SXSW x Podcasting

Pack your bags, because the Business of Podcasting takes center stage this year at SXSW.

Sounds Profitable and SXSW are proud to announce the first ever, official full day Business of Podcasting event on March 9th, 2024.

Nestled appropriately within the Advertising Track, our four-panel day will be designed with a focus to further elevate not only the value of our medium, but also its untapped potential, in front of one of the largest events in the world for marketers, brands, and agencies looking for what’s next in the world of creativity.

SXSW has a long history with podcasting from creating a stage within their expo hall for live performances, platforming panel submissions from leading and emerging voices in our industry, and even a handful of ideas that unfortunately didn’t quite materialize due to the pandemic. Two years ago, Oxford Road held their packed Podhouse event on 6th street and earlier this year Sounds Profitable’s third ever live event hit capacity at Cenote, showing massive interest from within the podcast space as well as from marketers and buyers who want to learn more about what it is we can do for them. Now, it’s time to turn that dial to 11.

By coming together and building a dedicated, official event, hosted at one of Austin’s newest hotels, with food and drink provided before, during and after the sessions, we’re able to create a concentrated home for podcasting within this epically large event. A destination for us to aggregate around, to put our combined marketing and PR efforts behind to attract those highly desirable individuals who are searching for the next thing that excites them or their clients. And for those of you lucky enough to have your panel selected for other areas of SXSW, this provides one more touch point to rally around, that you can guarantee today will happen, so you’re not waiting until the last minute to figure out if you’re going based solely on if your panel is selected.

A year into running events has taught us a lot. It’s taught us that within podcasting events, our partners benefit most from dedicated space and focused networking, which is why we’ll continue to be part of both Podcast Movement events (Q1 & Q3) and Podcast Show London (Q2) in 2024. It’s taught us the importance of celebrating ourselves, which will continue to be the focus of our December partner event every year.

Most importantly it’s taught us that we need to take bigger swings and carve out larger pieces of the pie for podcasting at major events that are successfully cultivating decisionmakers from content, marketing, and advertising industries. We can’t sit back and expect them to come to us. Thanks entirely to the support of our nearly 150 partners, Sounds Profitable was able to fully secure this official SXSW Business of Podcasting event. Our goal is to prove to SXSW that podcasting deserves more than just a day, but several days for the business side, and several more nights for live performances. And to prove to all of you that the idea of securing these spaces inside of larger events while inviting all our partners to collaboratively own them with us, is how we continue to grow our industry.

Tom and I have our work cut out for us, building panels with our partners that will draw an audience and create compelling content that elevates the entire industry, not just a single company, for those we invite and those whose attention we capture as they plan out their sessions. With the momentum behind this already, we encourage you to plan accordingly and get there early as even with a 250 person panel space and considerable overflow space for the reception and networking, we expect this to be a packed house, and we wouldn’t want you to miss it.

If you’re interested in learning more about the event overall, how you can get involved, and the very limited non-panel related sponsorship opportunities we have available, hit reply. Beyond that, all we ask is for you to cheer our industry on, promote this event to others, and help make this first SXSW Podcasting day a packed room and a resounding success. Because that is what is needed to make podcasting play on bigger stages and get more advertising attention.

It is no secret that podcasting continues to underperform in terms of percentage of ad spend when you look at the amount of time and attention consumers give to our beloved medium. To change that, the industry needs to take big swings every now and then to raise the stakes and make what we do more visible to the public and to advertisers. SXSW is going to be one of our big swings next year, and we are doing it for you.

New Partners

Sounds Profitable exists thanks to the continued support of our amazing partners. Monthly consulting, free tickets to our quarterly events, partner-only webinars, and access to our 500+ person slack channel are all benefits of partnering Sounds Profitable.

• Culture & Code explores Storytelling and Artificial Intelligence for creative professionals. C&C’s podcast, newsletter and Generative AI training raise your craft and critical thinking in parallel.

• Twenty Thousand Hertz is a lovingly crafted podcast that reveals the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds.

Want to learn more about partnership? Hit reply or send us an email!