The Year The Industry Got A New (Subject) Pronoun

Dispatch from Resonate Festival from Richmond, Virginia

I recently returned from Resonate, the sophomore podcast festival hosted at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCA) at the incredibly beautiful and inspiring building, at the VPM + ICA, the Institute of Contemporary Art, a gorgeous new gallery that commands an important corner, between campus and the historic Arts District, in Richmond, Virginia. 

Most of the people I spoke with had worked hard to get there. I heard about a range of methods of travel: overnight Greyhound bus from New York City, multi-connecting Southwest Air flights, slow Amtrak trains, cross-border carshare…if you don’t live close, or one of few airports in the US that has a direct flight to Richmond, the adventure began before you left home.

Despite the effort this took, the conclusion from my straw poll was unequivocal: 

• Yes, it was worth it. 

• Yes, the festival delivered. 

• Yes, I’m so glad I could show up.

Resonate is the vision of co-founder Chioke I’Anson, along with co-founder Kelly Jones. When I asked her what her main role was in making this festival come to life, she said plainly: “I’m Chioke’s emotional support animal and his work wife. I answer the phone when he calls at 3am to talk through an idea…” 

[For some background on the festival, please read my earlier post, an interview with Choike.]

In many ways, Resonate embodied an emotional high.

It was that feeling when you realize your face hurts because you’ve held a smile for hours. It enabled a deep muscle fatigue, from a corner of your brain that needed new thoughts to process (but hadn’t stumbled across them yet). It was like when you allow a long exhale, which informs you that you have only been sipping short bits of air, instead of filling up your whole air chamber at once.

Sure, there are other festivals (Hot Docs, Podcast Movement, OnAir Fest). But this one was different. And that’s ok, because, as Davy Gardiner the Curator for Audio Storytelling at Tribeca reminded in his closing addresses: “This not a competition….we are all in this together.” 

Based on the collective emotional intelligence of the room, I would say that there was a gap, there was something missing, in this industry, and Resonate filled that void. “Is this the new Third Coast?” was the out loud whisper that I heard more than a few times.  

To whit, it would be impossible to replace Third Coast, co-founded in 2002 by Julie Shapiro and Johanna Zorn to be “The Sundance of Audio.” It was so far ahead of itself that it took a full decade for the community that it serves to find it and then get themselves to Chicago for the fall event.

As for their awards, the Third Coast created the gold standard for production that everyone still works to measure up against, not to mention the concept of an audio award in the first place.

Third Coast has not returned to its previous incarnation of a wide event since 2019. During the early days of the pandemic, in the fall of 2020, they rallied around a new online festival platform and threw an inaugural “virtual” Third Coast. Since then, Third Coast has continued to host online events, and some smaller local events in Chicago. But it’s different, as many have quietly shared with me. “It’s just not the same.”

From the get-go, Resonate had a different model. It wanted to be small. It wanted to lean into the academic-style delivery, from the lecture podium, on the campus of a university. It did not want to appeal to the audience, to the fans. There would be no shows for the public, no box office returns.

In so many ways, the timing and the tone of Resonate reflected an accurate representation of where we are at in this industry right now.  

This past year has been a bloodbath for the industry. I saw it there myself: more than a dozen people that I met or reconnected with had either just been laid off, knew they were about to be laid off, or were waiting for the axe to fall in their workplace. I was inspired that these folks were still willing to come, at this vulnerable time, when you have to introduce yourself as: Well, I used to work for X, but now I’m unemployed. 

The overdue need for this sort of gathering, the loss of so many jobs, the shifting of the economy, the “righting” of the industry size and scope…all of these factors contributed to the palpable undercurrent of the event, which hit me in four-fold ways:

1. This industry needs to change; in terms of the economy of how we get paid, what makes money, who makes money, and how this industry is funded, from the ground up;

2. The representation of who tells the stories has begun to shift, but we are nowhere near done or equal; 

3. We all need to be part of that change. The people of this industry, not the corporations, need to lead this;

4. There is a new (subject) pronoun…we are speaking about the royal We. Us. All.

This was clearly the subtext of this gathering, but up on the surface, the questions were more direct: 

1. What can we do to make it a more equitable place for a wider range of people to share stories? 

2. How can the IP makers, the producers, and writers who create these new narrative podcast series, keep that IP, and how can we shift the greed away from the bloated IPO-level corporations?

3. There must be a new business model to embrace that will do a better job to both pay people, and uphold the values of those who are being paid.

This was a conversation that I overheard in the atrium and that came up during the various Q+A sessions. It was the refrain of an open thread that Mia Lobel and I kept returning to, during the ins and outs of meetings and sessions. 

Mia has taken it to the next level; she’s currently about one-third the way through the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program, a fellowship at the Craig Newmark Graduate School for Journalism at CUNY…where she’s actively engaging to find ways to make audio journalism better. 

So consider pitching in here, and fill out her survey

I knew Resonate felt different

But it took until standing in the food truck lineup, chatting with a new friend named Max who had recently moved to Richmond from Brooklyn, to work remotely and have a better quality of life. 

I was trying to articulate why Resonate felt different for me. Mid-conversation, as I explained some new takeaway that I had had from the previous session, that it dawned on me.

The presentations were drafted with coherence; these 45-minute sessions each had their own narratives. That meant that I left them feeling full, and not wondering what the third person in the panel had meant when she said that thing, which got shut down “in the interest of time.” 

Sayre Quevedo’s presentation: A manifesto in 21 Questions left me pondering the impact of the Toni Morrison interview clip where she reminds: “It’s truth, not fact.” The Planet Money team of Mary Childs and Amanda Aronczyk were both hilarious and super helpful (heading to my LinkedIn dashboard asap to figure out how to qualify for their “Premium” service for free as a journalist). The shared Google docs on screen from Vivian Le helped me to see file structure in a new way, and, quite importantly, provided me with the support that I’m not the only person to have 100 tabs open at once. KalaLea opened up about how to actually get people talking in an interview, as she shared some of the backstory to the shows that she’s produced at The New Yorker Radio Hour. The luminous performance from JT Green: Shadowboxer (Tryptich 3) left me in a dream state for hours. And this is just a short snippet of everything there.

The format for each presentation was clear: One person, or a presenting pair, on stage, or at the presenting desk upstairs, for a 45-minute session. 

Each presentation took you somewhere. They walked through previously created works, developed a thought, walked you into a thesis, offered some supporting arguments, and then a conclusion. The length of time, about 35 to 40 minutes, allowed the presenters enough time to actually complete a thought, and then take a few questions.  

I was curious how much direction they were given ahead of time from Chioke, so I stopped Sayre in the atrium to ask: “He told me that my session was the last one before lunch, which meant they were going to be hungry, which meant that I could go deep. So I went deep…”

Right after the conference wrapped, I pulled Chioke aside for a hot take at the top of the auditorium, and asked him why he chose this model for Resonate:

[Chioke]: “I hate panels. I've been an academic for many years, and I've hated panels the entire time. All that it does is give very smart people no time to explain themselves.

So yeah, I reject that model entirely. I think that you should get a presenter, give them a framework and give them a space to properly share their ideas.”

Question: What kind of parameters did he give the panelists before they came?

Answer: Not much. 

[Chioke]: I just said, Here's your audience. Here's the vibe, here's what the space looks like.

There is something to be said for the curation of time. I knew that Sayre was gonna go hard. And so that I put him in the right time where he could go to hardest, right, you know [before lunch].”

The closing keynote address went to Anna Sale, of Death Sex and Money

On her opening slide, she asked an open question: Why are we doing this?

It was a pregnant question to bring to a festival, at this time. The Verge reported last month that a full 6 percent of the workforce at New York Public Radio was let go, with the podcast vertical of WNYC being the hardest hit. The future of Death, Sex & Money, the nearly 10-year-old podcast that has been an anchor show at WNYC, hangs in the balance, as it was given a sunset date of December 2023, unless it can secure a new financing model to continue.

Her question hit the note, actually about a ten-finger cord, of the festival, and consequently, the whole industry.

I wondered how long ago the schedule was made, so I asked Chioke. Months ago, he said. Long before the news broke. 

[Chioke]: I mean, if we think about it, Anna always spoke that ethos. She always speaks with the spirit of the times. And this is no exception. This is what she be doing.”

The Pitch Party, the penultimate festival moment, was an interesting accounting of the times. It was, in many ways, a State of the Union (of the podcast industry).

The three final pitches were “Violence Week,” from Emily Reeves, which visits her high school alma mater in Michigan, to dig into gun violence in high schools; “Capitalize,” by Ivy Le, which is a comedic reality pod that follows her quest to get rich; and “The Foil,” by Maya Kroth, with is a whimsical mystery story, a father-daughter-duo, that will take another, but different, look at Roswell.

In other words, the three pitches were:

• An important and topical story

• A funny and commercially viable story

• An intriguing and unique story

The commercially viable story won, congrats to Ivy Le, and I hope that you (finally) make it big.  

Three inspiring and helpful takeaways from this weekend:

1. Audio Flux was announced, headed up by Julie Shapiro and the Reverend John Delore, it’s an homage to the Short Docs competition from Third Coast, and a way to possibly “save the soul of audio.” The inaugural offerings are now available to listen to, and they will be open for submissions next spring. For now, check it out.

2. Podcasting, Seriously, and its founder, Juleyka Lantigua at JWC Studios, reminded us that this fund supports the covers the cost of fees charged to enter awards, for BIPOC, queer and trans audio creators.

3. The podcast industry now has its own broadsheet…check out Good Tape and subscribe to make sure that this is able to continue.

No, this festival will not get bigger, or change venues.

For now, Resonate will remain its current size and location at the VPM + ICA, on the campus of VCU.

Dates for next year: October 25-26, 2024.