconds. Parents and grandparents will talk about it for years. "They put my granddaughter on the radio!"
These are the ones that won't make the obvious list, but they work precisely because they're unexpected. When your station shows up somewhere nobody expected a radio station to be, the impact is outsized.
Pet-themed remote. People bring their pets, you put them on the air ("Tell us about your dog!"). Run a "Pet of the Week" segment for the local shelter during the broadcast. The vet gets promotion, the shelter gets adoption interest, and your listeners melt.
Small-town barber shops are information hubs. Set up for a morning and let the conversation flow. The barber has opinions. The customers have stories. It's radio gold, and it happens naturally.
During Fire Prevention Week (October), but honestly any time. Tour the equipment on the air. Let a firefighter explain what a working smoke detector sounds like. Interview the chief about volunteer recruitment. Fire departments are always trying to reach the public — you're giving them a direct line.
Holiday mailing season. Set up outside during the December rush. Tips on mailing deadlines, interview the postmaster, play holiday music. Everyone in town passes through the post office in December.
During harvest season, apple-picking weekends, pumpkin patches, or calving season in spring. Agricultural communities especially connect with this. Interview the farmer. Let listeners hear the animals. Talk about what's being harvested and where to buy it locally.
During flu shot season, blood drives, or community health fairs. Interview nurses and doctors about seasonal health tips. The hospital gets public health messaging out; you get credibility as a community health resource.
Every town has one — the hardware store that's been there since 1952, the pharmacy that still has a soda fountain, the feed store that's survived four recessions. Broadcast from inside and let the owner tell the story. Living history, on the air, from a place everyone in town knows.
The flip side of the oldest business. Someone just opened a yoga studio, a bakery, a craft shop, a co-working space. They need exposure. You need content. Broadcast from their location on opening week and you'll have a friend (and probably an advertiser) for life.
High school football is the obvious one. But the sports landscape in a community is much deeper than what fills the big stadium on Friday evenings.
The championship game for the 10-year-old softball league. The pee-wee football jamboree. Every kid on that field has parents and grandparents who would listen. You don't need to call play-by-play — just be there, do live updates, interview the coaches.
Lake towns and river communities often have bass tournaments, catfish derbies, or ice fishing contests. Set up at the weigh-in. Interview the anglers. Report the standings. It's niche, but the people who care about it really care.
Every community has several of these per year. Set up at the start/finish line. Play music for the crowd. Announce runners as they cross. The event organizer gets amplified, and every runner's family tunes in.
If your community has one, this is a perfect remote. The crowd is already there, the atmosphere is electric, and the participants love being mentioned on the air. Interview barrel racers, bull riders, or the 4-H kids showing their horses.
Some of the locations above are pure community service — you show up because it's the right thing to do. Others are natural revenue generators. Here's how to think about the business side.
Sponsored remotes work best at businesses. The car dealership, the furniture store, the new restaurant — they pay you to broadcast from their location because it drives traffic and gives them premium on-air mentions. These are your bread-and-butter revenue remotes, and they make a real difference in a small station's budget.
Co-sponsored remotes work at community events. The Chamber of Commerce sponsors your coverage of the fall festival. The hospital sponsors your health fair remote. The title sponsor gets mentioned throughout, but the content serves the whole community.
Goodwill remotes are the ones you do for free — the senior center, the library, the school events. They don't generate direct revenue, but they build the reputation that makes the sponsored remotes possible. The business owner who sees you at the charity walk on Saturday is more likely to book a paid remote the following month.
If the idea of doing remotes at all these places feels overwhelming, remember: a remote is a laptop, a microphone, and an internet connection. Your station keeps running itself while you're gone. You connect from the remote location, do your live breaks when the moment calls for it, and let automation handle the rest.
Most of these locations require nothing more than a phone call or email to the right person. "Hi, I'm from the radio station. Can we set up a table at your event and do some live broadcasts?" The answer is almost always yes — enthusiastically.
Start with one a month. Then two. Then weekly. Before long, your station isn't just something people hear. It's something they see, everywhere, all the time. And that's when everything changes.
AutoCast keeps your station running while you're out in the community. CastAway lets you broadcast live from any location with just a laptop and a browser.
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Practical guides for broadcasters who care about their craft and their community.