Dirty John creator Christopher Goffard kicks off Vancouver Podcast Festival
Credit to Author: Dana Gee| Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2019 01:00:39 +0000
Vancouver Podcast Festival
When: Nov. 7-10, various times.
Where: Rio Theatre, VPL and SFU Woodward’s
It turns out the people behind last year’s inaugural Vancouver Podcast Festival (VPF) made the right choice.
“We weren’t really sure going into it last year how it would do but we saw over 2,000 people attend which was really great,” said Selina Crammond the director of programming for DOXA (the Vancouver documentary film festival), the organizing body that puts on VPF.
Another happy discovery for Crammond was who came out to the festival.
“The diversity of communities was personally interesting to me because my sort of narrow preconceived notion was that this was going to be a lot of tech guys listening to podcasts,” said Crammond about the VPF audience survey results.
Selina Crammond, the director of programming for DOXA said last year’s inaugural Vancouver Podcast Festival exceeded expectations and lead to a larger event this year. The festival runs Nov. 7-10, 2019.
With that solid and diverse opening to build on the festival organizers have upped the game this year and expanded programming from three to four days. On Nov. 7-10 there will be 30 plus events, including five headlining shows at the Rio Theatre, master classes, free programs at the Vancouver Library and the interactive PodFair marketplace.
The depth of the programming has a lot to do with the depth of the support right here at home.
“Something I learned was there was just so many local podcasters working in the city,” said Crammond. “It was an opportunity for them to get together with each other and interact with national and international people on the scene.”
This year’s roster includes 39 B.C. performers.
“One of locals we are championing is Mike Browne of Dark Poutine. It is one of the most listened to podcasts in Canada and it is produced out of Surrey,” said Crammond about the Canadian centric true crime show Browne co-hosts with Scott Hemenway.
“He is doing a feature show for us at the Rio during the festival. He’s got a very interesting story because he literally started in his garage. Then got picked up by the Corus network and is now doing his podcast full-time. He is also doing a master class talking about his story and his journey.”
Mike Browne’s podcast Dark Poutine will be part of this year’s Vancouver Podcast Festival. Each week Browne and his co-host Scott Hemenway cover mostly Canadian true crime stories. The hit Surrey-based show’s live event is on Nov. 9, 2019 at the Rio Theatre.
Another highlight of the festival is the inclusion of Los Angeles Times reporter Christopher Goffard.
Goffard turned an investigative print series about the life and exploits of a real beauty of a guy named John Meehan into the podcast Dirty John. That 2017 podcast blew up big, so big that it was then adapted into last year’s Netflix series of the same name starring Eric Bana and Connie Britton.
“He is really important to our festival. I’m looking forward to seeing him perform and talk about his journey. Particularly because of his podcast to broadcast story, that is sort of a sub theme that has emerged in the festival.
“That is important to us at DOXA to be mindful of that connection between documentary film storytelling and an audio format. He is really important in that regard. We can learn so much from folks on the ground working in a journalistic capacity,” added Crammond.
The Dirty John podcast took off out of the blocks collecting a whopping 10 million downloads.
“I was surprised again when it got to 30 million downloads and again when it hit 50 million,” said Goffard via email about the success of Dirty John. “It was my first podcast and I was learning on the fly. At the beginning I didn’t even know what kind of mic to buy.”
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It seems crime does pay in the world of audio entertainment.
“Con-artists can be compelling,” said Goffard when asked about our crime-loving tendencies. “In this case he (Dirty John) was a particularly cruel and relentless one, and I think listeners related to the plight of his victims and saw it as a cautionary tale. I think part of the popularity of the true crime genre is it allows people to game out terrifying scenarios in a safe setting.”
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Goffard is drawn to topics that are generally rooted in the basics of the human condition.
“More than anything, I’m interested in stories that give me a window into the mysteries of human psychology,” said Goffard, who is currently working with his newspaper and the podcast publishers Wondery on a new crime story podcast that will be out in November. “The best mysteries are ones that are unsolvable, like why people make the choices that they do. I think maybe I keep getting drawn to “true crime” stories because they allow me to explore how people behave in extreme situations.”
Goffard will be here at the Vancouver Podcast Festival on Nov. 7. His event is titled Ten Things I Learned From My First Podcast, Dirty John.
“The key lesson is that it’s all about the story, now and always,” said Goffard when asked to give out one of his 10 things.
Podcasts are not new — the likes of consistent chart toppers The Joe Rogan Experience and WTF with Marc Maron have been around for a decade — but in the last few years they have exploded. According to Apple there are 750,000 active podcasts being produced, up by around 200,000 from last year alone.
“In Southern California, where I live, people are stuck in their cars a lot, so that helps,” said Goffard. “It’s an incredibly intimate storytelling medium — a reminder that there’s nothing more compelling than the human voice.”
Especially one with a good story to tell.