Resonate - The New Podcast Festival That Likes Being Small

A conversation with co-founder Chioke I'Anson about what the Richmond, VA festival has planned this November 3-4, how there's still time to be part of it (Pitch Party!) and why you should plan to go

Last June I met Chioke I’Anson at the Tribeca Festival on a crowded sidewalk outside the theatre near Union Square where we had spent the afternoon listening to some incredible audio premiers.

When he introduced himself to me, and lightbulb went off. I remembered Resonate from last year, but I wasn’t sure if it was a one-off, cooler-than-usual University conference, or the new cool kid at school that you want to get to know.

Turns out I was correct on both fronts….last year was the first edition of Resonate Podfest, an event that Chioke I’Anson helped to organize amidst his part-time teaching responsibilities. But it came together, and the event sailed.

“People loved it. People loved the environment, they loved the chance to get back together in community. They loved the scale…a lot of festivals are very big now. But Resonate was not very big. It happened in one place over a couple of days. We realized, Okay, we’ve got to this has to be an annual thing,” I’Anson explained.

This year Resonate will take place in Richmond Virginia, November 3-4, at the Institute For Contemporary Art (ICA), on the campus of the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), supported by VPM, an NPR affiliate and also Virginia’s home for Public Media.

This week I sat down with Chioke to learn some more about the upcoming festival, to find out what makes it different than the other festivals out there, and why it might be hard to ignore this year.

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The following is a transcript from our Zoom discussion. It has been edited for clarity and focus.

[Samantha Hodder]: Tell me about how you came to be where you are?

[Chioke I'Anson]: Almost 10 years ago I came to VCU is that as a professor of African American Studies, so I've been here for quite a while teaching.

But at some point, I got the local NPR station and this museum [the ICA], which is fairly new, to collaborate on the Media Center.

Then I did Media Center stuff half-time, essentially until just this year, when I left being a professor, and started working at the museum full-time as the Director of Community Media.

[SH]: What's your area of research?

[C I’A]: I'm a philosopher. I mostly did continental philosophy, a lot of Hegel and Africana, African philosophy.

[SH]: I'm gathering that your move out of academia and into the museum, or into the art gallery, is kind of about the same time that the Resonate Podcast festival started. How you made it happen?

[C I’A]: The Media Center ended up opening during the pandemic, so lots of our programming was just Zoom stuff. And that went okay. But once things started to open up, and come back in person, we thought, Okay, it’s time for us to try this festival out….and [now] make it an annual thing.

[SH]: How many tickets do you sell?

[C I’A]: We cap at around 350.

[SH]: Wow. That is small.

[C I'A]: Last year, we essentially sold out because we wanted to sell like around 250 tickets. We were like, that's probably a good number. And then we ended up selling 270-280 tickets…we're like, now we’re totally sold out.

But then we saw the way that people moved through the ICA, we realized we can actually raise this number because we have these programmatic elements that people engage in, in this particular pattern, we are certain we can raise our new number to 350.

And what's wild is that we've already sold way more than half. We anticipate selling out, so people should get their tickets immediately.

[SH]: What’s different about Resonate?

[C I’A]: If you go to Richmond, you're not going to know a lot of people in Richmond. Richmond is a great city, it's a lovely place. But it's not an incredibly thriving metropolis. It’s a call to relax and experience the thing that you came for.

The next thing is that Resonate happens in one place, at the Institute for Contemporary Art [ICA]. So you don't have to get an Uber to go to the next thing at the other place. You're just there.

It’s so small that we can actually just stay right here at the ICA.

And so then people when they get out of sessions, they just post up in the Forum—the Forum is huge—it was made for that kind of gathering. And then there's some little picnic tables outside that you can go sit around.

And then you meet someone and you can go around the block or go, walk down to get some lunch or whatever. But you don't have to go far. So it's very easy to click up with your people, or with new people quite organically, owing to the nature of the city. It lends itself to that community feeling a little bit more.

[SH]: I've been to many festivals over the years…tell me what Resonate will focus on, what the vibe will be?

[C I’A]: Resonate is focused on the craft of making the stuff. Most of our sessions are just about things like: Here's how you do [your] creative thing better. Here's how you edit better. Here's how you write better. Here's how you work with people better. So that's the that's the total vibe of a Resonate.

Then on top of that, I want to add the students from around VCU, because many of them are in Mass Comm, they're in journalism. And I want them to see what the industry looks like what these like, what full-time working producers look like, and I want them to meet these people so that they can get some guidance and some mentorship earlier in their careers.

[SH]: So it sounds like what you're not trying to do, which other fests are trying to do, is create a public audience, for the fans?

[C I’A]: Yeah, I suppose that it's not really for the fans. We do have three categories: beginners, pros, and the podcast curious. So maybe you're a fan, but maybe you are thinking about doing it yourself. That's the that's the person that we're trying to get to Resonate.

Our performances are not live recordings of podcasts. They're just their podcast people doing a performance…these are going to be like one-time encounters.

[SH]: What is the format of the speakers?

[C I’A]: So this year, we have two concurrent sessions. We have the Auditorium, about 200 people can sit in there. And then we have the Media Center, which has much more limited seating.

In the Auditorium, we have Nicole Hill, Ronald Young Jr., Air Media, Tuk Woodstock, Mary Childs, and Amanda Aronczyk from Planet Money … and others too (we’ll announce our detailed programming soon).

Over in the Media Center, so far we have Juleyka Lantigua, Ellen Horne, David Gardner, Kelly Prime, Anna Stitt, Christabel Nsiah-Buadi, and Nick van der Kolk. The attendees and ticket holders will be able to submit, and these Ideation people will select who they want to talk to.

[SH]: Tell me about the Pitch Party…what’s that all about?

[C I’A]: Basically we're gonna find a finalist and give them $10,000 to like, make a podcast pilot! So that's pretty chill. It's pretty fun.

First thing is we sent out a national call-out [ED deadline is still open until September 18, APPLY HERE]

We’re looking for three finalists. Then we invite those finalists to Resonate, where they have to present to a Shark-Tank-style panel of judges. So it becomes a legit kind of game show if you if you will, -ish.

But it's a lot of fun for people to learn about the pitching process. We play back the trailers, then we meet the finalists on the stage, they do their pitch. It's all really great stuff. And then after that, [the judges deliberate: they are Juleuka Lantigua, Ben Riskin and Ronald Young Jr.] and we declare a winner.

Hopefully, I'm gonna have an oversized check to hand them. That's the goal.

We also have Resonate Ideations, which are like closed pitch feedback meetings. And I'm very excited about this, because, you know, I want the people coming to be able to really have this reserved time to sit down and talk about their ideas.

So far we have Juleyka Lantigua, Ellen Horne, David Gardner, Kelly Prime, Nick van der Kolk. The attendees and ticket holders will be able to submit, and the Ideation people will select who they want to talk to.

[SH]: What's your favorite thing about the festival? What are you most looking forward to?

[C I’A]: So here's the thing that I probably love the most…when you come to the festival, we will hand you a little notebook; a nicely printed little thing with some pages in it.

During the festival, I saw so many people writing notes in their notebooks. And I love that. As a professor person who's trying to find ways to be a professor outside of the class, seeing people write in the notebooks was confirmation that they were getting the value out of this experience.

And that's the thing that I that I truly love.

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