Ep. 43 Reflecting on 2025 and Looking Ahead to 2026

In this episode, we’re catching up on everything that shaped our year and talking honestly about where Festies is headed in 2026.

We share quick reactions from Governors Ball (June 5th - 7th in New York City), and walk through our 2025 scorecard, including what we hit, what we missed, and what we learned along the way. 

Follow along with Festies Podcast on Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube @festiespodcast

Cheers to 2026!

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Transcript

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Cold Open And Welcome

Sunny 0:00

Hey Vanessa,

Vanessa 0:01

Yes Sunny?

Sunny 0:02

What do you call two best friends that love music festivals?

Vanessa 0:06

Hmm. I guess you'd call them Festies.

Sunny 0:43

All

Governor’s Ball Lineup Reactions

Sunny 0:44

right. Welcome to Festies. I'm Sunny.

Vanessa 0:46

And I'm Vanessa.

Sunny 0:47

Thanks for joining us for our second episode of 2026. Clark's got his hands in the air. After reflecting on 2025 on our last episode, it felt like a good time to talk about what we're excited for about this year. We're going to start off by looking back at the goals we set for 2025, see what stuck and what didn't, and then talk about what we want to carry into the year ahead.

Vanessa 1:13

You're basically following along on a Festies meeting, is what it is. Yeah.

Sunny 1:16

So get your notepads out.

Vanessa 1:18

Get your pens. I want everyone to send us the minutes in our Instagram DMs.

Sunny 1:24

But first, did you guys see the governor's ball lineup? It came out this morning.

Vanessa 1:30

Yeah, I actually saw it on the way here. I was stuck in horrible traffic, so I opened up my Facebook and it was the first thing that popped up. I wasn't, to be honest, very impressed.

Sunny 1:39

Y eah, Clark said the same thing.

Vanessa 1:41

Mostly because, like, I'm sure it's great. I just don't know a lot of these people. Right. Friday, Lord, though, that's gonna be cool. Baby Keem. Lord and Baby Keem on Friday. Saturday, straight kids and Kali Uchis. Sunday, ASAP Rocky and Jennie

Clark 1:57

Jennie from Black Pink.

Vanessa 1:59

Oh, okay. Clark just told us that Jennie is from Blackpink, so that's cool.

Sunny 2:04

Who else is in here? Katseye, that sounds familiar. Pierce of the Veil. are a lot of these on Boonnaroo ?

Vanessa 2:14

Flip Turn. Flip Turn. I think Turnover is also on um major lazer.

Sunny 2:21

What Clark? Katseye is also K-pop.

Vanessa 2:24

Kats eye is also K-pop. Wow, K K pop. K-pop is making a

Clark 2:30

Kats eye is the one that like it's a girl group and they're all like a bunch of different ethnicities.

Vanessa 2:35

Oh Clark is off the mic, but he's saying that Katseye is a K-pop group, but if there are also a bunch of different ethnicities. That's cool. Where are the K-pop demon hunters? Just kidding.

Sunny 2:50

Confidence Man on Friday as well.

Vanessa 2:52

Confidence Man, I think, is at Bonaroo and Midnight Generation.

Sunny 2:55

Saturday, we have Major Laser, Blood Orange, Amyl and the Sniffers. Again, we're just naming things that we recognize.

Vanessa 3:04

Spacey Jane.

Sunny 3:05

Thee Sacred Souls. Midnight Generation. Did you just say that?

Vanessa 3:08

Yeah.

Sunny 3:10

I need to listen to you more instead of just focusing on what I'm gonna say next.

Vanessa 3:13

It's okay, same. I do the same thing. I noticed that when we're editing. I'm like, she just said that. Why did I feel the need to repeat it? Because I didn't hear her say it. Fcukers on Sunday. Oh yeah. Is that how you say it? Fcukers.

Sunny 3:27

I have no idea.

Vanessa 3:28

Geese, hot mulligan, Japanese breakfast.

Sunny 3:31

It must not be a huge festival, right? Because there's only one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, along. Like 20 acts a day at the most.

Vanessa 3:44

Yeah.

Sunny 3:44

If anyone out there has ever been to Governor's Ball, let us know if you enjoy it or not. It's on our list, but maybe not for this year.

Vanessa 3:51

oh, it's in June.

Sunny 3:54

Definitely not on your list.

Vanessa 3:55

Definitely not on my list. Although I technically could, but

Sunny 3:58

she's got Bon naroo. Cool. We weren't planning on really chit-chatting about Governor's Ball, but it came out this morning.

Vanessa 4:05

So one day we'll make it to that one.

Sunny 4:08

One day. Okay. What are we

2025 Goals Recap And Results

Sunny 4:11

doing? Oh, goals. The last episode, Clark did go over a few numbers that I'm gonna repeat here, but um last year we said our goal was 500 followers, and then Vanessa optimistically said a thousand.

Vanessa 4:27

We could have done it. We could have done it. I dropped the ball.

Sunny 4:30

Shoulda, coulda, woulda. But we got to 600 followers. So we did we did make some strides. We didn't hit a thousand, but it feels solid considering everything else we were juggling.

Vanessa 4:40

And they're like organic follows too. So that's what's important.

Sunny 4:45

We said um to cover three festivals in 2025. And what actually happened is we covered five festivals. When I say that, I mean we hit up the festival organizers asking to be media, and they gave us passes to go in and cover it.

Vanessa 5:01

So it was full-free. It's full free.

Sunny 5:04

We covered the Mill Valley Music Festival, the SF Jazz Music Festival, Portola, Leonard Cohen, and Give Thanks. So we crushed that goal. That makes up for not getting the thousand folders. Yeah, there we go. So that's definitely a win. And then we talked about brand collaborations, and I said explore two brand collaborations, and we didn't land any, but also

Vanessa 5:31

But we explored them.

Sunny 5:33

No, we didn't do that either. That fell off my radar completely. I was just so focused on going into the actual festivals and other types of content. I just dropped the ball on that one. But yeah, I feel like having more of a following before doing that step is probably better, anyways.

Vanessa 5:53

So we'll roll that one over. Yeah, that's a rollover.

Sunny 5:57

And then Vanessa, you had one too about creating more content on our page. How do you feel?

Vanessa 6:02

definitely didn't have enough content. I mean, we have content on there from like every time we went to a festival. Yeah, we'd have content related to that, but just off festival content. When we're not going to the festival, we'll roll we'll roll that one over too.

Sunny 6:21

When we were at Austin City Limits and at the hotel room you were editing, I was thinking, fuck that.

Vanessa 6:28

You were yeah, but you know what?

Sunny 6:30

You were committed to doing that, and I was so tired.

Vanessa 6:32

it only took me like I don't know, a half hour, hour at most.

Sunny 6:36

You think because we had just done it, so it was fresh?

Vanessa 6:39

Well, one, it was because I was there.

Sunny 6:42

Oh, yeah.

Vanessa 6:42

Right. I'm not like sifting through all your guys' footage to create a real and I only took short clips of the stuff I knew I wanted to add into it. So it made it so much easier.

Sunny 6:52

We did make more content this year, but we didn't really have like a schedule or any kind of system. It was just touch and go. So that's another one we'll roll over. Yeah, for sure. Especially at the beginning of um 2026, since we're not going to as many festivals, if any.

Vanessa 7:08

Yeah.

Sunny 7:08

Clark is not up here right now, but I will say his goal for last year was to carve out a clearer space for Festies on social media. I don't think we got as far into that as maybe he wanted to, but I do believe we're creating more of a brand identity with all the different visual aspects we've been using in our social media, like all the like all the graphic designs.

Vanessa 7:31

Yeah, the graphic designs.

Sunny 7:33

We're starting to figure out what festives looks like online, but um it's evolving. It's evolving, yeah. Do you have goals and what you're excited about for this year? Yes. Vanessa?

Vanessa 7:45

I have a couple. Instead of being super optimistic like last time, I'm gonna say we can get another 500 followers this year.

Sunny 7:53

Cool.

Vanessa 7:53

We already know we can do that, so we'll just do it again. We gotta do that. Yeah, hopefully we can reach for the stars and get more. I said we'd roll over the content creator goal from last year, but more than just creating more content, I would like to actually like learn how to make better content. Take some workshops or whatever to learn about what looks good. You know, yeah. And learn Instagram, I guess, a little bit better. Or social media platforms. And then another personal one Some of you guys know that I'm moving this year back to Iowa. So I'm excited to see what my new podcast studio will look like in my new house. Yeah. In Iowa, because Ed's gonna build me a podcast studio slash music room slash content creator

Vanessa’s 2026 Goals And The Move

Vanessa 8:42

room. I don't know. So I'm excited to see what that's gonna look like.

Sunny 8:46

People, when they find out you're moving and they've talked to me about it, they're like, what are you gonna do? and of course I'm so sad that you're moving. But as far as the podcast goes, I'm not too concerned. I mean, we each have studios, we both have the software on our computers. So I think I think in some instances it might be easier to to record. And then hopefully you can get some festivals over yonder over on that covered over there,

Vanessa 9:12

yeah, for sure.

Sunny 9:13

Even like little Little ones. Cool. Well, I love that.

Vanessa 9:25

Yeah. What are your goals?

Sunny 9:26

My turn?

Vanessa 9:27

Yeah. What are your goals for Festies this year?

Sunny 9:30

I'd love to see the Festies Instagram grow to around 1,500 followers.

Vanessa 9:34

Whoa, look who's being ambitious now.

Sunny 9:37

I want to double it every year. Does that make sense? Double your goals. So I said 500 this last year, so now I want a thousand more. And then next year it'll be 2,000 and then 4,000. All right.

Vanessa 9:50

Exponential growth.

Sunny 9:51

Yes, she's smart. And then I'm also excited about being more involved on Discord and Reddit because those spaces feel more conversational and community driven. And I want to spend more time on there actually engaging and not just posting stuff on.

Vanessa 10:08

Are you saying more time on your phone?

Sunny 10:12

Yes, no, more time on my laptop.

Vanessa 10:14

Okay.

Sunny 10:15

She's saying that because I deal with some pain in my hands, so it limits me from going on my phone. But no, I will be on my laptop. Thank you, Nurse Vanessa. And I'm also looking forward to covering at least three festivals this year, but being really intentional

Sunny’s 2026 Goals And Community Focus

Sunny 10:30

about which ones we choose and how we show up and having more of a game plan when we actually go cover the festivals.

Vanessa 10:36

Yeah.

Sunny 10:37

The last one is I'm really excited to finally get the Festies digital toolkit up and available by festival season. I've hinted at this in episodes, but I've never really straight up talked about it. Basically, we have a Google Docs and Google Sheets and kind of just a folder of um resources for you to access.

Vanessa 10:58

Resources, yes.

Sunny 11:00

To help your festival going experience be easier. So be on the lookout for that. That's pretty much what I have in mind for for this year. Sick. Also want to make sure we continue to have fun.

Vanessa 11:12

Yes, that's a big one. Enjoy festivals, enjoy music, live music. We love live music. Yeah, that's what it boils down to. Yeah.

Sunny 11:19

It's all about the music, man.

Vanessa 11:22

And the community.

Sunny 11:24

Yeah. As always, thank you so much for being here and for supporting Festies in all the ways that you do. If you're enjoying the pod, we'd really appreciate you sharing it with your festival friends. And if you haven't already, make sure to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Festies Podcast. And if you have a quick second, leaving us a rating or review really helps the show reach more people. We'd also love

Digital Toolkit Tease And Closing Thanks

Sunny 11:46

to hear what you're excited about this year. If there are topics you want us to cover or guests you think we should talk to, don't be shy and reach out. We'll see you next time. Bye.

Vanessa 11:55

Bye.