I finished my second BlogTalkRadio show today for the Vehicle Vibes Radio channel. Things were going fine, and then the second guest wasn’t able to make the show.

How many times in life does this happen — you’ve done your best to schedule things in advance, you think things are ready to go, but then — surprise — something happens to disrupt the plan.

Social media is not always easy, especially live shows and events.

Yet, today’s show wasn’t a complete loss by any means. I’m actually feeling pleased with how we handled the challenges that arose. The first guest totally rocked and provided lots of good tips and advice. Then, the producer and I chatted for the second half of the show to fill the remaining time.

The missing guest ended up not being a huge deal, although I’m glad I didn’t have to fill the time by myself.

This challenge reinforced to me how important it is to create a back-up plan for live radio shows. For a live radio show, I’d suggest having a back-up plan with:

1. alternate topics of conversation sketched out (at a minimum, especially for people like me who are newbies at Internet radio and are not used to BSing their way through things)
2. an alternate host or co-host who can help keep the conversation going for the remainder of the show
3. an alternate segment pre-recorded to fill the available time slot
4. multiple shows pre-recorded (so I can go on vacation every once in a while)

To make it feel more like I’m just hitting the easy button when things like this happen, what else should I consider putting in my back-up toolkit?