Voices of the World Festival- An easy to access, and engaging festival experience

Usually when you think of the word “festival” images of deck chairs, food stalls, and wellington boots spring to mind.

When I first heard about the “Voices of the World” podcast festival I was skeptical. How can a festival be virtual, when so many of the key components of a festival involve moving from one space to another?

However, upon entering the virtual festival landscape via the platform Hopin, I was pleasantly surprised.

There was an incredibly simple user interface in which the festival goer could check in at the ‘main stage’ where the guest speakers would be and a networking area where guests could communicate with one another.

It was all quite easy to use, and after a few moments, I had albeit forgotten that it was a virtual event due to how seamless the levels of intractability were.

In terms of the line-up of guest speakers, there were numerous figures from across the world of podcasting who were willing to share their insights and ideas about how they make their own individual podcasts successful.

Voices of the World Festival A Highly Immersive Experience

I attended the first three speakers, Amit Varma of “The Seen and the Unseen” podcast, George Mpanga who created the self-titled “George The Poet” show, and Dan Snow who’s “HistoryHit” podcast is the most popular history podcast in the UK.

Interviewed by Minter Dial and Sam Sethi two of the festival coordinators (the third being Andrew Grill) each interview was filled with intrigue despite being virtual and being held from different parts of the world.

The interviewers made a great effort to show these podcasting giants respect whilst also getting to the bottom of their motivations and objectives.

Beginning with Amit Varma, the podcaster from India discussed with Minter the topic of podcasting in India and had some interesting revelations in terms of class, speaking of how podcasting as a platform is restricted to the upper echelons of Indian society.

“The three most important cases for people listening to podcasts are people who listen to podcasts when they are commuting, when they are working out, or when they are doing errands, or when they are listening at higher speeds, and this is all happening on their smartphones, and because of all these reasons it is restricted really to English speaking elites in India, which is a niche, and I’m hoping that in the years to come it goes beyond this”.

Another interesting point raised by Minter to Amit was the density of Indian culture. For instance, Minter stated he learned from Amit’s podcast that there are more than 27 languages ahead of English in Indian culture. Amit dilated upon this, and how podcasts can promote this multilinguistic culture.

“There are podcasts starting in the other languages. There is an optimistic view and a pessimistic view, and I tend to be more on the optimistic. The optimistic view is that this is the tip of the iceberg, and in many of these languages people are denied deep content in any format. English speakers will still have a wide choice of things to watch. Whereas if you have a thirst for knowledge and your primary language is Hindi or Bengali, there is simply less material. There is a possibility there that can really be filled by podcasts”.

The next speaker was George Mpanga of George the poet who was interviewed by Sam Sethi.

The most fascinating aspect of this conversation was when George opened up about not wanting to accept an MBE, due to his beliefs about being a black man in the UK.

“The honour was much appreciated, and I wish it didn’t have the word empire in it. However, it was conflating a congratulatory moment with a moment of subjugation. A moment in which I would effectively bow down and kiss the ring of the empire which I think is tainted. It is a ring that has the blood of my ancestors on it. Every time I record I’m trying to say the most important thing I can say to you right now, so I wouldn’t put that story out just for a reaction, but I think that it was an important talking point”.

The final interview I attended was between Minter and Dan Snow. Dan’s History Hit podcast has been a massive hit in the UK.  He spoke about getting into podcasting providing would-be podcasters with simple advice to perhaps get their initiative going.

“There’s a lovely Chinese expression, “the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago. But the second-best time is right now”. So of course you should’ve started that podcast ten years ago. You didn’t, so start it today. If you look at the data, podcasts still don’t have a lot of penetration. We aren’t at the peak of this at all. There is a lot of earholes of people who are a potential audience and are coming into the market and into that place quite soon. So it is an inspiring place to be in”.

My experience of the “Voices of the World” podcast festival was filled with accessible interfaces, insightful guests, and fantastic conversation.

I would definitely recommend the festival and future events planned by the organisers, to anyone who wishes to commence their own podcast journey or to simply learn interesting information from across the world.

For more information, You can follow the festival on  Twitter @podfestlive or see more on www.podcastfestival.events.

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