On Air Fest

Festival tickets are now on sale for half off through November 15th - catch them while you can at onairfest.com. If you would like to join us as a collaborator rather than an audience member, submit your pitch to our open call by November 25th: onairfest.com/pitch Please share our call for entries widely or share who you want to see onstage in the comments! Thanks to all our friends, fans, partners, and performers for making On Air Fest unforgettable. This year is going to be our most innovative yet - it is all happening February 19-21st in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Sharing some inspiration from festivals past: 1. Let’s Make a Horror Movie by kellykellyinc for CBC Podcasts. At dublab in LA, 2022. 2. Omari Soulfinger’s On Air Residency Performance: “What the .... You Mean?” At Wythe Hotel in BK, 2019. 3. “Inside Every Shell, A Story” by Ben Adair from Western Sound. Featuring Donald Albright, CEO of Tenderfoot TV at dublab in LA, 2023. 4. Sam Fragoso with #BritMarling for Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso by iHeartRadio and Pushkin Podcasts.

ANNOUNCING OPEN CALL 📣 ON AIR FEST 2025: Collaborate with us to make @onairfest 2025 the best year yet! This year we’re expanding into new venues and categories to reflect this moment in culture and discover new possibilities for the future. Apply now at 🔗 onairfest.com/pitch 🪷 What We're Looking For: Pitch us your session, experience, performance, or installation. We’ll have multiple stages, a screening/listening room, an experience hall, performance spaces for music and sound art, and more. In everything we present, we’re centered on the live experience and enriching our audience. We encourage curiosity, surprise and originality. Whether you’re a culture critic, industry leader, artist or storyteller, we want to support you in bringing big ideas to life. Consider these formats: Panels & Presentations: Launch your latest project, host compelling conversations, or experiment with live interactive content pushing the envelope of audience experience. From thought leadership sessions to futurist media theories; brand case studies and ‘how I made this,’ explainers – share your voice on stage. Workshops & Demos: Share your expertise and inspire others through hands-on experiences, talks and demonstrations. Show us what the forefront looks like. Performances, Stories & Ideas: Take the stage and tell a story, present a big idea, or captivate us with a performance. Short or longform welcome, onstage or on the street… Installations & Experiences: Create immersive, cross-platform storytelling that invites the audience to engage in new ways while in person Screenings and Deep Listenings: Create moments of reflection, inspiration and community through attentive, collective engagement Live Podcasts & Video Podcasts: Capture the energy of the moment with live recordings that resonate with our community, offer opportunities for discovery, and explore the intersection of video and audio in your personal or brand voice. Music, poetry, design, art and the indefinable: Surprise us! We are open to big ideas that touch hearts and change minds. Defy our expectations and bring new ways of thinking to the space. Submit your proposal by Monday, November 25. Let’s imagine the possibilities together.

Votes for the 2024 Signal Awards are in - these are the podcasts defining culture. Congratulations to all the winners, we hope to see you all and celebrate you at On Air Fest in Brooklyn this February! And let's have a round of applause for our brilliant former director Jemma Rose Brown - who is now the General Manager of the Signal Awards. Where would we be without Jemma? #SignalAwards #OnAirFest

Meeting Ronald was a highlight of On Air Fest and I am so thrilled to reunite at BUR! https://lnkd.in/gGtkyr5S

If you haven't yet, apply now to attend our Bloomberg Podcast Business Summit. Space is very limited. Applications and tickets for the festival are now available (half price for a limited time) at onairfest.com We are so inspired reading through submissions for performances, panels, sessions, and new types of programming for the festival. Soon we'll announce more opportunities to get involved. #Audio #Music #Broadcast #Film #Television #Journalism #Storytelling #OnAirFest

💖 Tickets are now available to experience the most ambitious On Air Fest yet. 🎟️ We're thrilled to announce that this year marks a new era - we're expanding into more venues and venturing into exciting new programming categories. Alongside our signature intimate talks and performances, we'll be exploring audio innovation in all its forms across different mediums, with more details to be announced in the coming weeks. 🪱 Secure your super early bird tickets at 50% off (at OnAirFest.com) and join us from Feb 19-21 2025, for an unforgettable celebration of audio, storytelling and creativity!

Latest scoop with Lucas Shaw: Fred Durst is suing Universal Music Group for over $200 million. He claims he never received a single royalty payment in the decades of Limp Bizkit's existence because UMG said it invested approximately $43 million and needed to be recouped. The lawsuit also claims that UMG built a fraudulent backend royalty system that would show statements in the black, only to revert them to unrecouped in later statements with no explanation. The "software and systems were intentionally designed to deprive Plaintiffs and potentially hundreds of other artists of their royalties and profits, and keep them in the dark about positive balances in their accounts," says the lawsuit. UMG didn't immediately return a request for comment. You can read the whole story on this below.

🚀 work x work is excited to announce that On Air Fest is joining forces with Bloomberg to host the Podcast Business Summit on February 19 in Brooklyn! This invite-only event will gather leaders and stakeholders from across the audio landscape to discuss current challenges and opportunities. Curated by Ashley Carman, the day will feature insightful on-stage discussions that aim to connect the podcasting world with audiobooks, music, and emerging platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Interested in attending? We invite you to apply for an invitation on our website. Plus, we’re inviting you to submit ideas for sessions, performances and new kinds of programming. Mark your calendars—On Air Fest will follow the Summit from February 19-21, with tickets available starting October 17. Centering media innovation, art and podcasts, since 2018 we've presented intimate talks, performances & exhibitions - uplifting the storytellers and brands who are shaping culture today. This year we are expanding our programming into new categories and our footprint across Brooklyn and NYC. We’re growing our artist Residency Program and will have more opportunities for independant creators to participate and showcase their work. Today more than ever, we need to challenge conventional thinking and push forward what is possible! Sign up for our newsletter at the link in bio! #OnAirFest #PodcastBusinessSummit #AudioInnovation

My latest: Cuts in the music industry over the past year have been tough for everyone, but among themselves, women are wondering what it might mean for the gender gap at the highest levels of the business. Driving some of their concern is the recent departures, amid broader restructurings, of two prominent women: Michelle Jubelirer, chair and CEO at Capitol Music Group, and Julie Greenwald, chair and CEO at Atlantic Music Group. Now, one of the only remaining women at the top of a major record label group is Sony Music’s Sylvia Rhone, chair and CEO at Epic Records. For years, long before these recent changes, the gender disparity at the major labels has been glaring, particularly in the UK, which requires companies with more than 250 employees to disclose such discrepancies. Last year, for example, women occupied only 31% of the highest paid jobs at Universal Music Group while accounting for 56% of the lowest paid jobs, according to the company’s filing. “We believe the best way to flourish in our ever-changing industry is to create a team that truly reflects the incredible diversity of our artist roster and society,” the company said in its report about the data. Amid discouraging stats, there are areas of the industry that are doing better than others. Female representation in Nashville, for example, remains strong with Cindy Mabe as chair and CEO for UMG Nashville and Cris Lacy as co-chair at Warner Music Nashville. Still, there’s lots of anxiety right now about what the latest upheavals spell for the future. In several phone calls this week, women in the space voiced their concerns to me about the possibility of the industry backsliding. Along the way, they recalled various experiences from over the years in which their prominent positions were questioned or undermined because of their gender. (Think: a female executive inviting a male counterpart to an industry event and other attendees assuming she’s a plus-one.) It’s not just women who are raising the alarm. During a recent conversation, one prominent male manager questioned whether the music world’s growing focus on harnessing new technology and pleasing Wall Street investors — industries not known for female representation — could make things even worse in the years ahead. Plus, how do tightened budgets impact DEI funds and efforts to recruit and keep more women in the industry? There’s much more in the story that I couldn’t include here. I’m including a gift link below, so you can read. This is a story I want to keep covering. Please reach out if you’d like to chat about it.