Lily Shambo ’24 poses in WLTL Rock-A-Thon promotional poster (photo courtesy of WLTL).

For the 42nd annual WLTL Rock-a-Thon event, members worked hard contacting businesses, creating promotional posters and getting T-shirt sales in order to prepare for the marathon broadcast, WLTL advisor Chris Thomas said. 

Marketing groups, managers and students worked to ensure the event ran smoothly and that everything was established prior to the big weekend. The fundraiser was originally scheduled for mid February, but due to President’s Day weekend, it was moved to the weekend of Feb. 9. This came with its own challenges, Thomas said. Because of the tighter schedule, members of WLTL worked extra hard to complete all that was needed.

“The cool part about moving it, [was] that it coincid[ed] with the All-school Assembly,” he said. “I think [WLTL members were] excited about potentially partnering with something with All-school. It’s already such a fun day that I think it’s fun to have this be a part of it as well.” 

With the money raised this year, members and advisors hope to revamp and update one of the oldest production rooms at NC, Thomas said. Additionally, WLTL will be repurposing a lot of equipment, which includes microphones and computers. 

“Production room B is by far the oldest and the goal there is going to be to [modernize the] technology,” he said. “We also want to add in a second streaming channel. We have a lot of students that tryout but not everybody can have a show. This will add an opportunity for more students to be involved.”

Rock-a-Thon week began on Monday, Feb. 5, focused on promoting the station. Then each night that week, listeners had the opportunity to experience different areas of WLTL such as sports, news, and podcasts. On Friday, Feb. 9 at 8 a.m. Rock-a-thon kicked into overdrive with a 60-hour live continuous broadcast to conclude the week.

“All the day-show hosts from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m. have a lot of freedom with coming up with fun events they can do on air, some being doing shots of hot sauce or making gross blender concoctions,” Lilly Dodge ‘24 said.

To raise money, students created fun and crazy dares to complete and games to play in order to entice more people to donate.