podcast festival

This is both the third year of The LA Podcast Festival as well as our third time attending and, as that’s the case, we can most certainly assure you a good thing has only gotten better and better.

Here’s our recap of what went down when a bunch podcasts and their fans take over ritzy Beverly Hills. 

All photos courtesy of Los Angeles Podcast Festival

-This was the first year that the LA Podcast Festival took place at Sofitel LA in Beverly Hills and it solved pretty much every drawback from their original location in Santa Monica (i.e. parking, navigating through the festival, it looks nicer).

-Many in the crowd for Talkin’ Shit with Eddie Ifft were thoroughly surprised when they got to see all of transgendered porn star Vaniity. 

–Marc Maron and Aisha Tyler hashed out some personal history, specifically when they first met each other, on Girl on Guy. Aisha hilariously made sure to note to Marc that this is her show and not WTF.

-Like every year, one will note that many of the attendees aren’t from LA or even California. Many come from the other side of the country just to make sure they catch their favorite podcast live like The Crabfeast with Jay Larson and Ryan Sickler.

–Superego continued to be one of the funniest podcasts around kicking off Day 2 with a special guest in Conan player Brian Stack and a whirlwind of fun, dark absurdity. We also applaud their matching Superego blazers.

-The crowd at Jonah Raydio had a ball as Jonah Ray made sure that his entire audience had a beer in their hand, treated to a live performance from Upset, fun music news monologue style jokes, and discovered he had to do more time than he expected. This lead to some of the best awful concert stories we’ve heard in awhile.

–Dave Anthony, Gareth Reynolds, and Wil Anderson assembled for a laugh riot of an episode of The Dollop, which we’d describe as a sort of sober version of Drunk History that replaces the reenactments with top shelf riffing from Anthony, Reynolds, and a guest. Edutainment about history’s biggest a-holes has never been as much fun as this.

-An all female guest line-up for WTF with Marc Maron was fascinating especially the likes of Pamela Adlon and Whitney Cummings admired Shelby Fero’s wisdom beyond her years when it comes to dating. 

-Podcasts fans at the festival didn’t care how long they would have to wait to get commemorative posters signed to the point where we questioned how much we’re fans of podcasts compared to them. 

–Wil Anderson killed it wherever he went at the festival and his own podcast TOFOP was no different. Anderson’s brand of somewhat controlled chaos made for almost non-stop laughs and an unforgettable pop quiz on Russell Crowe facts. 

-As far as we’ve seen education hasn’t ever been as funny as it has been on podcasts. See Probably Science’s Matt Kirshen, Jesse Case, and Andy Wood riff on the primates known as Bonobos with Tim Minchin and Dr. Amy Parish. They found their way to tie in feminism while discussing animal behavior and on to applause breaks.

–Matt Besser, Lauren Lapkus, Ian Roberts, and Horatio Sanz ensured that impov4humans was a perennial favorite of the festival just off a scene of visiting the world’s tallest hill. 

-Podcast pioneer Jimmy Pardo and his podcast Never Not Funny have been at The LA Podcast Festival most deservedly every single year. Seeing Jimmy having to deal with Pat Francis’ Bruce Springsteen puppet made for a pretty magical evening on its own. 

–Go Bayside! and James Bonding are perfect examples of podcasts that celebrate the “nerding out” of a very specific topic, in these cases Saved By The Bell and Agent 007 James Bond, but also very inviting to the uninitiated. April Richardson and Matt Mira/Matt Gourley make a case for enjoying both cultural institutions even if you don’t know who Mr. Belding or the worst Bond villain henchmen are.

–Todd Glass and James Adomian were electric during The Todd Glass Show. Dueling Todd Glass impressions (yes, Todd did an impression of James doing an impression of Todd) were a highlight, but only the tip of the iceberg. We’re convinced that Glass has mastered only letting the audience kind of know what’s happening, but ultimately not caring because they’re having so much damn fun. 

–The Kira Soltanovich Show made for an insightful, funny look into parenting not unlike a bunch of parents having drinks and pondering if they’re raising their kid right or not except all the parents are really funny.

If you happened to miss all this glorious podcast goodness, then there’s a livestream video archive of the festival available up until Oct. 19th.

Keep in mind we can only send one guy out to cover all of this so there are only so many things we could make it to and obviously we missed some stuff. Maybe next time, you can go to the LA Podcast Festival yourself and not miss anything.