Hank Green, one half of YouTube’s super popular vlogbrothers, launched VidCon in 2010, and grew it into the biggest annual gathering of YouTube personalities, Vine stars, and other online video enthusiasts. Now he wants to do the same thing but with podcasts. It’ll be called PodCon, which makes sense!
The event has been listed on Indiegogo for less than 48 hours, and has raised about $26,000 of its $300,000 goal. PodCon, if it gets enough funding, will be held in Seattle, Washington, this December and feature a series of workshops, panels, and live podcast recordings.
Green has teamed up with Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, the co-creators of the original viral podcast Welcome to Nightvale, as well as Travis McElroy, who has six podcasts, but is best known as one of the hosts of the advice show My Brother, My Brother and Me (which was recently adapted for TV by NBC’s comedy streaming service SeeSo).
My Brother, My Brother and Me (which also star Justin and Griffin McElroy, co-founders of our sister site Polygon) will tape an episode live at the convention, as will Cranor and Fink’s Alice Isn’t Dead, and Green’s Dear Hank & John, but other events have yet to be announced. The fundraising page describes the convention sort of vaguely for now: “a place where people got together to really just /get into/ podcasts together for a couple days. That's going to include discussions of what is oh-so right about podcasts, but also some of the issues we have to face. It's going to include live performances and mashed-up podcasts. It's going to feature podcasters from tons of genres including fiction, news, science, comedy, drama, crime, interview and more.”
There are a dozen tiers of backer rewards, and any donation of $90 or more includes admission to the convention. (For $25 you can watch a password-protected live stream, if that’s your thing.)
The funding goal is currently set to “flexible,” so even if PodCon doesn’t reach $300,000 in the next 20 days, the team will still receive all of the donations. That’s usually a crowdfunding red flag, but less so given that Green has been through this before and eventually wrangled YouTube as an official sponsor of VidCon. If you’re super into podcasts, it’s probably worth it.