Shots from The Battery

Podcastercon 2006 was a totally different beast compared to any Convention we’ve attended because of the open-format, non-commercial nature of the event, and it brought out droves of curious folks wishing to hop aboard the podcasting revolution with a one-day crash course on all subjects pod.  

I have to say, we really enjoyed the “academic” focus of this convention as opposed to the promotional feel at the PME.   Strip the PME of the Glitz and throw in some useful informational sessions, and you get Podcastercon.   Good equation, in my opinion.

The highlight of the weekend had to be the dinner with Senator John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth at a tiny restaurant called Crooks Corner on Friday night.  Guests at the table included Rob from Podcast 411, Mur from Geek Fu Action Grip, Brian from Audio Activism, Anne from Eat Feed, Richard Bluestien(BKA Madge from Yeast Radio), Derek and Swoopy from Skepticality, Ruby from UNC, and ourselves. We’ll share some interesting anecdotes about that on the next episode.  We were incredibly toked up for the thing, which made it all the more interesting.  Have you ever gotten stoned and discussed hot topics with a member of the US Senate?  We highly recommend it, no pun intended.  Oh, and let’s just say that John and Elizabeth listen to our show, and may or may not admit to that on record!  

Sitting with some of our favorite podcasters and friends and across the table from the man we attempted to vote into presidential candidacy at the primaries last year was a true honor, a rare realization that we were in the right place at the right time at that particular moment.  John conversed freely with us, took questions throughout the evening, and answered with what seemed to be honest responses in his very soothing ”southern boy made good” drawl.  Not to say we agree with all of Edward’s ideas, we do have some differences, but you gotta give the man credit for sitting down with a rag-tag group of people like us and candidly conversing with them.

The convention itself was an array of open sessions that ranged from the very basic to the most advanced, covering many topics relevant to podcaters and podcasting.    We had a goal of sitting in on at least a few minutes of each session, and came very close to actually doing just that.  Di participated in the Women in Podcasting session, which got a bit hairy at times… Again, details forthcoming on NaD 70. 

On Saturday night, Raequel from the Triscast recorded an interesting discussion in our hotel room with Brob, Tom Shad, and a few others as she sipped from her bottle of Boone’s Farm malt liquor and we toked up with a new piece we picked up at a cool little head shop next to the Bookstore where we had the closing reception for the Con. (That’s a long fucking sentence.)

Anyhow, much more to share - new show very soon.  We want to thank everyone who helped organize this event, everyone who came out, and everyone we met.

Here’s a short list of some of the folks we had the pleasure of talking to this weekend:

Brob Walch from podcast411

Mur Lafferty from Geek Fu Action Grip and I Should Be Writing 

Derek and Swoopy from Skepticality

Raequel from the Triscast

Brian from Audio Activism and event organizer (Great job, Brian)

Richard Bluestien from Yeast Radio

Will Brown from Cloudy Day Art (and former Charleston resident)

Chad and Amanda from Me and the Bean

John and Elizabeth Edwards

Christiana from 50 lbs in 6 Months Vidcast

Gene and Bryan from Hometown Tales

Tom Shad

Rubi J from UNC

Michael and Marji Carrino

Shawn from the hotel room

Joseph Nilo from the Mac Pro Podcast

Anne From Eat Feed

C Dogg from PMC Countdown and like 50 other podcasts.

The Libsyn crew

Paul Fischer from Dancing Cat Studios

Jason Adams from Random Signal

Joeseph Puentes from the Hispanic/Indigenous History Podcast

Cy Emerus from Trends of Taste and Travel

Sean Reiser from the Interocitorcast

So many more…  that’s just who comes to mind at the moment.

I’ll add the others when Di gives me the stack of business cards we collected this weekend.