“Let’s Go Live with Maddie & Greg” was a live family science show on KZread that helped families with science home-learning throughout the 2020 & 2021 lockdowns. Each half-hour, multi-camera, highly-produced live show was prepared, produced and presented by Maddie Moate & Greg Foot and broadcast live from their spare room. Each show was packed with fun, facts, and science activities for families & school classes to make, play & learn with.
The first ‘Let’s Go Live’ (LGL) broadcast on Day1 of Lockdown1 and each daily show was soon being watched live by 8k+ families (20-40k+ in the week after TX). When lockdown restrictions lifted, Maddie & Greg had made 50 live shows across 10 themes (from ‘Oceans’ and ‘Mini-Makers’ to ‘Project Earth’ and ‘Theme Parks’) and the shows had been played more than 1 million times (with each play often being from a family with children across a variety of ages).
Over Summer 2020 Maddie & Greg took LGL ‘Out & About’, single-handedly delivering multi-camera live shows from a forest, farm, and the walls of a medieval castle.
As lockdown returned in January 2021 so did LGL with a brand new 8-week season culminating in a special first birthday show in March 2021 where Maddie & Greg celebrated 83 live shows and over 3 million plays. When schools reopened (and the pair returned to their ‘day jobs’ as Presenters & Producers on TV, Radio & Podcasts) the regular output reduced but the show continues with special episodes for the wonderful and engaged community the show grew throughout lockdowns (eg recent shows on Insects and Climate Change & Net Zero).
With no income through KZread as the pair marked their content as ‘Made For Kids’ Maddie & Greg set up a Patreon where their growing community kindly supported the show. That funding enabled the pair to employ some of their fellow locked-down freelancers to handle the huge amount of user-generated-content the show recieved, moderate the live chat, and later help prepare some ideas and assets for the show. However, the job of writing the show, making the props, setting up the tech and then live presenting and producing remained solely done by Maddie & Greg.
The pair also worked very hard to show diversity onscreen - from the children and families featured in every show, to the dozens of diverse expert guests who joined them live.
‘One of the most inspirational, interesting & thoroughly wholesome pieces of programme making aimed at children I’ve ever seen’ - Parent on Twitter
'I’m a Producer/Director running a tv staffing company and I’m amazed every ep about what you produce, present and live mix!’ - Kimberly on Facebook
'[Maddie and Greg] have an amazing ability to make anything educational. We have spent many an hour during the various lockdowns entertaining the family with their mini-builds and challenges. From building a zipwire, making poo (yes poo!), building rockets, [and] researching historical figures... inspired by the twosome. Lockdown would have been a lot longer without these two' - Guardian, 11 February 2021, “Family lockdown activities for half-term”