I am again from Podcast Motion 2025 in Dallas and I’ve ideas, particularly after my earlier episode about why you must attend dwell occasions on your podcast.
Podcast Motion + Sounds Worthwhile + Podnews
The largest information is that Podcast Motion has acquired Sounds Worthwhile, which is a supply of podcasting schooling, analysis, and insights—primarily from the enterprise and promoting perspective. This strikes Brian Barletta, the founding father of Sounds Worthwhile, to be the president of Podcast Motion.
Additionally made public right now is that Podcast Motion has owned 50% of Podnews—truly for a number of years. And it appears as if James Cridland, the founding father of Podnews, will turn into the top of content material at Podcast Motion and doubtless be a serious decision-maker within the convention content material going ahead.
I’ve nice respect for each males and most of their trade views. Based mostly on some issues I’ve seen, I believe some individuals could be concern if this can trigger Podcast Motion to lean arduous into a selected political route. And whereas time actually will inform, I additionally suppose there’s some justification to their considerations. Nonetheless, in conversations I had or noticed with James Cridland, I believe he is already making some good selections about Podcast Motion’s content material and keynotes.
Merging with Sounds Worthwhile additionally conjures up some concern about how advertising-focused future occasions might be. And alongside that line, …
NYC and Austin areas could be long-term
Podcast Motion was going to be in San Diego in 2026, however that has now been modified to New York Metropolis. That may make it so much simpler for worldwide vacationers, and that actually places Podcast Motion a commute away from lots of the prime advertisers and content material networks in podcasting. So this transfer makes me suppose Podcast Motion will solely turn into much more company.
Moreover, Podcast Motion Evolutions is transferring in with South by Southwest (SXSW). I believe Bryan Barletta will get many of the credit score for this as a result of he was about to get a complete podcasting observe at SXSW.
However this additionally confuses me and others in regards to the focus of those occasions. I’ve talked to many individuals about their perceptions of Podcast Motion and Podcast Motion Evolutions, and I heard about half of the individuals say that Evolutions was for trade professionals and regular Podcast Motion was for content-creators. However the different half mentioned it the opposite method round. After which there was some within the center who had no thought.
With these new areas, I now get the impression that Evolutions at SXSW might be extra for the creators whereas Podcast Motion in NYC might be extra for the trade professionals.
However the unlucky factor about each is that they’re actually costly to attend and get a resort! New York Metropolis might be arduous sufficient, however Austin might be as booked as Bethlehem on the night time of Jesus’s beginning! So get able to sleep in a secure, I assume?
Convention recordings might be free
However on a really optimistic be aware, and maybe to assist relieve a number of the stress about the price of the brand new areas, one in all Sounds Worthwhile’s core philosophies is that trade info must be free, and they also’ve pushed to get each session in Podcast Motion 2025 report and publishing them free of charge. And future conferences would be the similar. Thus, anybody from anyplace will be capable to watch or take heed to the periods. They may not be live-streamed, however not less than they’re going to be free!
I believe that is a very good transfer. However, as I identified in my earlier episode about attending dwell occasions, the periods are sometimes not the largest worth of a convention. And I nonetheless have but to see a digital convention have the identical nice networking and relationship-building that an in-person occasion has.
The Podcast Motion conferences are getting smaller
In 2025, I’ve attended Podfest Multimedia Expo in Orlando, Nationwide Spiritual Broadcasters (NRB) Conference in Dallas, Podcast Motion Evolutions in Chicago, and Podcast Motion in Dallas. Each of the Podcast Motion occasions are getting noticeably smaller, whereas NRB and I believe Podfest are getting bigger.
I am going to depart the theorizing of why that is occurring to individuals with extra information, however I truly favored that Podcast Motion was smaller this 12 months. Your complete convention slot in a single massive room within the Gaylord Texan in Dallas. The keynotes, expo corridor, breakout periods, speaker/sponsor lounge, and many of the networking all occurred inside the similar massive room. It nonetheless felt very skilled, nevertheless it additionally had a bit extra of that “intimate” really feel of the early conferences as a result of we had been very centralized as an alternative of being unfold out.
The expo corridor was nice once more
Being all in the identical room, you’d suppose that the sound can be complicated and deafening. I’ve attended a few of Podcast Motion’s previous occasions the place they’d breakout periods within the expo corridor they usually had been far too loud with the PA programs, and but individuals nonetheless could not hear or focus very nicely. After which the poor distributors needed to yell to have conversations at their cubicles.
However two issues made this 12 months radically completely different: acoustics and good headphones.
The massive room had sufficient acoustic therapy within the partitions, carpets, and ceiling that sound did not reverberate as a lot as when the whole lot is in a typical expo house.
However the extra technological development was within the good headphones everybody had. They had been closed again headphones that might obtain audio wirelessly. Every pair of headphones may very well be switched to completely different channels, like purple, blue, white, yellow, purple, and a few combos. This meant the periods did not want a public handle system, or not less than not a loud one, and everybody with the headphones may hear very nicely and modify their listening quantity as obligatory. That was incredible! It even meant a near-normal-volume dialog may very well be occurring proper behind me, however I may nonetheless concentrate on the session I used to be watching.
You simply should recover from the dystopian look of all of it, and take a look at not to consider Physician Who’s Cybermen or jogging as much as throw a sledgehammer into the display.
However as a speaker (I introduced “What You Have to Find out about Podcasting 2.0”), I felt a bit disconnected from my viewers due to the headphones. It was nice that I may discuss at a standard quantity and belief that they may hear me. However when it got here to audible responses from my viewers—particularly laughter—I felt very disconnected, like I needed to scan the entire crowd to see in the event that they had been laughing as an alternative of simply listening to the mixed laughter. Nonetheless, I believe the periods and expo corridor had been a lot higher with this setup, and I felt like we podcasters did not have to fret a lot about defending our money-makers: our voices!
(That’s, in the event you do not take into consideration the events, which I am satisfied are ceaselessly cursed to at all times be method too loud and pump the music into too many locations.)
The place ought to podcasters go now?
This can be a troublesome query to reply! Podcast Motion remains to be the trade occasion, nevertheless it’s changing into so much much less accessible. Evolutions looks like it can most likely tailor extra towards reaching the overall content-creators at SXSW, and the principle convention will clearly higher attain the advertisers and massive networks in NYC.
So in the event you may attend just one massive podcasting occasion per 12 months, I believe it must be … Podfest!
Podfest is at all times in Orlando (or perhaps Tampa). It is structured far more across the impartial podcasters, and it looks like it is holding its measurement. Plus, the Podcast Corridor of Fame has moved to Podfest, in order that brings some particular pleasure, too. (And I have been assured that future Corridor of Fame productions will return to top quality once more!)
I do not know whether or not I am going to make it to both Podcast Motion occasion in 2026, however I am going to positively be at Podfest. Will I see you there?
Due to Bryan Entzminger from Prime Tier Audio for streaming 418§ on my earlier episode!
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