Sophie Greiner and Bella Filacuridi met at a networking event for female founders. Both unexpectedly attended solo. The two made chit-chat, oblivious to the fact that the chance encounter would genuinely change their lives.
Soph had driven in listening to Shameless, the podcast for ‘smart people who love dumb stuff’ hosted by journalists Zara McDonald and Michelle Andrews. She mentioned this to Bella and discovered a fellow fan who’d already heard the most recent episode.
Soph:
‘It would have been in the first two minutes we worked that out. Almost at once it became this foreground of, you love Shameless, you must love this! And what did you think about that? And how about Mrs. XYZ? You must love pop culture and conversations about silly things, but you’re also really intelligent.
At the time I was building a different version of Dome, but with the same mission of creating communities around shared passions, The word dome comes from the word fandom.
Bella’s background is in product strategy and user experience. I was trying not to become a lawyer. I showed her the app I was working on, we met for a drink within a week, and she came back with an entire SWOT analysis of all the things that I should be doing and room for improvement. Together we honed in on podcasts as the medium’
When you choose to regularly listen to a certain podcast you become part of a community, be it true crime enthusiasts who know exactly what I mean by Casey. Or TARPers. Gisteners. The KIC Community etc.
Abbie Chatfield – part of the inaugural DomeFest lineup
One of podcasts’ biggest differences to radio is that no one expects you to be in a monogamous relationship. You can do health and wellbeing plus serial killers. Sports and Abbie Chatfield.
While at SXSW Sydney last year, not knowing it was the final of these festivals, I heard Ryan Jon Dunn, one half of the Toni and Ryan podcast which would be among the most successful this nation has produced, talking about being at a recent international Awards event (Toni and Ryan have won a few) and getting photos with all his favourite podcasters who were also present in the room.
He said something along the lines of, I’m a TARPer first (Toni and Ryan’s global community) and a podcast creator second. I’m here in the first place because I love audio storytelling and tellers.
Music, TV and movies don’t assume that just because you watched The Notebook that the only other things you will watch or listen to are love songs or romcoms. Radio seems to want to dissuade you from switching the dial, afraid you will never come back.
Sophie and Bella realised that there wasn’t yet an organisation or place that was driven by and for the fans. Fans of podcasts of all genres, including creators.
Dome is a podcast community and audio insights platform to facilitate and create impactful engagement features to build on what’s resonating. With the bones of that concept, and seconds to spare, the pair submitted it to the Red Bull Basement startup competition. And won. That earned them a trip to pitch in Toyko at the World Final.
When they returned, they began reaching out to podcasts, offering their services. The product was what many were looking for without realising it. As Dome’s books grew, Soph put forward her big dream.
A music and podcast festival.
Soph:
“I remember exactly where we were and that I actually sent Hannah (Hannah Ferguson, one of the headliners of DomeFest) a text after getting way too excited.
I said to Hannah, I need to speak to you right now. Bella and I are going to do the Fyre Festival of podcasts. And Bella was like, don’t say the Fyre Festival because that went famously and horribly wrong. So I had to quickly send another text and say, it would be the Coachella of podcasts. I still have Coachella of podcasts written down.”
Bella:
“The two most important things were venue and talent. Then finding the dream partner.
We knew what we wanted the experience to do. We knew what was missing. We knew what we wanted from a listener’s perspective, being fans ourselves. We got the whiteboard out and started curating what our dream lineup would be. Once the vision was clear we could pitch that to the talent, get them on board and then get the venue. That was through Finely Tuned and they were prepared to make it a joint venture.”
Between the Coachella dream and DomeFest – as it has become, Sophie and Bella spent one year bringing everything together.
Big Small Talk’s Hannah Ferguson and Sarah-Jane Adams
The lineup is:
IT’S A LOT WITH ABBIE CHATFIELD – Named in the AFR’s ‘Australia’s 10 Most Powerful People’ Abbie Chatfield podcast reaches over 400k listeners each month with a social reach of over 25 million.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF YOUR 20s WITH JEMMA SBEG – a Global Top 20 Spotify podcast, this podcast is the only Australian show to launch on Netflix as part of their historic partnership with iHeart Radio.
BIG SMALL TALK WITH HANNAH FERGUSON AND SARAH-JANE ADAMS – part of Cheek Media which reaches over 3 million people monthly BST has amassed a strong, culturally influential audience with their sharp takes on the news and pop culture cycle. They recently were signed by LiSTNR.
MOMENTUM BY MISSING PERSPECTIVES WITH KAT SASSO – Reaching over 3 million women monthly, Missing Perspectives’s Momentum became Australia’s number 1 sports podcast on Spotify.
The festival is hosted by queer content creator, comedian and activist Milo Hartill and will be held at the Hordern Pavillion in Sydney on Sunday the 29th of March.
Many who attend likely will do so as a fan of one of the above and leave with three new ones to deep dive into. You are encouraged to come solo and leave with new podcast fan friends. All outcomes good for the industry and for Dome and DomeFest going forward.
Bella said:
“Dome is building the community infrastructure for podcasting, online and in real life. We’ve designed this alongside hosts and producers, to connect community, audience data, sponsorship and live experience into a single flywheel ecosystem. DomeFest is the live expression of that vision, with the Dome app integrated throughout, allowing fans to connect before, during and long after the event. Together, it creates a unique digital-to-physical loop that extends DomeFest beyond a single day and gives podcast fandoms a more meaningful way to thrive online and offline.”
You can find out more about DomeFest and book tickets here.
The Psychology of Your 20s’ Jemma Sbeg
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo. Email: [email protected]
Main image – Sophie Greiner (L) and Bella Filacuridi (R) – all images supplied
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