This week we caught up with our campus celebrity: Holly Tuxworth, one half of the livewire radio duo who have launched a growing petition to get Taylor Swift to grace the LCR with her presence and to party like sheâs 22 with the UEA students.
The petition was launched less than two days ago and already has more than 500 signatures. Despite starting as a joke, the chances of Swift partying with us are becoming more and more likely, especially with the backing of UEAâs own Greg James. We were excited enough about the seven-time Grammy winner being confirmed as an act for BBC Radio 1âs Big Weekend, but the prospect of shaking it out with TayTay on the LCR dance floor is just too much to handle!
We sat down with one of the brains behind the idea: Holly Tuxworth, to find out a little bit moreâŠ
Name: Holly Tuxworth
Degree: Psychology
Hometown: Orpington
Describe yourself in three words: âNeed more words!â
Favourite UEA memory:
âThereâs too many to count! But probably the best day was last yearâs UEA Pimp my Barrow event – a massive event for charity which basically involves a lot of day drinking, themed wheel barrows, and very dedicated fancy dress…so all very Norwich!â
What kind of music are you into? Â
âWell I guess I quite like Taylor SwiftâŠQuite a variety of stuff though. I particularly love a bit of indie stuff, acoustic & rock though too, and you canât go wrong with a bit of pop punkâŠno shame!â
How did you come up with the change.org petition to get Taylor Swift to the LCR?
âMy friend Dan and I have a radio show on our university station, Livewire 1350, and weâve had a bit of a running joke about how we would love Taylor to come to the LCRâŠeven before Radio 1âs Big Weekend was announced (so back when she didnât know where Norwich was apparentlyâŠ) we joked about starting a petition to get Taylor to visit the LCR, and made a âWelcome to New Yorkâ Norwich parody. We started talking about Big Weekend on the show this week and Dan half-jokingly set up the change.org page whilst we were on air, because why not! Although we would obviously have loved it to work, we didnât expect to get so many signatures so quickly, and basically as soon as weâd tweeted the link, we got a response from Greg James, with a cheeky hint that heâd see what he could do! Not ashamed to say there was screaming in the studio at that point from both me and Dan (sorry Dan)⊠Greg James is like UEA royalty though, so that was a major boost for us!â
Were you expecting it to get this much attention?
âNot at first, no! Weâd obviously hoped it would do well and reach Taylor, but it wasnât until Greg James tweeted us that we realised there was quite a potential to make it happen! Good old Greg.â
Do you think thereâs a chance that your petition might work and that Swift could grace the LCR?
âI think so, yes! Weâve had quite a lot of attention about it already, and we only started the petition yesterday, so Iâd like to think that the people of UEA/Norwich/the internet can help us reach Taylor and convince her to attend a classic LCR night! Weâre going to pull out all the stops to make it happen – for me and Dan it would be an amazing end to our degrees as weâre both just about to graduate, so seeing Taylor Swift live in our student union would be a pretty memorable way to end our 3 years here!â
What are your personal plans for the future?
âWell, if this happens to reach Greg James I wouldnât mind a job in radio!â
Why should HC readers tune into your livewire radio show?
âBecause itâs all good fun with some great music thrown in there! We play quite a variety of music (including a fair bit of Taylor of course), and generally have a lot of funâŠwe usually discuss the weirdest news stories of the week, and come up with a lot of features, mostly to do with music, campus shenanigans or student lifeâŠthereâs always a lot to chat about!â
âTune on to Livewire 1350âŠour show is on Wednesdays from 12-2 but all of the shows are fabulous, so go listen!â
 Access Holly and Danâs radio show here: http://livewire1350.com/
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