Goalhanger’s Podcast Festival Sells 26,000 Tickets

Goalhanger's first podcast festival brought 26,000 people to London's Southbank Centre over three days.

The Rest Is Fest, which ran from September 4–6, featured 22 shows across the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, including The Rest Is History, The Rest Is Politics, The Rest Is Football and The Rest Is Money.

For Goalhanger, the bigger story may be what those ticket sales say about its audiences.

The company says 85% of people attending the festival came specifically to see one particular show. That is a Goalhanger figure rather than independently verified data, but it suggests that some podcast audiences are willing to spend money on the brands and personalities they already follow.

For Goalhanger, The Rest Is Fest was a test of what happens when those relationships move beyond the podcast feed.

A podcast becomes more than an episode

Goalhanger could have built the festival around its biggest shows and simply recreated their regular episodes on stage. Instead, it created programming that listeners cannot get from the usual feed.

The festival included first live editions of The Rest Is Science and The Book Club, a special collaboration between The Rest Is Politics and The Rest Is Politics US, and one-off events including The Rest Is Quiz. Gary Lineker also hosted a live conversation with Stanley Tucci.

A podcast tour can monetise an existing show. A festival gives a network the chance to bring several shows, hosts and audiences together and create something new around them.

That is what Goalhanger did. Someone could arrive for The Rest Is History and encounter another show or format they had not previously followed.

The network gives Goalhanger more to sell

That is why the wider Goalhanger network matters.

A listener who discovers The Rest Is History is valuable as a podcast audience. That same person can potentially become a YouTube viewer, a paying member, a ticket buyer or an audience for another Goalhanger show.

We don't have enough public financial data to say how much revenue each activity generates. But Goalhanger is clearly building businesses around its podcast franchises rather than treating the podcast feed as the end product.

In January, the company announced a minority investment from The Chernin Group and said the partnership would help expand its podcast franchises into television, film, digital video, written formats and live experiences.

The Rest Is Fest is a practical example of that strategy.

Goalhanger says its programmes generated more than 400 million downloads in 2024. It later reported more than 750 million full-episode views and streams in 2025, alongside more than 250,000 paying members. These are company figures, and the different measurements should not be treated as a direct year-on-year comparison.

They do, however, show the size of the audience around the company's shows.

Once a network has that audience, the commercial question changes. It becomes less about how many people will listen to the next episode and more about what else those people might want from the brands and personalities they already follow.

26,000 tickets don't prove the model yet

The 26,000-ticket figure does not prove that podcast festivals are a major new media business.

Goalhanger has not published the festival's ticket revenue, production costs or profit, and this was the first edition. The event was also part of the Southbank Centre's 75th anniversary programme.

So the figure tells us more about audience demand than profitability.

But that demand is useful evidence.

Downloads and views show that people consumed a podcast. Buying a ticket shows that at least some listeners are willing to make a more active commitment to the brand.

That is the opportunity Goalhanger is testing.

The podcast does not have to be the end of the relationship. For a company with enough strong shows, it can be the starting point for live events, memberships, video and other businesses built around the same audience.

The next question is whether Goalhanger can turn those 26,000 ticket buyers into a repeat audience for whatever comes next.