On Dec. 4, Amy Poehler hosted a reside recording of her less-than-a-year-old podcast, “Good Hang,” on the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. The gang wasn’t simply packed, it was totally engaged and cheered for just about something (even Poehler’s admission that she’d forgotten the beginning time of the present).
That is necessary as a result of, as considered one of her friends, comic Ron Funches, identified, “Don’t they know podcasts are free? They are severely overpaying.”
In reality, I do know he stated it as a result of, although I reside mere miles from the Fonda, I watched a video recording of the occasion on YouTube.
Podcast listening is, traditionally, a solo expertise: Put in some earbuds or crank up the automotive stereo, sit again and let blossom a parasocial relationship with strangers who inform tales in such a means that they change into our smartest, funniest or most proficient associates. As a result of we will take them wherever, they preserve us related to life exterior of our small orbits. Whereas selling her new film, “Die My Love,” actor Jennifer Lawrence stated she dad and mom her younger baby whereas an AirPod blasts homicide podcasts into considered one of her ears.
Nevertheless, going to a theater to see these podcast performers reside can really feel like the precise reverse: Strangers with the identical area of interest curiosity crowding into one place in not simply rapt, however possibly even a bit rabid, consideration.
“These are people who don’t go out to shows,” says Joe Schwartz, a comedy touring and reside occasions agent at United Expertise Company. “This might be the first show they’ve ever bought tickets to because podcasters are reaching different people than your average music fan or your average comedy fan.”
Hosts additionally don’t should be beloved comedians like Poehler. Schwartz says that podcast followers could appear to be passive listeners, however get all of them in a room collectively and it’d as nicely be the Eras tour.
“It’s just as loud whether there’s fire cannons or not,” he says. “When these podcasters walk on stage … it’s deafening. I have to put my hands over my ears. And I’ve done that many times.”
As they change into larger, productions additionally should discover methods to make them extra profitable.
“We’re also increasingly in a media landscape that is paying more and more attention to these creators, and it’s bleeding into traditional media,” says Sarah Mathews, a digital expertise agent at UTA. “They’re only going to get bigger and we’ll probably only get closer and closer to a more direct comparison of an Eras tour. Maybe the next podcaster who is doing a stadium tour can compete with Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny.”
Podcasting has been round for many years (some may even keep in mind when it was merely known as radio). And though some stars are turning off their mics, like comic Marc Maron did when he ended his seminal “WTF” podcast in October, they’re nonetheless business moneymakers.
Not translating these successes to podcast excursions is leaving cash on the desk. Some reveals, like Jessica McKenna and Zach Reino’s “Off Book: The Improvised Musical” — the place their complete shtick is to make a musical from scratch on the spot — have been born for these moments. Equally, Georgia Hardstark is an skilled TV presenter and actor, and Karen Kilgariff a educated comic. Their just lately accomplished “My Favorite Murder” reside tour additionally made it fascinating with shock friends and their real enjoyment of seeing audiences in hyper-specific cosplay.
“Many top podcast tours now rival live music and comedy tours in venue size, routing and ticket sales. We are also seeing incredibly strong merch numbers at these shows due to the strength of their fan bases,” says UTA agent Jackie Knobbe, who represents “My Favorite Murder’s” reside enterprise.
And, oh the fan bases.
Hardstark and Kilgariff keep in mind the second they realized that reside reveals for “My Favorite Murder” have been by no means going to die.
In 2016, they have been requested to carry out on the Chicago Podcast Pageant. They thought they’d be opening for another person, however the demand was excessive sufficient that they shortly bought out the almost 1,000-seat Athenaeum Middle as headliners. On the finish of the present, the performers instructed their viewers they’d be within the foyer, anticipating to satisfy a number of followers. Three hours of pictures, hugs and signings later …
“That night, we realized we have to figure out what we’re going to be doing and the kind of show we’re going to give as opposed to what I’d always seen, which is people getting those Costco folding tables and four guys sitting and facing the audience,” Hardstark says.
However jazz palms and true crime aren’t the one titillations that may get followers to reside reveals. Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell’s standard British podcast “The Rest Is Politics” bought headlined London’s 20,000-seat O2 Area.
Whiter says that, for his firm’s reveals, “we won’t do an episode of the podcast on stage, and we don’t record it and put it out to the podcast audience.” They’ll additionally tailor present matters to the cities they’re in or make the dialogue cheekier than what you’ll be able to say on air.
Most significantly, his firm doesn’t need this to really feel like college; these hosts needs to be much less dry teachers and extra die-hard nerds about their topics.
“This has got to be something that they want to do and want to do all the time and want to talk about to their wits’ end,” he says of his hosts. But in addition, “we will find the people who we find really engaging and who we think people want to spend lots of time with.”
They, like Poehler, want people who find themselves good hangs.
