An Inside Look at Podfest with Chris Krimitsos

Hey everyone, Ashley here with RSS.com. Today we're chatting with Chris Kormitsos, the Chief Creative Officer at Podfest. Enjoy the show. Alrighty. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm so excited to have you here. I can't wait to talk all about Podfest. So can you do us a favor and introduce yourself and tell us what you do? Yeah, Chris Kormitsos here.

I am the Chief Creative Officer of Podfest and we are the longest running in person continuous event since COVID because we've we were very fortunate to have a big event right before the lockdowns. But just we organize an amazing community of creators. The majority of them are podcasters and we do have a smaller community of video creators and vidfests of youtubers and tik tokers and stuff like that. Now and you guys also did you break a Guinness World Record during the pandemic?

Yeah, we set a Guinness World Record and then we broke a Guinness World Record because the pandemic went longer than we all thought. So it was like, hey, we got nothing to do. Let's keep at it. And we had over 5000 people attend virtually over a week's time. And the second time around, we had over 500 something speakers, 12 languages spoken in taught in. It was incredible. We were uniting the world with podcasting. It was pretty awesome. It is very awesome.

And I've seen some of the free classes that you guys have on your on your website occasionally. So tell me, let's go way back way back into the you know, when you first began, tell me a little bit about your podcasting journey and how you started how you got into this medium and how you finally founded podcast.

So I mean, I used to produce TV shows on terrestrial through public access. So we used to do live TV shows, serialized, you know, business shows. And then one was a political debate shows a lot of fun. And then in August of 2013, we hosted a meetup about podcasting and I got bitten by the bug. I went home told my wife I'm starting a podcast.

She said she's starting a podcast and we couldn't both do it because we were doing so many events at the time that she started her podcast, Biz Women Rock, and I became her marketing manager. And it kind of dovetails perfectly into how pod fest was born. I would go all over the state helping people start their podcasts. And I would use my wife as a case study. So it helped highlight her podcast.

And then after doing that, all these people said, what do we do now you help to start a podcast and that's how pod fest was founded with 100 people in 2015. And since then, we've doubled year over year. When we moved it to Orlando, that really was our inflection point of internationalizing the conference. So the last big in person event we had was 2020. We had over 2000 attendees. Last year, we did a much smaller engagement just to keep things safe.

And we had literally an arena of the Amelie arena where the Tampa Bay Lightning played to host pod fest origins since we brought it back to the source for one year only. But this year, we're excited. We're going full force in Orlando. And we don't want to jinx ourselves, but it looks like we'll be over 3000 attendees. So it's pretty amazing.

Wow. So how did you, like whenever you first started with the in person conference, how did you start getting people interested in it and drum up enough attendees to make it a full fledged conference? In the beginning, it was easy because no one knew anything about podcasting. So it was a hot topic. So then we got 100 people. The next year, we said, we should invite all our friends like Jessica Kupferman and all these other amazing people from all over the country. And they flew in.

And then when we moved it to Orlando, that really helped us grow. So what we've always focused on is on our community and their needs. So for instance, our closing keynote is the community itself. We start, we close it out with a gratitude ceremony where people will tell us what they're grateful for up on the main stage. We have a hands on experiential learning hall that we added this time around. So we have three tracks where you could learn any editing software. How to use Canva.

So literally you bring your laptop in and thanks to the podcast editors for helping us put that together. Mark Deal and Steve Stewart. And then we have, we're going to have a job fair for our companies that are in a trade show that could hire people with these specialized skills, as well as the people, the podcasters that need to add teammates. So we're always thinking about how can we create value for our community? And that's what we're always doing is adding that value back.

And then we have 10 tracks. We'll have over 500 speakers at podfest in May. So we were, we're full bore. We also created the first ever Amazon live conference for Amazon live creators. We found that a lot of video streamers all want to start podcasts. So it's a really great synergy for podfest. Now is the conference also going to be virtual as well this year?

We will have a virtual pass. The virtual track, the way it works is we actually have a room at podfest that is set up and we take some of the best of on the floor and we invite those presenters to come up and they will teach through the laptop, which is more conducive to virtual learning and then people could join virtually. We think that's going to be a much better learning environment. So it's gonna be interesting.

So we're not just streaming what's in the room, we're going to take someone they're going to be on their laptop showing and talking to virtually chatting with you in real time. So we have a room dedicated for the virtual component. Wow. I mean, that sounds like a lot of work. It's a lot of work, but it's the we always ask ourselves, how would we want the information delivered and how would we want it delivered?

And I think that's why we attract creators from all over the world that feel heard because we listen to their feedback and we make sure that we deliver it in the way that they want. Do you have a favorite experience that you've had at your at your conferences? I mean, the gratitude ceremony is I don't know if there's anything else like that hearing people's I remember last year, two years ago, is time flies. I remember Maxwell Ivy, he's the blind blogger.

I remember him going up during the gratitude ceremony and saying we give out a treasure map that you could it's a physical piece of paper that you could get signed by the exhibitors. This year, I think we'll have virtual and physical but anyways, I forget that he cannot see so how is he going to get it signed and what happened was each and every exhibitor took him by the hand to the next exhibitor and his entire treasure map got signed.

And he shared this up at the gratitude ceremony that at pod fast, everybody's his friend and everybody took care of him. To me, that's the ethos of our entire community.

It really is. I mean, that's that's one of the most fascinating things to me about the podcasting community is, you know, with so many other industries, it seems like everyone's like trying to hold what they're doing like behind the curtain, you know, don't don't want to tell anybody because if you give away your secrets, then you know, you either need to charge for them or everybody's going to try to outdo you but it seems like with podcasting, everyone seems

to want to help everybody else and there's something so beautiful about that. And it seems like with with your conference, you definitely add to that. So why should why should people attend? Why should they come to podfest? Well, if they're looking to grow and collaborate with creators in the podcasting sphere, I would say it's a great opportunity to meet other creators to understand that we live in a collaborative economy. So it's you're showing to add value not to take value.

And that's the podcast mantra. So if you come from that space, then I highly recommend you show up. If you're looking for a conference where you want to take something and run away, it's not the podcast way. So anyone that's looking to collaborate, learn, share, be part of an amazing community show up any day of the week, we welcome you with open arms. It truly is a community. We have beginner tracks, we have we have like 10 different tracks.

I mean, and then we have industry B2B and all different kind of niches. So if you're looking to create and learn, come to podfest, we'd love to have you and be part of our pod fam. Now in your pod fam, do you welcome people that don't even have a podcast yet?

Yeah, that's our beginner track. We help people we get their feed set up. We literally even have a booth this year, where we give you pointers on the trade show floor of how to, you know, start your podcast. And if you just started as well, what to look at to grow your podcast. So we also have a YouTube review channel because some podcasters tried to do YouTube and they don't do it as well as they should.

So we have actually experienced YouTubers sitting there and they'll do a free YouTube review of your channel. That's amazing. Wow. So you can actually like get hands on from the experts hands on from from the people themselves, we'll have a Kelly link for them to schedule. We have a media row for creators that want to create in real time on the podfest show floor.

And like I said, any company that's looking to add team members, we will have think of it as a job fair, but not really, it's more of a dance, but there'll be areas where you could post up and meet with these people. And we have private rooms for people to have a hold meetings to get to know one another. Now one of the things that that I hear from a lot of podcasters that haven't started yet, they really, really want to start their show. Is they're afraid? They have a lot of fears behind it.

They think they need so many pieces of equipment. They need all this background knowledge and all that stuff. And you wrote an awesome book about that exact idea. And can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, the title of the book is Start Ugly.

And it's a short story, fictional story. And it's about a person that lost their way because they got stuck in perfect execution and and the fear of, oh, my God, I don't want to start.

I would say based on what I've seen, the people that start ugly and perfectly execute along the way, even if that podcast doesn't go anywhere, are usually head and shoulders ahead of the people that wait for a year or two to perfectly execute because they have the skills of how to podcast and usually they'll pivot to another topic or show and that hits right off the gate.

But the reason why hits off the gate is they started and they learned and they know how to use the tools and they understand how SEO in the podcasting world works. So I'd rather you start ugly and perfectly executed along the way than sit there and waiting for some day to happen for everything to be perfect, which never exist in anything.

Yeah. And I mean, you can have all the all the amazing equipment in the world, but it still doesn't mean that you're going to know what you're doing when you sit down on the microphone. That's right. So now with all of that in mind, what do you see for the future of podcasting? Because just just right now, there's been just in the last couple of years, there's been so many changes. I mean, we've got podcasting 2.0 coming out. We've got people, like you said, trying to do YouTube with podcasting.

What do you see for the future of the medium? Well one more money is going to come into the medium at a level that people I don't think they even can fathom because podcasting when we started, I mean, you remember this, we're lucky if we had $10 million spent for the year and we're so excited, oh, next year it's going to be 20 or 50. So now we're in the billions. Finally, I think it was like 2 billion this past year, but it's going to start going to five, six, seven.

So the reason why I mentioned that that money will float into the ecosystem and allow people to afford teams as they grow their podcasts. That's one. That's a big, that's a big shift because it professionalizes a lot of independence. Okay. And we love that. The other is Web 3. Web 3 is the blockchain and all the innovations that we hear terms like NFT. Basically you're going to see people owning their content at a much higher level and the individual have more rights, creative rights.

And I think that's going to be a fine foundational shift. We actually have an entire Web 3 track at PodFest teaching people what these tools are just to get used to them. But I think as you see that, you know, it's as foundational as RSS, but Web 3 is really going to be the big one. I don't think we know how that's going to shape up right now because the plumbing is still being put into Web 3. But next two or three years, we're going to see things that we can only imagine.

Dave Jackson is doing a presentation on how to add through the Lightning Network Bitcoin payment onto your podcast. That to me is an exciting presentation.

That's wild. Like, wow. I mean, that's something you wouldn't have even like considered a few years ago. But I'm curious, you said the thing about, you know, the billions of dollars coming into the medium. Do you think that that helps or hurts the independent little podcaster who's just starting out with just their microphone and a podcast host? I think it helps because you have to realize podcasting for a long time had no monetization.

And the reason why YouTube is whatever 70 times bigger than the podcasting universe is they allow creators to make a little bit of money and half the time we're not talking a lot of money $18 here $100 there. Pod match has some monetization capabilities for people using their service. Obviously the Spotify universe is adding kind of following the YouTube model in some ways.

To me, it helps the independent sometimes know that they're on the right track if they get 50 or $100 and it reaffirms that they could multiply a friend of mine always said on the internet, it's hard to multiply zeros, but you could always multiply one. So I think that's a foundational shift. Are there going to be networks? Absolutely. Does that mean an independent might be able to join a network and get both benefits? Absolutely. So I think it's good for the entire scene.

And you know, independence is a loose term. I mean, my wife has a meditation network, but she's an independent and there's tons of people like her out there. There's no need for them to join networks. But when and if the time comes for them to join, that money is going to flow through the podcasting ecosystem in many different ways. So it's a it's a win all around, I think.

I guess the question would be then what do you say to the naysayers who are like, well, as the celebrities take over this medium, we don't matter anymore. I mean, I don't think that's true. A lot of these celebrities, they suck at podcasting. They get these deals. It's true. And now that I've been around a bit in this space, you see like, I don't know, so and so from the Jersey Shore gets a podcast and it doesn't exist a year later.

Or the first lady gets a podcast, you really have to have like a love for this medium to show up to it. So they could give these celebrities tons of money. Some of them will do well. Absolutely. Comedians tend to do well, because they need to talk to their audience directly. But I Yeah. And don't forget, these celebrities, they've, they've worked their butts off for 1020 years building a brand. Now are they going to build a podcast? It doesn't guarantee anything.

What it guarantees is they'll probably start at a higher level download than you. But it doesn't guarantee that they'll last and majority of them pod fade. They take the money, they barely release one or two episodes from the Spotify deals. So I wouldn't worry about that. I would say, stay in your lane focus on what the consumer wants what your audience wants focus on your search engine optimization, your graphics, what your logo looks like your messaging, your sound design, and you'll be fine.

So what would you say to the person who's considering starting? Do they need a specific niche? Do they need a certain amount of equipment? What do they need to get going? So I think a good mic would be great. So a dynamic microphone, we all use different ones. But I would just say there's a lot of great ones from sure audio technical aisle, some are more than others. Start wherever you want budget wise, but you could start under $100 for a really decent mic to start podcasting.

The next thing I would say I would spend more time researching before you get started on your niche, your title, your art, I can't tell you how many people I see with cheap artwork and they don't realize that that's the first thing I see. Therefore, I might not even click on your cover. And then what are the words? Do they mean something? So I remember once someone told me that the name of their show was their literal name. And I said, What are you doing? They said event planning.

I don't get that from seeing, you know, Suzy show. And they I go, who told you I was good all my friends? I mean, talk to experts in the space. They're there. They're great. School of podcasting is a great resource. And I remember the person saying, if I called it an event planning show, there's a lot of event planning podcasts. And I said, maybe there's a reason for it. And maybe you could find a niche within that event planning niche.

So like you said, niche down a little bit and find your audience. Now, do you have any regrets with your own podcasting journey? So I'm a hobbyist. So I started the story jam theater podcast. Those are still up there. We create a podcast on the messenger. So I do have the kid friendly network. We're restarting it up right now. And I have a producer that creates that content. I'm a perfectionist. I suffer from the perfectionist gene. I wrote start ugly really for me.

Regrets, I wouldn't say I have any regrets. I would just say, I wish I could innovate a little quicker than I do on some things. But my burden to bear my love, I should say, is doing these events for whatever reason. I'm a glutton for punishment. I love doing events. So that's where I think I could service as a home for the medium. And that's where I really have put my efforts in excelling to make sure that independents have a voice.

That they have a home and to make sure that they don't get lost in the noise as this industry grows. And that's pretty much my mission. I love that. I love that. So with your with your podfest expo, when is it and how often do you have these events? So podfest expo is pretty much every year. This year, it's May 26 to the 29th. However, traditionally, we're usually the first weekend of March. It's a four day event this year, we will have like I said, I believe I'm positive.

We'll have 2000 people, but we might get as many as 3000 attendees. We do it once a year. And we also do pod global, which is a full virtual event now every year. That's the one that we've earned now to Guinness World Records. I think we'll retire the record books. We'll just do the event without the records because it creates a lot of extra work for us. But that'll be in September every year. And we're excited to you'll hear it here first, Ashley.

As we get bigger, and the sponsors bless us with some additional monies, we will be doing events in the UK, where we don't want I know it's gonna sound very weird. We're not looking to make money. We're just looking to break even and see if we could scholarship some podcasts to come out with us to do almost like a foreign exchange in different countries.

Oh, wow. That sounds really cool. So we're gonna do Japan, but COVID lasted too long. We had it all planned out earlier this year. Yeah, I'm sure that I can speak for everybody listening to this and everyone around the world. We're all over COVID. Definitely. So where can people find you online? podfestexpo.com if you're looking for my name, it's Chris Krimitzos. It's a long Greek name. I'm sure that Google will respell it for you. But you can find me on all the socials. I'm on Facebook a lot.

And you could you could catch me there. But podfestexpo team and I manage those accounts actively. Yes, and it's very active. Absolutely. Now. So we'll definitely leave all the links below. But before I let you go, I gotta ask you one question I ask everybody what is one question I did not ask you really wish I had? Probably something about my wife like power, not power couple, but how we support each other. So we are a podcasting couple. I'm on the event side, she has a podcasting network.

And I would just say, if I were to be asked, you know, what have I learned from my wife, because she's an inspiration. I've learned that mindset is everything. I remember she started her network with one show, and she kept expanding her mindset. Now she's up to five shows on the network. And it's been amazing to watch her grow something that helps women the world over through women's meditation network. Oh, god, that is so sweet. I love that. That's what you wanted the question to be.

That is just, I'm sure everybody listening to this is just giving up. I really she's amazing. And I learned so much from her. I'm not an operational minded person. I'm more of the excitable entrepreneur on the cutting edge. But I've learned so much on how to run operations from her and to watch her systemize her podcast to support women all over the world has been pretty amazing.

Well, that's fantastic. Well, Chris, I just want to say thank you again so much for being here with me today. And I leave all the links below and I just I just really appreciate your time. Thank you, Ashley. I appreciate you. Well, my fellow podcasters, I hope you enjoyed everything that Chris had to share with us. To learn more about how to launch and grow your own podcast, head over to rss.com backslash blog. You can start your show for free and get your first episode on us.

Thanks for tuning in.