Sadly, this holiday is constantly overlooked. Some claim it’s childish. Others say you definitely need to steer clear of celebrating in the office. I mean, would you REALLY prank your boss? However, we can have some fun with this on air!

April Fool’s Day is on a Tuesday this year. I’ve always said Tuesdays are the worst days of the week. Mondays you’re usually busy catching up on work stuff you didn’t get done the past Friday. Wednesdays are Hump Day and the middle of the week. Thursdays are Friday Eve when you gear up for the weekend. And Fridays ARE the beginning of the weekend! Tuesdays just don’t have anything to look forward to…until now.

This is something you need to jump on now. You have less than a month to execute! So what are you going to do? What we SHOULDN’T do is a fake giveaway. I’ve seen stations try this and get quite a lot of calls and emails from listeners very upset the giveaway wasn’t real.  Here’s some ideas that SHOULDN’T get you in trouble:

*New Artist Alert! Have someone you know record a fake song with terrible singing. It should only be maybe 30 seconds. It’s a preview of their new song coming out soon! Tease you have a new artist you’ll be playing the week of March 31st! Monday, talk about their history in music, where they’re from, how they got started…Tuesday, play the 30 second clip during the morning show. REALLY hype them up! This is going to be huge! They’re opening for (insert your biggest artist) and will be on tour this summer! Play the snippet all day. The afternoon person will give away tickets to their upcoming tour. When you get a winner…announce it’s fake! APRIL FOOL’S! BUT they do get tickets to the next big concert instead.

*A local school is being renamed after the station! The on-air staff will take turns subbing on Fridays. Interview the principal and have them talk about how excited they are for the rebranding. Keep it going all day until the end of the school day. Go to the school when it gets out and live on the air announce over the PA system APRIL FOOLS!! But you came with treats…if there’s a snow cone truck or something like that, maybe bring it and give the kids all one free snow cone.

*Have kids be the DJs all day! Sure, they’ll have to miss school, but this is a really good reason to miss school. It would be great if they were kids of the staff or anyone in the building’s kids. They generally understand how radio works and can be on air without choking. Don’t announce it. Just do it! OR your pets be the DJs all day! More Meowing NEXT on 98.5! Just meows and barks. And moos. And clucking. You name it, play that animal sound!

*This one is a timely topic…aliens! We don’t have to recreate Orson Wells…but with all the UFO sightings and release of documents…this might go over pretty well! Have one of your morning DJs come in breathless, first break on the air they are in a panic! On their way in, they saw a UFO. It hovered, light beam came down, then shot away. Then as they were driving, they saw a tall figure on the side of the road with a big head and big eyes. Have fake callers call in saying they saw the same thing. Periodically have people call in asking if anyone’s mentioned the UFO that hovered overhead this morning…take it as far as you want. But try not to freak anyone out. We don’t want to scare the listeners.

These are just a tip of the iceberg on what you can do on air for pranks that won’t get you kicked out of the studio! Have fun! Make this specific Tuesday one you can look forward to!