Summary: Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeHowdy, team! I’m here, on a Tuesday. And what a day to have a platform, because now I can tell you to go watch / listen to the premiere of MUNA’s new song at 11:45AM ET. May we sob together. (The teaser made the music sound somewhat upbeat, but you really never know.) EXCLUSIVE: Big $$$ in virtual podcast events In-person podcast tours have shown that people are willing to pay for something beyond a pre-recorded episode. But virtual versions of those shows? In this climate of Zoom fatigue? Oh yeah, baby. In fact, they’re booming. Moment House has been live-streaming podcast recordings, called “Moments,” since March 2021, and I’m told that the company has sold 140,000 tickets over the course of the 56 that it’s hosted since then. The streams have averaged six-figure payouts for creators; one even reached as high as $500,000. Creators keep all gross revenue (Moment House makes money from a 10 percent service fee on the customer), with many shows returning to the platform quarterly. What happened to Zoom fatigue? These huge payouts come from a combination of tickets, merch, and tips from the audience, as well as meet-and-greet upgrades or after parties, all of which Moment House helps create a contained environment for. The platform has been a success for big names like the McElroy brothers and cult favorites like Morbid: A True Crime Podcast and Buffering The Vampire Slayer, but technically any podcaster can host on the platform. Moments are livestreamed and interactive, so they’re well suited to improvisational, chatty podcasts with devoted listeners. Bart Coleman, Moment House’s head of comedy, described the events to me as having “‘anything can happen’ energy.” Past Moments have included interactive trivia with audience members and a live merch fundraiser where hosts made a drinking game out of the milestones reached. Mike Muney, head of creator partnerships, tells us that Moments work considerably well for podcasters, many of whom have the dual goals of making money off of their work and engaging directly with their audiences. (Moment House also hosts concerts and has done so for longer than it’s hosted podcast recordings.) Podcast audiences have shown they’re willing to do their part: common paywalled perks for podcasts are ones that give listeners increased access to podcast hosts, whether through behind-the-scenes episodes or Discord chats. Moment House is a natural extension. But Moment House isn’t alone in this space. Last spring, Nick wrote about the virtual-performance endeavors of the company FRQNCY. At the time, there was a lot of doubt swirling around about its shelf life: would it last once audiences were able to return to in-person events? Now, it seems like there’s continued to be more desire for location-agnostic events than we could’ve known. Headgum launches its platform for booking host reads Last week, the podcast network Headgum publicly launched Gumball, a host-read ad marketplace that the company says is unmatched in being fully automated: brands can walk themselves through transparent booking calendars, playable samples, and audience demographics, then check out; on the other side, podcasters are given tools to manage their own workflow and decision-making (and can apply to join the platform here). Headgum built Gumball’s tech internally, and for years before the tool’s “debut from stealth,” the company used it to book ads for its own slate of podcasts, then eventually other select shows. CEO Marty Michael tells me he’s excited for even more independent shows to get in on it, especially since they’ve already seen a “halo effect” of sales from the existing relationships that advertisers have with Headgum shows. “Anything that saves time in this busy world, and in this demanding industry, is hugely help
