This year’s PPF, running Wednesday, July 17 until Monday, July 29, features 60 live podcast sessions throughout the city.
It’s hard to believe that it has been seven years since I first wrote about the still-fresh-faced podcast planet we were becoming and its (then) burgeoning local outpost, the annual Philadelphia Podcast Festival (PPF). Back in 2013, the Philadelphia Podcasting Society (co-founded by Nathan and Teagan Kuruna, who created the PPF) were happy to have dynamic fellow podcasters on their side such as the Black Tribbles and a handful of adventurous comedians to begin defining (and communalizing) what an overall, umbrella-ing Philadelphia podcast vibe could be.
Now, you can’t throw a rock in Philly without hitting someone with headphones and a mic making sense of their world and themselves on a daily/hourly basis for podcast consumers. And since its start, the annual Philadelphia Podcast Festival has become THE longest running convention of its kind in the United States. “Being part of the Philadelphia Podcast Festival is really exciting to us because it gives us a chance to connect with other local creators, and with our audience,” said Sara Wachter-Boettcher, co-host of the “Strong Feelings” podcast and the Collective Strength monthly feminism-at-work event in an email statement. “The best thing about running an indie podcast is the chance to find and elevate voices that aren’t being heard in the mainstream. I think that makes the community especially important.”
This year’s PPF, running Wednesday July 17 until Monday, July 29, features 60 live podcast sessions throughout the city that together promise to show off Philly’s strong sense of inclusion and moral fiber, to say nothing of its diversity: racial, religious, ethnic, sexual orientation, gender expression, political party affiliation and more. Many of the live events will be held at World Cafe Live, National Liberty Museum, Indy Hall, Tattooed Mom, and Victoria Freehouse, with other venues being announced daily.
“This year’s PPF shows that podcasts are truly becoming the medium of choice for people who otherwise may not have their voices heard,” said Teagan Kuruna in an email statement. “We are so thrilled to provide a platform for the stories, analysis, and critical contributions that Philadelphians are making to public discourse.”
While Kuruna listed Philly-based podcasts such as Alt-Black (“three Philadelphia comedians talk about race, pop culture, and their experiences as an alternative black person”), Twisted Philly (“stories from Philadelphia and Pennsylvania including history, hauntings, true crime, legends, and tourism”), and My Gay Agenda (“plotting whatever it is cisgender heterosexual people think gay people are doing”), as representing diverse perspectives among this city’s many podcasters, she went on to welcome several up-and-coming outsiders who’ll go live during the Philly Podcast Fest to the fold.
Podcasts such as “Mueller, She Wrote” (women unraveling the mysteries of the Mueller investigation), “RISK!”, (true stories never thought shareable until the present), and “Yo, Is This Racist?” make their live debut at PFF this week.
For the full list of events, locations and times: http://www.phillypodfest.com/about
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