Things we learned from our traveling podcast this year
Lessons from our making our microcast, On The Road, this year
After two years of sticking close to home, our team took the show (and by show…we mean, ourselves) on the road to several events in 2022.
We loved finally connecting IRL with folks we’d mostly seen on the Internet, but it was also a lot, sensory-wise. After living the work-from-home life for so long, consecutive days filled with bright conference center lighting, presentations, networking events, booth setup and teardown definitely took some adjustment.
Since we opted to have a booth at all the events we attended, we wanted to make sure our space offered something memorable, and calming. This ended up taking the form of a mobile podcast recording setup that became our signature offering throughout the year. We also brought in live plants, a couch, and some cute decor (if we do say so ourselves) for ultimate #vibes.
The result of our travels culminated in a speakers-corner style microcast* featuring thoughts, feelings, anecdotes and advice shared by attendees of the events we were at. We learned so much from the participants, and also from the experience overall of taking a podcast show On The Road.
*A microcast is a podcast with episodes usually under 10 minutes
How did recording work?
We provided attendees with a list of self-directed questions to answer that ranged from light-hearted — ‘what’s your favourite snack’ — to more introspective — ‘what’s the last thing you felt inspired by?’
After each event, our Producer, Meg Hayward, would go through the recordings, identify themes, and create narrator-less episodes based on stories that aligned thematically. Every event brought out different people, stories and energy, and we did our best to reflect this.
Here’s what we learned after making our traveling podcast, On The Road, this year:
Always take a moment to pause
So many people told us that the booth allowed them to pause and have a moment of peace and quiet amidst the hustle and bustle. On our end, we learned to pause in a slightly different way: we’d originally decided to continuously record throughout the day without pausing between interviews.
When it was time for edits, this resulted in huge files that took forever to download, and also made story edits more difficult. After seeing the error in our ways, we quickly shifted to starting and stopping recordings after each interview for a much easier editing session, and much smaller files. Moral of the story: when in doubt, pause!
Don’t assume, make things explicit (not the content warning kind)
We originally asked people to just say their names at the top of the recording, assuming they’d remember without explicitly including it in the list of questions. Unsurprisingly, this meant most people didn’t introduce themselves by name in the first few episodes — which impacted our ability to attribute the stories to people after the fact. After realizing this, we made ‘what’s your name’ the first question, and saw an immediate change.
Introverts among us
After listening to hours of recordings, Meg noticed a common thread among speakers. We asked people to share something that most people would find surprising about them. The most common response: introverts moonlighting as extroverts. It’s likely that the pandemic made even the most extroverted among us in need of a bit more time to recharge.
The road to podcasting is paved with…whatever you need it to be
The podcast industry is continuously evolving, and many of the people we heard from shared that their paths to the industry were far from linear. For some, the pandemic was the push they needed to pursue their creative dreams, while others felt held back. No matter where people were on their journey, we were grateful for the vulnerability they brought to the booth.
Over the course of the year, we had more than 149 people grace our pop-up podcast booth across three cities. We love the stories we’ve heard thus far, and we have a new season coming for you in the New Year.
In the meantime, you can listen to the first two seasons of On The Road now! Episodes come in at under 10 minutes, so it’s the perfect listen for when you have a little time, for a lot of inspiration.
Need a suggestion on where to start? Here’s our producer Meg’s favourite episode:
The entire project has been so fun to work on but SXSW Super Star sticks out to me as a proper laugh out loud moment hearing Niall Breslin and Dara Quilty squeeze into the booth and share some relatable childhood memories!
About editaudio
We’re a queer,owned full-suite podcast production company working in Canada, the US and the UK. We’ve worked with clients like NowThis News, Harper’s Bazaar, Stack Overflow and the Google News Initiative. We also produce Original podcasts like Well…Adjusting, Ozarks True Crime and the Ambie-award nominated Date With Daddy.
Want to make a podcast? We can help!
