Members visiting Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron (RQYS) are greeted by beautiful on-water content displayed on the televisions around the Club. Behind the scenes, this content is running on a video content platform called RQTV that was developed to showcase the Squadron’s races, events, and on-water activities.

RQTV is the initiative of RQYS’s own media man and videographer, “Spikey” Mike Middleton, with the technical assistance of Krys Stedman.

At one time, there was a notable lack of desire for Members to participate in post-sailing gatherings and events following the racing events of the day. In assessing why this might be the case, it was noted that the Squadron’s bar and restaurant had the perfect set-up to visually engage Members with screens placed throughout the space, which only looped ads on upcoming events and dining specials – which were not particularly compelling or interesting to Members.

As an experiment, Mike Middleton, who is experienced in media, replaced the ads and instead displayed his videos of the day’s events. As expected, Members loved seeing themselves on-screen and being able to relive the day’s events from a new perspective. Suddenly, there was a new desire among Members to stay for the event to watch the videos, and engagement and camaraderie grew as they stayed at the Club longer than they had previously.

Seeing an opportunity to share these videos with a larger audience, Mike attempted to upload the videos on social media. However, it became apparent that not all Members engaged with social media, and so were not able to view these videos outside the Club. He thought outside the box, and created RQTV. Now, regardless of whether someone’s approach to social media, anyone with a computer, smart TV or phone can view and download these beautiful videos by visiting https://rqtv.com.au/.

Expanding to Other Clubs

RQTV is branded and organized specifically for RQYS, but that doesn’t mean that other clubs can’t take advantage of this platform! To accommodate popular demand, Mike Middleton is currently developing a new site for other yacht clubs: Yacht Club TV is coming soon! YCTV will be a robust content-sharing platform that will be a cost-effective way for clubs to display their videos. There is more work to be done (and is currently underway), but soon clubs will be able to move their content libraries into this online space.

Keep an eye on www.yachtclubtv.com for updates!