So you’ve made your podcast...now what? How can you sustain momentum and help your podcast continue to grow in scope, impact and listenership?

In this webinar we will explore the big wide world of podcast festivals, awards, and conferences. We’ll learn about the event landscape, how they function, what they can offer creators and audiences alike, and how to get the most out of attending. See how your podcast can live on through innovative programming and find out more about the rich creator communities springing up around the world.

Our guests speakers include festival juggernauts who will offer their insights and experiences in shaping podcast symposia and community: Jess Kupferman, CEO & Co-Founder of ShePodcasts; Third Coast’s Co-Directors Emily Kennedy and Maya Goldberg-Safir; Melissa Mbugua, Co-Director of Africa Podfest; and Dan Franks, President and Co-founder of Podcast Movement.

Transcript

Alexandra Blair [00:00:08] All right. Good morning, everyone, thanks so much for joining us on this Thursday morning or wherever it may be where you're tuning in from. Feel free to drop that in the chat. My name is Alexandra Blair and I am the project manager for PRX. and for the Google Podcasts Creator Program. If you're unfamiliar with the Google Podcasts Creator Program, it is a cooperative effort between Google and PRX to provide training and mentorship and resources for podcasters the world over. And this webinar is just one example of the types of resources and skills building we like to do for our podcasters and for people who may not even be familiar with the program. I'm definitely seeing a lot of familiar names in the chat, and I will say hi to everyone. But first, I would love to introduce our lovely panelists who've agreed to join us for this webinar. We have Jess Kupferman, Jess, would you like to say hi?

Jessica Kupferman [00:01:06] Hello. I'm Jessica Kupferman, the co-host and co-founder of ShePodcasts. I don't want to say my age, but I am in front of a colorful background with curly hair and gold glasses.

Alexandra Blair [00:01:21] Thank you. And we have from Third Coast, Maya Goldberg-Safir and Emily Kennedy joining us.

Maya Goldberg-Safir [00:01:32] Hi, everybody. My name is Maya Goldberg-Safir I have worked at Third Coast for a while and recently became co-director with Emily Kennedy. I use she/ her pronouns, I'm in Chicago, Illinois. I decided to wear my WNBA beanie today, the Chicago Sky World champions just set the tone for the for the NBA's season. We'll see if the Chicago Bulls can match that.

Alexandra Blair [00:02:12] Great, thank you, Maya and Emily?

Maya Goldberg-Safir [00:02:18] Oh you're mute Em.

Emily Kennedy [00:02:22] I've done this before. Hi, I'm Emily. I'm also calling from Chicago, Illinois. I use she/her pronouns I have... I'm the one on the call with the boring background. I'm sorry, I'm still working on my zoom background energy. I'm feeling very inspired by my co-panelists, especially Jess. We've got a lot of colors and I love it. Yeah, I'm really happy to be here. Excited to hear from all of you.

Alexandra Blair [00:02:55] Great, thank you so much. We also have joining us, Melissa Mbugua from Africa Podfest. Melissa, would you like to say hi?

Melissa Mbugua [00:03:04] Hi everyone I'm Melissa Mbugua calling in from Nairobi, Kenya. It is just after 7:00 p.m here. I use she/her pronouns. Yeah. I am born and raised in Nairobi. I love to travel, see myself as a citizen of the world, and I started Africa Podfest with... Just two years ago. So we're, you know, new entrants into the global festival scene, but very excited to be creating a platform for African podcasting.

Alexandra Blair [00:03:40] Thank you so much. And finally, we also have Dan Franks joining us. Hi, Dan.

Dan Franks [00:03:45] Hey, thanks for having me. My name is Dan Franks, I use he/him pronouns, I'm calling from my home office here in Dallas, Texas, and I also have what I consider a boring background. It's a very blank whiteboard behind me, but otherwise, yeah, super excited to be here. And um... first cold day in Texas. We've had, so I'm wearing a long sleeve purple flannel.

Alexandra Blair [00:04:08] Great, thank you so much, and as mentioned, my name is Alexandra Blair, I have a lovely glass and barware little boozy morning background going on over here and I'm testing out some neutrals because my mom thinks I'm too old to keep wearing just all black all the time. And I'm also enjoying that Texas weather here in Houston. So thanks everyone for joining us. We are going to go ahead and get started. We have so many awesome panelists here to talk about all the amazing things happening in the podcast festival world. I think a great way we could begin is if everyone can kind of just go around and just give us your spiel, tell us what your podcast is like, maybe your awards, what your gatherings are like and kind of all the things that fall under the offerings of your podcast, festival and awards and conference brands. I will have Melissa go first. Does that work?

Melissa Mbugua [00:05:00] Yes, it does. Great. So Africa Podfest really was started by three of us who like we loved podcasts, but we’re also curious about what was going on in different parts of Africa. And the thing about this part of the world is that we don't get to hear much about each other, so we'll hear more about, like other parts of the world, media from the U.S., from European, you know, from Asia and so on. And so for us, the reason we started this was to kind of catalyze the growth of what is a very, very, very early stage podcasting ecosystem as diverse as the people of Africa, which is quite large, quite a lot of people, so many cultures and backgrounds, so many contexts and what we do is we have an annual gathering, which is the only one that brings African podcasting to the world on February 12th, every year, that's Africa Podcast Day. We also carry out research into the African podcasting ecosystem, original research, and we also spotlight pioneers in Africa and podcasting. And this is our second year doing this amazing, incredible work, which is growing in ways that we could never have imagined.

Alexandra Blair [00:06:23] Amazing, thank you so much. Maybe Third Coast, would you like to go next and talk a little bit about?

Maya Goldberg-Safir [00:06:30] Sure. So we are a Third Coast, Third Coast started as a project of Chicago Public Media in 2000 and then went independent in 2009. So we are an independent arts nonprofit. We are based in Chicago and we seek to serve a really broad, diverse community of audio makers, from investigative journalists to experimental independent storytellers to sound artists, and we're all about pushing the boundaries of audio storytelling and really centering community and accessibility and experimentation. So for a long time, Third Coast hosted an in-person conference in Chicago, and before the pandemic, we were working really hard to make that event more financially accessible. More community driven. And to pack a lot of programing into two and a half days with a bunch of people under one one roof in Chicago. And obviously, that that can't happen anymore. And so currently, we are totally digital in our programing. Last year, we hosted a two and a half week digital virtual experience called Third Place. We created a separate website and we had both live and asynchronous programs. And this year, we've been doing a lot of behind the scenes long term planning, especially as this pandemic era sort of continues. So we are launching into a 22-month strategic plan, which is really exciting for us, and we are doing an abbreviated virtual program this this fall. We're having a virtual awards ceremony for the winners of our competition. We have an international annual totally digital competition. You're welcome to join us for on December 12th.

Emily Kennedy [00:08:45] Yeah, and I just love to add that we're so excited to see the international scope of this chat. It's really wonderful to see folks from around the world. One of the things that we are most excited about in our competition, especially this year, is that we we host an international competition. We are really excited to feature work and bring in work from languages other than English. There has been a long history in especially the US podcasting space of being sort of Western centric, and so it's really exciting to see folks making work in other languages, and we'd love to connect with any of you who are making work around the world.

Alexandra Blair [00:09:35] Awesome, thank you, Jess?

Jessica Kupferman [00:09:40] Hi, I'm Jessica Kupferman again, I'm the co-host of she podcast, the podcast and co-founder of ShePodcasts, which is a Facebook group, a an online membership and currently a an in-person conference. It started about six years ago. We started a Facebook group after another conference, a new media expo, or I started one just simply to, to continue some camaraderie that I felt with other women at that conference and that included Elsie Escobar, who I didn't realize knew every woman in podcasting, so she invited lots of women to the Facebook group and since then it has grown from about 100 the first week to almost twenty one thousand women and nonbinary individuals. Since then, we've done all kinds of class classes and workshops, webinars which we're now trying to contain into a paid membership. Our mission is to make podcasting accessible to any woman or non-binary individual who has a message to share. And we want to provide safe spaces for those people who want to learn about podcasting without feeling sold to overwhelmed, intimidated, excluded. And we're always looking for ways to create more accessibility for our shows, for technology, for anyone who wants to listen to podcasts that doesn't have the means. And one of our main goals is to make sure that... Is to try and remove any barriers to entry for podcasting and to help people continue to do so, who are perhaps struggling with the. Process of it all. Oh, so a couple things, so we did our first in-person conference in Atlanta two years ago in 2019, and this past year we did sort of a hybrid of in-person and virtual from Scottsdale, Arizona. And now we are about to announce our third location for next year.

Alexandra Blair [00:11:48] Amazing, congratulations. Dan?

Dan Franks [00:11:51] Yeah, thanks for having me again. Dan Frank, so I co-founded podcast movement, which is best known for our annual conference every summer. We started in 2014. I was actually a Kickstarter campaign that we launched to kind of get the community to kind of buy into the idea of a podcast conference back in 2014 that was a little bit more of a new concept than it is now. We had about 500 podcasters that first year at the event. Then each year since then, we've grown to over three thousand podcasters at our most recent large in-person event in 2019. Kind of speaking to the international, you know, the international flavor of what we're seeing in the chat and on the panel. We had over 30 countries represented in person at that event in 2019. So super kind of excited for that to come back at some point in the future and really be able to bring the international podcast community together. What we've kind of built around that conference in between each time we've had it each summer as a large community, our facebook group has over sixty five thousand podcasters in it. We have a couple of large newsletters that we keep in touch with creators on the industry side of things. Then most recently, we've created a second conference, our first one got in right before the pandemic started in February 2020. It's called Podcast Movement Evolutions, and fingers crossed that comes back this coming March in Los Angeles. So hoping for the best there.

Alexandra Blair [00:13:14] I am also hoping for the best because I would love to attend, and we submitted a proposal for a session, so we'll see about that. It's so great to hear from everyone. Love the energy on this panel and in the chat. I wanted to just make a quick note that I've seen some questions in the chat and it's a little hard to track those. Please feel free to use the Q&A function that's at the bottom of the Zoom box, and if you put your questions in there, we'll make sure that they get answered for you. So it's a little easier to track the questions specifically that way. And speaking of questions, I was curious. I am really interested to hear I've seen some really innovative programing coming through from all of these awesome organizations that we're hearing from today. And so I'd love to hear kind of how you approach programing and what your philosophy is. That includes things like, you know, who is your podcast festival for? Is it for podcasters? Is it for industry? Maybe it's for all of those people and kind of how you guys approach different tracks. And I think tracks is the perfect word. I think that's the word I stole from the Podcast Movement Evolution site. But how you approach thinking about different tracks of programing and feel free to just unmute and answer, and you can popcorn it to another panelist if you'd like.

Dan Franks [00:14:31] I can start because you mentioned Podcast Movement Evolution, so the way we view our programing is really are our events speak to... we try to consider the whole ecosystem of podcasting, and that includes the brand new podcasters, people who haven't started yet or are just getting started and still kind of learning the fundamentals. Those more advanced or professional podcasters, even as kind of that second leg. And then the third is what we consider like the industry professionals or the people who aren't the creators themselves, but are kind of supporting them, whether they're running a platform or a network or ad sales or ad buys and anything like that. So we kind of view all of those as their own separate programing tracks that need to be addressed. And then within those, then we break it up, OK, is this a marketing topic for a beginner podcast or is this a monetization topic for a professional podcaster and really just kind of break it out in several tiers like that. Yeah, so that's that's kind of how we approach it.

Jessica Kupferman [00:15:32] I can go next. Our content started out as having four major tracks "start, refine, grow and achieve," refine being, you know, that stage where you started your show, but maybe you don't like your branding or something's not working or you want to include, you know, there's always this like after 50 episodes, there's just sometimes there's this like, I need to fix something. And so that track sort of speaks to those people and then "achieve" is really, you know, it does include monetization, but can also be how to write your first book, how to start a speaking career, that type of thing. And then in the last year or so, we added a community track where content creators can learn how to become more global or more local with their show or more diverse, more inclusive. And then this last year, we also added a sort of a self-care, an "un-track" where I think I think at podcast conferences and festivals, there's a huge amount of knowledge, which is amazing and we provide that as well. But I think sometimes people go for more of a social aspect. And so we want to just sort of create content for people who want to talk, who are where they want to be in their show, but still want to, I guess, socialize and learn other aspects, how to take good care of yourself or how to be more organized or how to do EFT tapping that type of thing. So, yeah, it's worked out really well so far, I think.

Melissa Mbugua [00:17:11] And I can go next, Oh, you go ahead, Maya.

Maya Goldberg-Safir [00:17:13] No you!

Melissa Mbugua [00:17:16] Well, thank you. For us, what our...at our core why podcasting excites us and why we started Africa Podfest is specifically because we hope that this opportunity that podcasting provides, that's still new, relatively new in Africa, but growing very fast would be a chance to shift narratives about Africa and African culture and history and people, and also to be inclusive. So for us, it's all about being inclusive and centering voices that are in the margins in Africa media, so differently abled communities, LGBTQ communities, women, young, young, urban, poor communities who typically don't get to have the spotlight on them and don't get a platform for that and make for them to, for their voices to be heard in their stories, to be shared at a local level, but also, you know, internationally. So how we go about programing is from a very community first approach. So we try to answer, to create sessions and answer questions that we hear from the community. So for example, how do I start my podcast? What do I grow my podcast? How do we grow an audience? How do we monetize, Questions like those. Also, we also get a lot of questions around how do we self-care? How do we protect ourselves in our, you know, depending on our political environment or, you know, cultural context, because a lot of a lot of African broadcasters are putting themselves at risk just by speaking up and being heard and being visible. So from this approach, we always have an open and open call for sessions because we try to open ourselves up also to new people, new ideas that we would never otherwise have had access to. And even when whenever we have a pool, for example, of like submissions or people we think would be great speakers or at our events, we always ask ourselves. Who among... Who in this pool would not otherwise have had a chance to hold the mic and to be seen and heard and then we prioritize those voices. And we realize also that we are using our own relative privilege to give others access who wouldn't typically have that privilege. So it's always also a very self-questioning...as a team, we also are always checking ourselves and checking our own bias and privilege and so on as as relatively privileged Africans starting this.

Maya Goldberg-Safir [00:20:05] Awesome. So Third Coast programing. I can say that again, historically, Third Coast hosted an in-person conference. This started as conference in 2000 with about 100 people, mostly in public media and also overwhelmingly white and privileged in the sort of concentrated in folks who already sort of had jobs in public radio. We now have... Or in 2019 and our most recent conference that was in person. We had about 900 folks from around the world. And we know that there are because we focus on sort of the art and craft of of audio and audio as a vehicle, we are really actively trying to welcome in people from across industries. So if somebody's primary job, might be that they are in academia, we know that they might be using audio for storytelling in the work that they do. We want to make sure that people who are interested in using audio as a vehicle for storytelling are welcome in our programing and so we try to be really interdisciplinary. We are constantly listening to work that is being made. We have an annual competition where we field hundreds of entries and we...yeah, we're constantly listening to work and curating from the work that we're hearing. And we also are really working on centering community, centering the makers who we believe, are so important in driving the audio industry, right? Like as this industry is commercialized and professionalized, we want to really provide resources and a platform for the people who are making the creative work to impact the field and to impact or to speak to what they think is most important. So we see our programing as really a dialogue between Third Coast and the community of makers at the forefront. And everything we do when we bring listeners and makers together for events are centering the voices of makers themselves. We we had a lot of different models for programing sort of packed into the historic Third Coast Conference. The core is is sort of "maker sessions," which we've continued doing virtually and which we can we can link to at the end of this too. If you're interested in listening to past maker sessions and we'll continue doing maker sessions. We have community based meetups. We have late night provocations. Those were some models that we were using pre-pandemic and our live programing. And so there's just there's so much that we think is is valuable that we're trying to sort of unpack the programing from our historic two-day conference and create a more year-round virtual model where people can be part of the Third Coast community more consistently and we can sort of build out those programs. Emily, what do you want to add to that?

Emily Kennedy [00:23:34] Yeah, I just have to say I've loved hearing from everyone. I love the question that you asked at the beginning, Alexandra. I think innovation is a huge part of our programing, especially after the COVID pandemic hit in the US. We had to totally change our way of considering our programing. We were an in-person first conference. We were really focused on tailoring live events to spaces. We were really interested in thinking about how to build out a space to to create the best community experience, and that felt like it disappeared overnight. So we are really entering a phase at Third Coast, of thinking about how we can be more experimental, more responsive. We've been extremely, I think, inspired by the makers in our community over the past couple of years to see how this pandemic has really forefronted the innovation and the more creative aspects of of making work. And we're really excited to, as co-directors, bring an energy of experimentation and everything that we do. So as Maya said, where we are sort of an organization in transition, we're moving from a very heavy events based model to a year-round model of programing. We are breaking apart the sort of classic containers of what it means to be a conference, what it means to be a competition. And we're really excited to to experiment and platform other folks who are doing that kind of moving and reacting and trying to make work in this world that we live in right now. So, yeah.

Alexandra Blair [00:25:40] Amazing, it's so interesting to hear how you guys approach these topics of innovative programing. And I think you kind of touched there on a piece of my next question, which is a little bit about this sort of dynamic between in-person and virtual. I know that at the beginning of recent events and not so recent events, virtual was something that had to happen. And I suspect that now for most festivals and most gatherings, a hybrid model of virtual and in-person is likely desirable, not just necessary. So I would love to hear from you guys kind of how you're approaching that. And I think tied up in that question as well. I'd love to know how you imagine people can kind of maximize their time and their investment in a conference like this or in different events like these. I should have started someone off. Anyone wanting to start.

Dan Franks [00:26:42] I'll start again, I'll I'll do that, no problem. So, yeah, it's interesting, you kind of ask about the virtual and the... kind of making the most of the time because I think, you know, before everything had to go virtual and like you said, kind of stay hybrid into the future, that virtual space still kind of existed, at least for Podcast Movement, and I know some of the other groups as well. That's how we always recommended people make the most out of our in-person events is try to get connected with that community before the event. So whether it's the Facebook group or whether it's a mobile app that kind of contained its own community pre-event, really kind of set yourself up...I hate to say so set yourself up for success because that seems kind of scammy, but like really kind of do the legwork ahead of the event, you know, are people you want to meet. Are there networking events you want to make sure you don't miss or are there people you want to connect with ahead of time? So then when you're in person, that's not an awkward first meeting. You kind of already know each other. So that's something we always emphasized. And then, of course, like follow up in that same way after the event with people you met and stay connected with. And that was kind of pre-pandemic when those virtual spaces existed on both sides of the event. But during the event, it was more in-person. We personally went to our most recent event was in Nashville this past August, and, like Jess, like ShePodcast, it was very much like a full hybrid approach where there is an in-person component. Many of those sessions were live streamed to anyone who wasn't there in person. Then all the recordings were then available within a few days of the event and really kind of trying to foster those interactions for anyone who wasn't there in person so that you kind of had your in-person networking going on at the event. But then those same situations set up through the through the event platform or through the website for those who are not able to make it. And that's something that I think was super exciting for us. We were kind of forced into it, obviously. But now that we see people that may either for financial reasons or travel reasons or any other reasons couldn't make the event in-person that year or ever, now we kind of have that model to say, OK, now we can make this event something that is accessible to those people every time. So we knock down those barriers, hopefully every event going forward. So that's kind of how we we see it moving.

Jessica Kupferman [00:28:53] Yes, if only it were so smooth, as smooth as you described it, Mr. Dan Franks. So yeah, so for us, the virtual component didn't happen until the very end. We weren't sure whether or not we would be able to do a fully virtual component. We did our main stage zoomed live. So all the sessions that were on the main stage, including like the keynotes and stuff, were were in real time. And then similarly, the speakers that couldn't make it... And closer and closer, we got to the in-person event, the more speakers couldn't make it, they went virtual, and we decided to do virtual programing instead. It worked out really well in the sense that. We had hired a AV company to do all four breakout rooms, recorded, mic'd, lit and then, you know, they were supposed to deliver that within two days and we would have all the recordings up by the end of the week. That was the idea. But two weeks after the event, when I got hard drives with recordings, they were not, they were not usable at all. There was no usable recording, the only recordings that I have for my event at this time are the ones that were on Zoom because they were recorded by Zoom on the main stage. So considering that we will did this past year and will continue to, like Dan, you know, we pushed a virtual ticket pretty hard... to have to tell those people, there's not really a virtual ticket was kind of difficult, but what we did was we asked our speakers to record their session again, which they were really very gracious and sweet about doing. So they're in the process of recording everything, their individual sessions again and they're delivering it within like 10 days. And so we should have an entire virtual ticket ready by Thanksgiving, which is kind of a miracle. The other thing is, you know, the only thing that that I'm really disappointed about is the panels and panelists because you can't recreate those organic discussions. And so some of the panelists are struggling to figure out how to do it. Some of them are just doing the individual sessions that they pitched. You know, maybe some of them pitch individual sessions in the first place. And so or, you know, they're going to do like a half hour on their expertise or specialty. They're working hard to create content, even though we sort of lost ours. So that is a first year fresh out of COVID. I hate to say mistake because I'm not sure what we could have done differently other than say, you know, is the camera on? Because, you know, you sort of don't, as I said to my team, like you don't go to a a place to get a haircut and ask if they have scissors like you just assume. So this is sort of the same thing. But yeah, it was...It has been rough this year, just sort of like maneuvering that. But going forward, like he said, we can we can make sure that we have a really robust component, both virtually and in-person, which is what we're working for.

Emily Kennedy [00:32:11] Yeah, I think we can definitely relate to the the tough transition from in-person to virtual. I think it can feel like the same set of skills or the same experience, and it's it's a really challenging thing to translate something that is really animated by an in-person community feeling online. We last fall that was our first experience with digital programing really at such a at such a big level, we had always done these in-person conferences. We pivoted last fall to doing this festival called Third Place. We created this kind of online world. It was this ambitious two week slate of programing. We were really trying to meet our our national and international and local communities all together on this platform that we pretty much built from scratch. And that was a huge undertaking and explaining it to people in retrospect there, like how many people were you, dozens of people on the team and really go, just just a few of us. But I think one of the things that we're so excited about this opportunity in having these digital spaces or these mixed digital in-person spaces is really being able to meet people where they are. I think something that Maya and I like to talk about as co-directors, Maya is the classic extrovert. I'm a classic introvert. I think our experience of a conference space can feel really different. I think I tend to thrive in one on one conversations, in smaller, more intimate, calmer spaces. We used to do listening rooms in person, and that would just be a bunch of people sitting in the dark listening to audio. We would curate these reels that was sort of my safe space. I would find calmness in and being surrounded by people, but not feeling like totally overwhelmed by 800 people all the time. And it was really cool to see how experiences like that... Thinking about programing from that lens. How are people showing up to our programing? What are they bringing with them? What are different ways that people learn? It was really exciting to sort of take those frameworks and apply them to the digital space. We had a lot of success and a lot of fun, I think, listening to audio all together digitally. We experimented with a lot of asynchronous programing, so we did these sort of guided newsletters, that you would access at any point you didn't have to show up at one time to experience this type of programing. I think it's been fun to experiment with having folks sort of choose their own adventure in a conference space. I think sometimes that can feel overwhelming in an in-person setting. There is a sense of like we have to go with how everything's mapped out. I have to show up for everything at once. And I think one of the things that we're really taking from digital programing is how are we creating experiences that are able to be appreciated in in lots of different ways, either live after the fact, if you want to pop in for the the the one conversation that we're having or if you want to be part of this sort of extended conversation we're having over time, I think these are some of the really exciting things that we're thinking about. Maya is there anything you want to add?

Maya Goldberg-Safir [00:36:00] Yeah, no, totally. We just in terms of experimenting around building community, right, which totally I think that that's it's a great thing that Emily and I sort of like socialize differently at times because it helps us think about all the different ways that people might want to show up. I think that Emily's amazing at talking to other people, but so in terms of how that worked out virtually, we used a website called Gather Town, and I'm curious if y'all have used other platforms sort of creative community gathering platforms as well. Gather is sort of like being in a video game. You have an avatar and you can walk around a physical space, and when you get close to someone else's avatar, you can hear them and see them. And if you walk away, they fade. That's awesome. I'm so glad... Some people have really different reactions to virtual programing and to using these kinds of platforms is, I think, one thing that we figured out. So again, having options some people love to gather, some people were like, Oh my God, my camera's on and I'm in a video game, it's too much! But one thing that was so cool about it was that you could also sit at a table and have a one on one conversation with someone, and nobody else could hear you or see you. So, yeah, I'm curious, are there other platforms like that where you can (laughter) where you can have private conversations or switch rooms, things like that, I think are really useful. And we didn't just use one platform, right? We were using Zoom as well. We were using Gather. We had this website that we built and we also had a collective pricing model for folks when they registered, which I think also reflects the fact that people have a range of needs from virtual programing, a range of expectations. So we were sort of asking people to pay what they could and also what they wanted to pay or that they thought they would get out of the experience. And I think that that was a helpful thing to do. And some of the people who registered, you know, maybe showed up for one event or, you know, there is that flexibility to engage that I think can be really positive. And it also means I think it is a little bit more inconsistent in terms of how folks engage with your programing. So being ready for that, I think, is is useful.

Jessica Kupferman [00:38:37] There's a new platform called Vardy, varty.io, that we're looking at a host ... I mean, it's basically a virtual party, and it's very similar where you can set up a background and people can sort of go in and out of rooms like just like a real party, which I think is so cool and fun it makes it much better than than, you know, just sort of like staring at, you know, each other, sort of, I guess. For long periods of time for events, you know, for long events that can be kind of can be hard. So I think the platforms that are more creative are great.

Melissa Mbugua [00:39:13] I've really enjoyed listening to you all because we felt... Because our first festival was in March last year, which we then had to cancel, it was in-person. So we kind of felt that like that opportunity was taken away from us. And then we rethought and discovered all the opportunity with virtual gathering and virtual community building. So we essentially ended up becoming a virtual-first. We only know how to gather virtually essentially because we had our first festival virtually. And you know, we're considering all the advantages of accessibility cost-wise. A lot more people from a lot more backgrounds were able to join. We would probably never have had the chance to gather. And then we were also thinking and we still consistently feel this because a lot of the African podcast community outside of, you know, in different cities in, you know, kind of local city communities, we are growing our relationships and, you know, the community is growing and strengthening, but it's all purely virtual. We only see each other in little rectangles on screen. And we do miss, I will say for sure, there's the element of, and you sense the vacuum, it's quite loud, of missing that opportunity for the kind of organic connections and conversations that happen when you're, you know, breaking bread together. And those are the elements, the different experiences in a gathering and an in-person gathering that we haven't yet had the opportunity to facilitate. But it's surprising, still, I think just because the opportunity to simply connect is still very exciting. And we're still it's just been really interesting and surprising how much the community's still growing regardless, despite the fact that we haven't yet been able to gather in-person. And so for us, we do consider ourselves, and in a way the skill sets we've built continue to build our our own virtual gathering first. So the way we see it, I think it's so interesting because we are learning from older festivals and platforms. So for example, like podcasting, meant using Mighty Networks. So we started to experiment with that. And you know, that stretches out the opportunity for people to interact and see what that brings. We've experimented with Hop In. We did... we were watching like Third Place. When you built that last year and to us, it was like all these really experienced festival organizers are switching to virtual. But then now listening to all of you, I'm like, Oh, I think we're the ones who are building really strong confidence because we've had no choice but to be virtual first. So I think going into next year our experience there will be to be quite informative for all of us, I think, know that movement is a little more, hopefully, we'll continue to be able to move around and meet in person.

Alexandra Blair [00:42:32] Awesome, thank you guys so much. I want to kind of see if we can answer a few of these audience questions, I know we don't have a ton of time left, but there are some pretty practical ones in here, and I think one that I've heard a couple of times in here is about how to get involved as a maker. So is there a way for people to submit podcasts for consideration or, you know, sessions, panels like what are the different options for people to get involved kind of on the programmatic level with your organizations? I want to try to get through a couple of questions, so maybe we can just... we're going to rapid fire a couple of these.

Maya Goldberg-Safir [00:43:07] Totally. For us, the best way is to sign up for our newsletter. We are going to be launching a lot of ways that you can engage in 2022. Right now, we're sort of building and setting things up. So definitely sign up for our newsletter. We'll update you in early 2022, we'll have calls for various ways to engage in programing.

Dan Franks [00:43:27] Yeah, for Podcast Movement, almost all the programing at both of our events take place or come from our open submission process is similar to what some of the other panelists had mentioned. So through our newsletters and social media, we always put out that call for proposals and anyone and everyone is encouraged to submit their ideas.

Jessica Kupferman [00:43:46] Us too, exactly the same, we just sent out a call for speakers.

Melissa Mbugua [00:43:51] Same, same as us as well. You sign up for the newsletter and follow us on social media.

Alexandra Blair [00:43:57] Well, that was easy. That's a classic approach. A call for applications, I think I've heard a couple of other questions around sort of where can people find out about these things? So I hear you guys saying newsletters for sure of each of the podcasts, and this is one of the most beautiful parts of working in an open ecosystem and also one of the worst parts of working in an open ecosystem like podcasting. Because to my knowledge, there really isn't a ton of places you could go that would have all of the, you know, like a podcast festival calendar, but any kind of resources you guys have around that or tips you can give. We've had a few questions along those lines too.

Dan Franks [00:44:37] I would say check out pod.events. That's kind of a... People can post their own events there, and then that also goes in the daily Podnews newsletter, which goes out to a lot of people and that always shows most the events that are closest to coming up. So that's a good resource for for a lot of things.

Melissa Mbugua [00:44:56] I second on... I was going to say Podnews. Podnews is a good way to kind of start and then get exposed to everything else, go down different rabbit holes.

Maya Goldberg-Safir [00:45:10] The Pocket Conference podcast that the PRX team shared in the chat, thank you so much. Has Sessions from Maker Sessions from our conference for the last 20 years. So that is a ton of listening if you want to make yourself busy for the next couple of months. You can go through that archive and then our website. thirdcoastfestival.org is also... Was sort of built as an archive, and so there's a lot of work that you can listen to there as well.

Emily Kennedy [00:45:42] Yeah, I would also say, this is much more lo-fi, but, seek out the people that you admire who are making work, follow them on social media, talk to them on Twitter, DM them. Find people who are doing interesting things that make you inspired and that you want to emulate and reach out to them. I think something about this industry that we love is that oftentimes folks still think of this as a really small sort of geeky thing that they do because they love to do it. And I have generally found that the people who are making the work that you're most excited about when you reach out to them, they're just so thrilled to talk about it. So, yeah, find the people that you admire and don't be afraid to to confidently approach them or follow them on social media for a few years and peek at what they're doing and see if you want to emulate that. Yeah.

Alexandra Blair [00:46:45] That's such a great point, and it's so funny, because this whole chat room is just people geeking out and being like, here's these links, here's this and that, and that's what I love so much about hosting these events and working with Google Podcasts Creator Program. It's awesome. Another one of the questions I'm seeing here and I'd love to invite my colleague Stephanie Kuo, Director of Training at PRX, to unmute and kind of talk about this for a second. But one of the questions that I'm seeing is like, OK, so my podcast team knows how to podcast, but we really need help tapping into like the creative work and artistic work required to kind of level up our podcasts. How can we be thinking about these other less concrete skills, like the soft skills of being creative and storytelling and whatnot? And we, I guess not so recently, but you know, for the Google Podcast Creator Program, we hosted an event called Audio Recess, which Steph can talk about that had some amazing programing like how to find your unlock, your inner Sasha Fierce host-voice and some different ways to think about creativity and making. So I would love for Steph to talk a little bit about Audio Recess, and I know Melissa, you were there as well, so you can feel free to chime in. But I'd love to hear from everyone kind of like if you're programing addresses these things or there are resources for people to build some of those softer skills.

Stephanie Kuo [00:47:59] Thanks, Alexandra. Hi, this is Stephanie Kuo, I'm the Director of Training at PRX. As Alexandra said that we hosted a podcast conference last fall in November called Audio Recess. PRX is not a festival. We're not a festival we're a podcasting company and we wanted to capture what we think the Google Podcast Creator Program does best in the form of an event. And so we came up with Audio Recess and that we really believe that podcasting isn't necessarily the technical skills, it's actually the community building, and it's the inspiration that you get from one another. And I think that has been reiterated in this in this panel alone. And so we thought, how could we build a podcast festival that wasn't about teaching people from the experts, but about them learning from one another and finding connections that they wouldn't have had otherwise because the internet and the world is vast. And so we also wanted to capitalize on the fact that everybody was looking for good virtual programing. As much as we love in-person conferences, the reality of it is that you're not going to be able to go to all of them because you live around the world. And so how can we bring them all together? So we created we created audio recess. Maybe some of you went there. It was totally free. We used Hop In because we wanted to create kind of this gathering space where you didn't have to have a separate Zoom link to go into different things, but you could just go into a single landing page and literally "hop in" to different rooms that popped up. And so we built the program. We built the festival around some key programing. So like some key speakers that really tapped into questions that we heard throughout our career as trainers like, how do we become a better host? How do I sound right? And how do I make like level up choices, all that kind of stuff. And we created about seven sessions just to get people started. But the goal of the festival was actually for people to start their own sessions. And so the Hop In was a really democratic platform. You didn't have to be an administrator of the platform to start a session. You could just be any conference goer to do so. So if you were in a session and you were hearing a lot of chatter about a certain thing, you could go, you could say, Hey, I'm going to start a huddle about the nuts and bolts, about the technical side of podcasting or about creative storytelling. Come join me at this huddle. And that huddle would pop up on the page. And so we had several of those, and a lot of those huddles were centered around regional... around regions. So Africa, podcasters in Africa, podcasters in Brazil, podcasters in South Asia. We also had some around like poetry, like poets who wanted to be podcasts, and those are also really exciting. And we really built this festival around the need for community and to simulate kind of the, not so much the sessions of in-person conferences, but the small conversations that you have as you're leaving a room, as you're at the happy hour or as you're like in other parts of the um, the hotel or the conference space. And so we really hope that people were leaving those sessions, meeting people, going into their own sessions to talk to each other, huddling in this corner to learn about each other. And then we also had one on one networking. So it was like chat roulette but for podcasters so, you could actually meet people, exchange business cards, all that stuff. And we really, really believed that in learning podcasting, it's about learning from each other. It's about getting inspired from each other. A YouTube video, a podcasting class can teach you how to cut audio. It can teach you the best equipment to buy, but it's really hard to teach creation, and it's really hard to teach innovation. And that actually comes from constant interaction with people who are living in that same space as you. And so that's what we did. And so my advice for anyone who's like, I know how to do...the tools, but how do I tap the creative juices. I'd say talk to people. Talk to a lot of people. Listen to a lot of podcasts and spend some time like creating mood boards. All of these fun things you may have done as kids, cutting collages out for magazines or putting together like Pinterest boards actually helps in terms of like tapping into that, that creative mind. I tell a lot of students that I teach that your brain thinks in sunbursts, and so can you tap into like different ways to be creative? There isn't any one way to do it. So how do you like to think? How does your brain process information and do that.

Alexandra Blair [00:52:33] I love Jessica doing the little husky. "yes, yes?" Well, I think we're pushing up on time, but I'd love if anyone has any kind of last minute little pieces of advice or words of wisdom, from working and living and breathing in the podcast festival and gathering industry. Please feel free to unmute and share before we depart.

Melissa Mbugua [00:52:57] I can start. Just begin with what you have, where you are, and then tomorrow, begin again.

Jessica Kupferman [00:53:09] I would say that as much information as we all provide and that there is out there, often the best way is to make your own rules and your own way of doing it, because that's what keeps you doing it, and actually it sometimes ends up better than what everyone else has advised you to do.

Maya Goldberg-Safir [00:53:28] I love just start where you are. And I think in terms of creativity in audio that that really applies. So how can, how can thinking about making audio stories be part of your daily life that can be taking voice memos and building your own archive that can be making a podcast that's just for one friend, and that you share privately on SoundCloud like you can, you can really get inspired and make things, and it doesn't have to be like a hit of a podcast on iTunes right away, right? All of that kind of experimentation or forcing yourself to respond to a prompt in like twenty-four hours not working on it any more than that. I would really encourage you to do.

Emily Kennedy [00:54:21] No, I think some of some of the most exciting thinking and working that we see in podcasting is is people really stealing tricks from other industries. Responding to a book that they read that has nothing to do with podcasting, I think in some ways, like seek out inspiration in your daily life. Seek out advice in your daily life. Don't feel like there is one way to sort of go through the machine of podcasting and don't feel like you have to go to every single festival and every single event to be credentialed or ready. I think the experience that you bring in your outside life is just as important as the things that folks in the inside of the community can teach you, and you should really hold on to that.

Dan Franks [00:55:20] Yeah, and I just want to encourage everyone to just become a part of a community, so there's four awesome communities of podcasters and audio creators that are here on the panel. But like creating audio can be lonely. You do it in your own office or your closet, or wherever it is that you can figure out and get a quiet space to record. And it often feels like you're going at it alone, and you're definitely not. There's a bunch of other people doing the same thing, so pick a community, pick lots of communities, find one that fits you and fits your vibe and you, yourself as a creator and just get involved.

Alexandra Blair [00:55:51] Such great energy from all of our panelists today, thank you, guys so much, thanks to everyone for tuning in. I want to say this is the first of three webinars that we're hosting this fall. So on December 2nd, at the same time slot, we're going to have people from Gimlet, Pushkin, PRX and Sonoro media coming to talk about what makes a good podcast pitch. That's a really exciting panel. They're going to be able to tell you what mistakes to avoid and how to stand out. And then on December 9th, we are going to have something which kind of fits into what we were just talking about, what Maya was saying about podcast optionality. So how to make your podcasts more than the sum of its parts. What are all the things you can be doing that aren't just creating your podcast that kind of support the vision and connects you to culture and what's happening, and to different creatives in different industries as well? So we would love to see you for those. Toni is dropping those links in the chat, and we will definitely make sure to follow up with some links to what we've talked about today as well. Thank you guys so much for joining us. Thanks to all the presenters. Melissa, Jess, Maya, Emily, and Dan. Thank you for joining us. Thanks to everyone in the audience for joining as well and for such a lively chat. Have a great day.