The Soar Sound Easter Roadshow, held in Leicester city centre on Saturday 19 April 2025, offered an understated yet instructive example of how community media contributes to civic engagement. In contrast to conventional communication campaigns that prioritise reach and consistency of message, this event was designed to create an open and inclusive environment in which participation was voluntary, informal, and unstructured.
For those working in communications—particularly in local government, public services, and civic organisations—the question this event raises is straightforward but significant: what role should visibility, approachability, and mutual presence play in our strategies for engagement?
Beyond Messaging: Communication as Presence
The Easter Roadshow was neither a publicity stunt nor a strategic launch. It was, at its core, a practical demonstration of how media can be embedded in public life through proximity and availability. Volunteers from Soar Sound, a local community radio station, hosted a rolling programme of activities from a small mobile stage. Performers were introduced, families interacted with a costumed Easter Bunny, and local dance groups encouraged passers-by to stop, watch, or join in.
There was no script, no audience segmentation plan, and no campaign message. Yet the atmosphere was welcoming, and the event drew consistent attention throughout the day from people across different age groups and backgrounds. The presenters facilitated rather than directed, providing structure without imposing an agenda.
This approach reflects a communications ethos that prioritises being with the community, rather than speaking to or about it. It is an approach grounded in attentiveness and care—qualities that are easily overlooked in communications planning but essential to building trust over time.
A Foundation Built on Trust, Not Spectacle
In many sectors, success in communications is measured in scale: reach, visibility, engagement metrics. While these indicators are useful, they are insufficient when evaluating the deeper contribution of communications to social cohesion and civic participation.
The roadshow invited the public into a space that was simultaneously familiar and open-ended. There was no pressure to respond, no incentive to act, and no call to fulfil a predefined objective. Instead, the emphasis was on presence: making time and space available for interaction without prescription.
For a family who stopped to watch a dance performance, a child who posed with the Easter Bunny, or a passer-by who paused to listen to a local performer, the value of the event was defined not by messaging but by the ease and comfort with which they could participate. These moments, however minor they may appear, are the basis of meaningful civic exchange. They offer the kind of interaction that fosters local identity, social confidence, and a sense of belonging.
Implications for Strategic Communications
What the Soar Sound Easter Roadshow demonstrates is that foundational communication practices are not built around persuasion or branding. Instead, they are relational. They are structured around presence, repetition, and informality, often in modest or unassuming ways. Yet, they provide an essential infrastructure for inclusion—particularly for communities that are often underserved or marginalised by institutional media practices.
For communications managers and policy advocates, this raises important questions:
- Do current engagement frameworks support activities that prioritise unmediated presence and informal exchange?
- How do we assess the value of communication that is ongoing, small-scale, and situated, rather than campaign-based or outcome-driven?
- What capacity do we have to support participation that is open-ended, relational, and community-led?
Addressing these questions will not lead to a single solution, but it may prompt a reassessment of how communications practices contribute to broader social goals.
Supporting the Conditions for Care-Based Engagement
Foundational communication practices, such as those demonstrated by Soar Sound, align with the wider principles of the Foundational Economy. These practices do not aim to optimise efficiency or maximise publicity. Instead, they provide the conditions in which trust can develop through repeated and consistent local presence.
In this context, care is not an abstract value. It is expressed through availability, attentiveness, and the willingness to support participation without needing to control it. Care-based communication is less about representing people’s needs and more about creating spaces in which people can express and negotiate those needs on their own terms.
As organisations working in public life reflect on how to build more inclusive and responsive engagement strategies, this model of communication offers a useful counterpoint to conventional approaches. It suggests that informal, place-based events—when developed with care and consistency—can serve as long-term assets in fostering civic trust and resilience.
Rethinking What We Value in Communication
The Soar Sound Easter Roadshow was not defined by its content but by its form. It made space for people to join in without asking for compliance or performance. It treated communication as a shared, relational process rather than a tool of information delivery.
If public communication is to play a meaningful role in supporting democratic culture and social cohesion, then it must be designed with this in mind. This will require a shift in how we define success: away from reach and towards resonance; away from campaigns and towards conditions; away from output and towards ongoing presence.
For those of us working to improve the quality, inclusivity, and effectiveness of public communication, the question is not simply how we communicate—but how we remain present.
If you would like to discuss how Decentered Media supports community-led, care-based communication practices, or how these principles can be integrated into your organisational strategy, please get in touch.