Thread by @ahchrissawyer

How about some behind the scenes stuff from @BBCR1's #HideAndSeek?

There are some stories to tell: including bits about a broken ankle, a forged email, a big air traffic control problem, and the issue of @daisyjarrett's glasses. Plus some really geeky facts. Lesssssgo...

So. Biggest question. Was it all for real??

BLOODY HELL YES.

We worked insanely hard to genuinely keep the secret from every DJ (except @gregjames and @grimmers.) Radio is SO intimate. You'd have heard it in the presenter's voices if they were lying. It had to be real.

.@gregjames & @grimmers only found out where they were going on Monday. 6 people at the Pier knew & signed scary pieces of paper vowing to keep the secret. Every on air team at BBC HQ was in the dark.

The location team got terrifying briefings: "DON'T BE THE ONE WHO SLIPS UP">

Did I slip up? YES. Once... in a meeting, I said, "Greg or Nick might head out of the location and drive around the town". TOWN. Gaaaaaah. I felt sick!

I went: "town... or city... or village" and I *think* got away with it.

You need to ask our radio engineer @tomearle about how he kept that whole operation secret, including disguising the audio lines going into the BBC Master Control room. Also @loose__c and @Hana_Lockier about hotel rooms under aliases and mad secret risk assessments.

The biggest risk was the team getting into the pier past all the tourists.

@daisyjarrett's hot new transparent glasses were threat level: MAJOR. They don't exactly fit the cover story of "Pier Structural Engineer". Did my old brown hat do the trick??? You be the judge

@gregjames & @grimmers were just too high risk. And Nick doesn't even own a remotely normal looking pair of trainers. So they were put in the BACK OF A VAN. And.... DRIVEN UP THE PIER.

Who knew you can drive a van up a pier these days? Less rickety than in Victorian times.

Next FAQ: "You always knew it was going to take two days, right?".

NOPE. If they'd been caught in 5 minutes we'd have let it happen.

Producers, @LiamMConroy, @jamesnormanfyfe and @GraceHopper1 were taken off rota and given one job: do EVERYTHING YOU CAN to find them.

Their trickiest task was sifting through all the texts. They were inundated.

We agreed early on it wasn't about the first person to text "Weston Super Mare". Thousands of towns were guessed at random. The win was in finding a credible theory and investigating it live on air.

A few hours in, there was a proper tense moment in the incident room (aka the Live Lounge) when Team Seek pretty much shouted at me "WHY AREN'T THEY GIVING US MORE TO GO ON?"

The reason was, Team Hide were convinced they'd fucked it... that someone had seen them on the way in.

They hadn't! But there were other blunders!

That slick speedboat getaway? We edited out of the video the bit where the boat was pointing the wrong way as it set off and had to do a three point turn. Oops!

The listener who investigated Greg's old cricket club was supposed to run across the pitch live on air and knock on the (empty) scoreboard hut.

The poor lad, @tomryder___, has a broken ankle and was on crutches! We had to hastily rearrange and put signs up in the club house.

The absolute heart failure moment for me.

Day 2, 08:49am

We've gone to the effort of getting a BLOOMIN' AEROPLANE to fly over 4 major cities with a clue flapping on the back. AND EVERYONE TEXTS IN SAYING THE WRITING IS TOO SMALL TO READ:

@Hana_Lockier actually rang co-pilot Bob on his bluetooth headset and asked him to fly lower. But air traffic control wouldn't let them!!

Thankfully, when they got to Liverpool, there was water they could safely fly low over and the code could be read.

The most hilarious slip is @wgsfoster's story to tell. He's in many ways the father of Hide And Seek so I'll let him own it. All I'm saying is, look at what's all over the floor on the video of the moment of discovery at the pier.

Still reading? If you're this deep you're nerdy enough to want to know about our misdirection efforts.

@TomGaneCFM did a frighteningly good job of forging a TrainLine.com confirmation email for London-Edinbrugh. It was spotted poking out of Nick's pocket in a fan pic.

God we were smug that one worked!

Cockily, we were so sure people would fall for it, we had a wanted poster ready to go on a three-story high electronic screen in Edinburgh. Nice one @MaxBuckland

Thanks to @BBCLeicester's Jim Carpenter who drove a big branded BBC car to the National @spacecentre and went inside to drop fake BBC emails about our "outside broadcast in the Discovery room".

No one found the bundle of receipts for shops in Leicester I dropped at BBC HQ.

Shout out to @LewisCapaldi @twinatlantic & @reallorraine who all got DMs from Greg and Nick asking where is good to go out for dinner in Glasgow.

Final FAQ. What was I up to then??

I was on Web Whatsapp NON STOP linking together the 45 or so people working on: the 7 live radio shows, 5 online platforms, the secret location itself, the Seeking effort, plus things like the plane and the billboards. FUCK IT WAS INTENSE

My favourite bit was when the Seekers had a lead about a specific building. They told me; I fed it to @Hana_Lockier; she rang that building to get a) permission to broadcast and b) directions to a dummy empty room.

That's how we got those amazing "we MIGHT be there" moments.

Oh. And SORRY NOT SORRY for wearing a waistcoat:

https://twitter.com/ahchrissawyer/status/1153545792680079360?s=20

Right. That's enough from me. STOP SHOWING OFF CHRIS. Can you tell I'm proud of all this and the amazing team??

What do you reckon? Should we do #HideAndSeek again?