Whenever you first started at, with the in-person conference, how did you start getting people
interested in it and drum up the enough to attendees to make it a full-fledged conference?
In the beginning was easy because no one knew anything about podcasting.
So it was a hot topic.
So then we got a hundred people the next year.
We said, you know, we should invite all our friends like Jessica Kupferman and all these
other amazing people from all over the country.
And they flew in.
And then when we moved it to Orlando, that really helped us grow.
So what we've always focused on is on our community and their needs.
So for instance, our closing keynote is the community itself.
We start, we close it out with a gratitude ceremony where people will tell us what they're
grateful for up on the main stage.
We have a hands-on experiential learning hall that we added this time around.
So we have three tracks where you could learn any editing software, how to use Canva.
So literally you bring your laptop in and thanks to the podcast editors for helping
us put that together.
Mark Deal and Steve Stewart.
And then we have, we're going to have a job fair for our companies that are in a trade
show that could hire people with these specialized skills, as well as the people, the podcasters
that need to add teammates.
So we're always thinking about how can we create value for our community?
And that's what we're always doing is adding that value back.
And then we have 10 tracks.
We'll have over 500 speakers at Podfest in May.
So we're, we're full bore.
We also created the first ever Amazon live conference for Amazon live creators.
We found that a lot of video streamers all want to start podcasts.
So it's a really great synergy for Podfest.
Now is the conference also going to be virtual as well this year?
We will have a virtual pass.
The virtual track, the way it works is we actually have a room at Podfest that is set
up and we take some of the best of on the floor and we invite those presenters to come
up and they will teach through the laptop, which is more conducive to virtual learning
and then people could join virtually.
And we think that's going to be a much better learning environment.
So it's going to be interesting.
So we're not just streaming what's in the room.
We're going to take someone, they're going to be on their laptop showing and talking
to virtually chatting with you in real time.
So we have a room dedicated for the virtual component.
Wow.
I mean, that sounds like a lot of work.
It's a lot of work, but it's the, we always ask ourselves, how would we want the information
delivered and how would we want it delivered?
And I think that's why we attract creators from all over the world that feel heard because
we listen to their feedback and we make sure that we deliver it in the way that they want.
Do you have a favorite experience that you've had at your, at your conferences?
I mean, the gratitude ceremony is, I don't know if there's anything else like that.
Hearing people's, I remember last year, two years ago, time flies.
I remember Maxwell Ivy, he's the blind blogger.
I remember him going up during the gratitude ceremony and saying, we give out a treasure
map that you could, it's a physical piece of paper that you could get signed by the
exhibitors this year.
I think we'll have virtual and physical, but anyways, I forget that he cannot see.
So how is he going to get it signed?
And what happened was each and every exhibitor took them by the hand to the next exhibitor
and his entire treasure map got signed.
And he shared this up at the gratitude ceremony that at pod fast, everybody's his friend and
everybody took care of him.
To me, that's the ethos of our entire community.