Last Friday and Saturday, PodSummit took place in Calgary, and once again, Tim Truax and his family put together a terrific event.

Over the last few years, PodSummit has developed a loyal following. It's a good mix of independent creators, businesses, corporations, small media companies, educational institutions, and people who are simply curious about podcasting.

The event returned to The GRAND, a theatre that opened in 1912. It's a fabulous venue with enough quiet meeting spaces to have a proper conversation, along with plenty of washrooms, snacks and water to keep everyone hydrated.

Rather than recap every session, here are ten observations from my trip to Calgary.

To be honest, I didn’t miss it. For an industry that can't seem to stop talking about artificial intelligence, there was surprisingly little discussion about it. Probably because….

During a panel I moderated, Tanya Springer from CBC Podcasts encouraged Canadian podcasters to take some initiative following Apple's recent decision to drop country-specific podcast curation.

Canadian podcast discovery was already a challenge. Removing another opportunity to showcase Canadian creators certainly doesn't make things easier.

Later in the event, there was some discussion about whether Canadian podcast content should be regulated. CanPodCon, anyone? However, everytime this is brought up, no one explain how the gymnastics performance of implementation would take place.

With a referendum on Alberta's future part of the political conversation, it seemed fitting that PodSummit featured some distinctly Alberta content.

Dr. Jody Carrington recorded a live podcast with former Calgary Flames player and coach Darryl Sutter. Both hail from Viking, Alberta. And if you know anything about the seven Sutter brothers and their collective time in the NHL, you'll know that's a pretty remarkable connection for a small Alberta town.

There's something about conversations between people who share a hometown and a history that makes for great podcasting. I’ll alert you when the episode is out.

Matt Hird from Signal Hill Insights arrived with some Canadian podcast listening data.

One number that stood out: 40% of Canadians are listening to Canadian podcasts. (So we don’t really need CanPodCon do we?) There was a small drop from last year which was 43%. I have some theories on why that is which will am still thinking about.

Another interesting finding was that women out-listen men in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

It's always good to get some actual audience research into these conversations. We spend a lot of time discussing what we think podcast listeners are doing. It's nice when Signal Hill show up with the numbers.

I spent eight years working in Edmonton, so it was especially good to see so many familiar faces.

The conference opened with a motivational keynote from former Vancounver Beat 94.5 morning co-host Mandy Gill.

I also had a chance to reconnect with Bryn Griffiths, Terry Evans, Richard Stroobant, Laura Knop-Wright and Doug Downes.

And then there was Sound Designer and voice talent Ron Tarrant.

Ron presented a session called Check Tech Your Brand, offering advice on making podcasts sound better and encouraging creators to put more branding into their shows. Radio has always understood the importance of production and branding. Somewhere along the way, podcast promotion became a steady diet of interview clips with captions.

Ron reminded me that there are better ways to do this.

Over the next few months, The Sound Off Podcast will be adding some higher-production promos to the mix.

Thanks for the push, Ron!

Ten thousand dollars!

Kattie Laur from Pod the North was part of awarding $10,000 to two podcasts: Late Night Scrolling and The Warblers.

I'm sure Kattie will have more to say about the winners in her Pod the North newsletter, but one of the things she stressed was the importance of mentorship and making ourselves available to other podcasters.

One of the people who pitched was Manisha Soloman from the Archery Parent Podcast. I remember making myself available to her before she got started, and it was great to see her pitching at PodSummit.

It's a good reminder that a little time and encouragement can go a long way.

I've always been happy to make time for people who are getting started, but I'm not sure I've made that invitation visible enough on my website or social media.

So here's the link to Book some time with me.

If you're starting a podcast, have a question, or just want to talk through an idea, I'm happy to help.

Thanks to three podcast leaders who joined me for a panel about podcasting, audiences and growth.

Yael Strasberg from Acast, Amil Delic from the Nation Network, and Tanya Springer from CBC Podcasts brought three different perspectives to the conversation.

We talked about the difference between building an audience and building a community, whether social media clips actually bring listeners to podcasts, and how podcasters can help one another grow through cross-promotion.

One question I particularly wanted to explore was whether you build a podcast for a community or whether the podcast builds the community.

We also talked about the challenge of getting people to discover your show in the first place. Word of mouth remains incredibly valuable, but there's a lot of debate about how much of an audience actually converts from reels, shorts and social media clips.

Thanks to Yael, Amil and Tanya for a great conversation and for making my job as moderator easy.

Lindsay Michael from Amazon Music put together a cool collection of podcasts represented at PodSummit.

You can check out the collection here.

On my flight home, I started listening to Beyond a Ballot, co-hosted by Rachel Seagal.

Rachel also helped host PodSummit, all while navigating the political shitstorm surrounding elections in British Columbia and Alberta, and having to catch a flight to Ottawa.

I'm not sure how she managed to fit it all in, but she did.

Every time I see the guys from Sickboy, I'm reminded why I love podcasting.

Alan Black from Left of Dial Media interviewed them, and it was another reminder of what makes their show special.

They've built something that connects with people. The also know they can get better and have been working at it since day one.

One of the best parts of attending a conference is finding time to catch up with people you don't get to see nearly enough.

Thanks to Paul Riismandel from Signal Hill Insights, Justin Jackson from Transistor.fm, Luke Gossage-Bleho from Acast, Andy Sheppard and Brittany Duggan from Sequel, and Adam from Adopter Media for taking the time to chat.

And a special thanks to Tim Truax for inviting me to be part of PodSummit 2026. I've been to enough podcast conferences to know that the sessions are only part of the experience.

It's the conversations in the hallways, the reconnections with old friends, the introductions to people doing interesting things, and the occasional reminder that you should probably change something about your own show.

You can read about podcasting all day long. You can watch the sessions online. You can even ask AI to summarize the whole thing.

But sometimes...

You had to be there.