8 things I learned at Europe's biggest podcast event

Last week, the podcasting community headed to London for the first-ever Podcast Show. This was a huge international event, attended by many of the big companies (Spotify, Acast, Amazon etc) in the industry, alongside independent hobbyist podcasters. 

There were 13 stages with different talks on them looking at trends, new tech and how to create a hit show and loads of big names in podcasting were there (Gary Linekar, Louis Theroux, Fearne Cotton, Edith Bowman & Elizabeth Day). I missed most of these but here’s what I discovered:

1. Video podcasts are a big thing. Having a video of your podcast will help it find a bigger audience and YouTube is becoming an increasingly popular place to discover and listen to podcasts. YouTube did a helpful presentation on how to get your audio-only podcast on to YouTube (without filming anything). Riverside has this guide on how to get started.
2. Anchor & Spotify have some GREAT tools to make the process of starting a podcast much easier. You can record & do simple editing using Anchor’s app & building blocks. You can upload videos to Spotify. AND you can now use Spotify music in your podcast. I’ll always try and point people to smaller independent players in the podcasting space, but I also want to flag some other tools that are making podcasting easier for those starting out.
3. There aren’t enough women hosting podcasts. Only 22% of all podcasts are hosted by women. Some sobering stats from an excellent talk by Lynsay Gould of The Podcast Boutique using figures from The Infinite Dial. The reasons? Judgement, fear, technology, time, money and confidence. 
4. Most of the tech/equipment stands were a bit blokey. All the main microphone makers were there. Nearly all their stands were black or dark blue & manned predominantly by men (except Sontronics which had beautiful, affordable microphones and Audio-Technica with its great starter pack). 
5. Wondery is still my favourite podcast company. During her talk, CEO Jen Sargent got everyone to close their eyes to listen to a clip of an episode of Against The Odds. If you haven’t heard any of their brilliant podcasts, look at their website and have a listen to some. Dirty John is a good place to start. 
6. Making money from your podcast is getting easier. Tools like Patreon are becoming more popular. But the UK/Europe is still way behind the US with this (plus there’s a less commercial mindset when it comes to monetisation on this side of the pond). Here are a few ideas.
7. Backgroundable is a word. Not one I’ve heard of before. It means leaving something running in the background.
8. Being out at a big event is exhausting. I was only an attendee but smiling, meeting new people, going to loads of different talks, seeing old friends & colleagues, and having drinks with my wonderful colleagues = great, but tiring.