As manufacturers step up their podcast advertising and marketing spend, podcast firms are placing on extra reside occasions to fulfill the rising demand.
In 2024, SiriusXM dipped its toes into reside podcast occasions for the primary time, organizing 10 reside podcast occasions over the course of the yr. To this point in 2025, the corporate has already held 18 reside podcast recordings, with plans to double or triple its total variety of reside podcast occasions by the tip of the yr.
SiriusXM’s reside podcasts, whose audiences usually contain 40 or 50 followers, usually are not ticketed occasions. Nevertheless, they characterize a rising income stream for the corporate due to sponsorships by advertisers comparable to Hershey’s and Macy’s, with SiriusXM holding the occasions at each the corporate’s in-house recording studio in its New York Metropolis headquarters and at venues comparable to Avalon Hollywood. To this point this yr, SiriusXM Media has greater than doubled the variety of sponsors and corresponding advert income for its reside podcast occasions, in keeping with svp of strategic options Karina Montgomery, who declined to present precise figures however stated that “advert income from these occasions is already up 160 p.c as of June 2025, in comparison with all of 2024.”
SiriusXM frames its reside podcast occasions as a premium sponsorship alternative, giving manufacturers an opportunity to attach with significantly engaged followers whereas nonetheless displaying up as a sponsor in any audio and video content material produced or streamed from the occasion. Along with benefiting from the same old advert reads, podcast occasion sponsors are in a position to place their logos and branding across the recording studio and reside viewers, with alternatives for in-person activations comparable to branded espresso bars for attendees.
“You’re not essentially going to garner scale from the expertise within the room, however we frequently create further bonus content material that our podcasters put into the RSS feed, or on YouTube, that the sponsor is included into,” stated SiriusXM svp of podcast content material Adam Sachs. “So that they get the good thing about each of those worlds.”
SiriusXM just isn’t the one podcast firm that has stepped up its reside occasion enterprise in 2025. In 2023, Vox Media produced 5 sponsored reside podcast tapings; final yr, the corporate placed on 19 sponsored podcast occasions. Within the first six months of 2025 alone, Vox Media has produced 21 reside podcast recordings. A few of these occasions had been ticketed, and others had been free, however all of them prominently featured sponsors comparable to Smartsheet and Bulleit Whiskey, the latter of which was a first-time sponsor for Vox Media.
“Usually, experiential is usually a heavy raise,” stated Vox Media CRO Geoff Schiller. “Because it pertains to different reside activations, reside podcast tapings are a really gentle raise, so it’s additionally a candy spot for manufacturers.”
The surge within the variety of reside podcast occasions in 2025 displays a broader shift: advertisers are betting larger on podcasts — not simply as an audio channel however as a full-fledged creator financial system play. With the rise of video podcasting and hosts more and more seen as influencers, manufacturers see podcasts as a high-impact method to attain loyal and engaged audiences and lengthen their podcast presence past the feed. John Newall, the svp of selling of Smartsheet — which sponsored a Vox Media podcast occasion at South By Southwest in March — stated that his firm’s total advertising and marketing spend on podcasts had elevated year-over-year between 2024 and 2025, citing the reside recordings as a big promoting level. (Schiller declined to specify the costs of Vox Media’s reside occasion stock, however stated that the corporate’s reside occasions usually command a better charge than normal advert reads.)
“We had a espresso bar outdoors, so when folks had been lining up earlier than or after they went, they might go seize a espresso on us — which enabled us to seize leads,” he stated.
Hershey’s vp of media and advertising and marketing expertise Vinny Renaldi stated that reside podcast occasions had been “a quickly rising a part of our built-in advertising and marketing and content material technique,” slightly than merely an extension of the corporate’s pre-existing podcast partnerships. He didn’t present numbers.
“They permit us to construct deeper, extra tangible connections with each the podcasts we companion with and their communities,” he stated.
Stay podcast occasions are a rising development for each podcast firms and particular person podcast creators. Theo Gadd, a co-founder of the reside podcast occasion platform and company PodLife, stated that the variety of occasions that he had posted on his platform, which tracks reside podcast occasions, had grown significantly year-over-year within the two years since he began his firm, though he didn’t share particular figures. In the mean time, Gadd stated, simply over 50 p.c of the occasions featured by PodLife are sponsored.
“If the present has a pre-existing sponsor, we at all times inform them, ‘go discuss to them; allow them to know what you’re doing,’” Gadd stated. “As a result of occasions are such a pleasant touchpoint, and types are actually eager to get entangled.”
