Podiots - Podiots Presents: The Podiots Presents Podiots Post-Show

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

The Vidiots sit down and chat about the live show, from its conception through to how it feels to conclude Podiots, and what comes next! Thank you for everything, gang. Catch you down the road ❤️ Visit our shop! - https://vidiotsofficial.com/shop ------------------- YouTube: https://youtube.com/vidiotsofficial Podiots: https://vidiotsofficial.com Pod Squad: https://podiots.com Shop: https://vidiotsofficial.com/shop Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vidiots.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@vidiots.official Twitch: https://twitch.tv/vidiotsofficial Twitter: https://twitter.com/VidiotsOfficial Facebook: https://facebook.com/vidiotsofficial Discord: https://vidiotsofficial.com/discord/ Site: https://vidiotsofficial.com/ Follow the gang on Twitter: Ben: @Confused_Dude Peter: @ThatPeterAustin Michael: @ParrotBoy Outro Song: 'Online Now! & I Think Its The Way I Walk' by Sylendanna, available at https://soundcloud.com/sylendanna Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickax. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. Hear that? It's your money calling.

It wants a promotion. Elevate your savings with the Scotia high-interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. Yes, that's right. We have a whole new collection of merch, but it's only available for a limited time, so get it while you can. Keep dancing, blobby. We have all the merch from our live show, some old favourites and a brand new print of a classic piece of Vidyat's fan art.

There's the very limited edition Vidyat's cassette tape, a new high-quality t-shirt, a whole host of prints, assigned certificate. stickers and this amazing print featuring art by Tom Eckston. These items will only be able to purchase for a limited time, so get them while you can. Head over to videtsofficial.com slash shop. And if you haven't watched the live show yet, you should watch it. It's quite good. Isn't that right, blobby?

Right, guys, how do you think of it? Oh, smashed it. That was a lot of fun. Especially the evening show people were so into it, which is nice. We completely filled the room. Like the VIP balcony just became. extra seating because you know where else were people to sit yeah we had overflow yeah that was yeah that was so frightening but so but honestly a lot of fun but it yeah it took a took us a long time to

get to this point yeah a lot work went went into this yeah wasn't just us three oh god so many hands have touched this it's it's nuts everybody involved uh is is responsible for this even coming off yeah yeah yeah i feel after the first show I sort of sat down and I was like, oh, this was a mistake. I sat down like, I'm knackered. And we've got to do the whole thing again in like 30 minutes. I ate two slices of gingerinos. A slice is a quarter of a pizza.

So I ate a half big pizza and thought, am I going to be able to just get up again and have any energy for this evening show? And then, you know, he's standing behind that curtain. And that's where all the bass is coming through as well. And it's doing that little intro, it's just going, Okay, I'm awake now and I'm going to have a good time and it was... You hear them balloons pop and we're all on stage.

We all come out. No, it was great. The crowd were amazing, they were really into it and that was like that's everything we could have hoped for. You go through a lot of doom and gloom stages. Is anyone going to come? Does they care? Are they going to understand what we're talking about?

But everyone was dialed in and that was yeah, that was a really special, special thing. My parents review, they were in the first show. and they were like, we didn't really know what was going on, but it was brilliant, we really loved it. From start to finish. There we go. There we go with a crowd pleaser. Yeah, I think we're all going to go for a big nap now. No, we've got an hour of being great to do first.

We got to say a lot of amazing people who came to the evening show and then collapse. Yes. That's the plan. Big collapse. So thank you all very much. I don't know where this is going to go in video, but thank you very much everyone at home for all the years of support. Without you, we wouldn't be able to do something. as stupid as this, like actually get people in a room together to celebrate

eight years of videocy, so thank you all from bottom of our hearts. And thanks again to all the crew. Yes, massive thing. We will be in touch. Yes. This isn't goodbye. Well, this is goodbye. This is goodbye for the video.

Goodbye, goodbye, bye, bye, see you later. Hello, everybody. But you weren't expecting to hear from us again, were you? Not so soon. We can't die. No. It was a joke. Welcome to Poddiet's episode 100.

No, sorry. Got you. Got you all. No, we thought it was probably worth having a little chat about the wonderful live show that we put on in a certain number of weeks ago. At the time of recording, it is just a couple of days removed from the actual show, but we're going to be sitting on this recording until after the episode goes out. So there will be full spoilers happening in this recording. So be prepared. This is also just going to be a very casual chat,

not a traditionally structured podcast in the usual sense. Yeah, so make sure you go and watch the episode slash listen to it, but preferably watch it, because it's very visual, before you listen to the rest of this. Yes. I'm going to tell you all the gory details and all the bits and bobs have happened and that's just the whole story of the live show, I guess. Yeah.

The question is, where do we bloody start? Well, how far back do we want to start? I mean, it was, how long ago was it that someone, one of us, said, you know, you know what we could do? We were kind of, it was upset as a bit of a joke, wasn't it? I think almost maybe by all three of us at the same time kind of thing. And then, I'm sorry, I don't, I don't mean to make it about me. But I think I was it. It was definitely Ben.

Was it? Okay. As I say, I don't know how long ago it was and I don't really remember. If I don't get the credit, Peter, I will stamp my feet. you do any well whoever it was who came up with it and if it was a mystery person yeah that person deserves all the credit because it was wonderful when would it be though was it uh i think it was it was post final pot well was it was it was it between i feel like it was sort of mid last year almost maybe so i think we still had a few episodes left to go wasn't it because we yeah yeah we still

yeah we were talking about it while we were still doing the last few episodes, I think. Because, yeah, because we've started, we put out like a questionnaire very, very early on just to be like, would anybody maybe potentially be interested in a live show by chance? Just tell us where to go. And on that original list, we had Bristol, Newcastle and Stoke-on-Trent as options for locations. But I think we kind of, I think we floated it. I remember Ben, you first brought it up and it was quite a sheepish, kind of like,

maybe we should do a life. I wish we could have done that. Never mind. Well, where if we just did that? That must be why I forgot it was you, Ben, because I think possibly, I don't want to speak for you,

Mikey, but I think of the three of us, you may have been the most, oh my God, I've got to go out in front of an audience, kind of like, you know. Yeah. We were all definitely nervous, but I think, you know,

you were, to me, seemed perhaps the most nervous. The idea to terrified me, And did terrify me on the day. Yes. But, yeah, I think we were just, we were having sort of a moment of reflection when we realized Pollyots was, was, was, was drawing to the end of its, of the deadline that we imposed, you know, the end of 20, 25. And just thinking about, oh, man, it would have been actually really cool to do just some sort of live thing in front of an audience at some point. And then, yeah, we took it.

We took it. We took it. Remember we nearly did it? That's never happened Which is it Yeah Glitch is never far from my mind Am I remembering this correctly

But maybe I think our first actual idea For the Pottiet's ending Was to get a billboard Somewhere Spoken up on Trent Loads of times Yeah yeah

We did talk about it for this Like thank you for everything Or something Yeah Just get something in Stoke on Trent And I think I did try looking into Like Billboard vendors And then that idea went quiet

And I thought Well maybe it'd be a bit more excited as a grand finale, not to get a billboard that about two people will see instead to do a live sure that would be a much more memorable experience. Yeah, I forgot about the billboard idea. Yeah, it still would have been funny. Yeah. It still would.

Yeah, absolutely would. And then I can't, I mean, we have the message receipts that we could go back through, but, but, you know, off the top of my head, I can't remember when we started seriously looking at venues. And then when I say we, all the credit in the fucking world to Michael Johnson for doing all of the costing of the various cities. And unsurprisingly, as convenient as it would be, especially considering in the evening show, we said, who's come from Newcastle and no one put their hands up. Yeah, that was incredible. The Southwest was the most expensive place we would have run a show if we were to do it. Sadly. And quite few people did come from the Southwest. They were saying, oh yeah, I've come up

from Somerset or from Bristol or from Bath and we're like, oh, sorry about that. I'm so sorry. Sorry. On my flight back from Newcastle, I did spot one Pottiet's T-shirt in the Departures Lounge. Did you really? Yeah, yeah. Amazing. That's so cool.

Did you go and say hi or did you hide? No, we were quite far away from each other. I figured let's play it cool and I didn't want to say hello because I didn't want to force a, I don't know, I didn't want to force potentially awkward situation on them. You should have just yelled meat face or something. Yeah. Turn around. That would have been spot on.

I think it was January, I think, when the wheels like seriously got turning, though. I think that's when... Just after the final episode, the final sort of traditional episode has gone out. Yeah. And the reunion stream as well was probably dominating a lot of our attention in December. So, yeah, got those out the way. And then it was like, ah, it's not for like seven months. I mean, at that point, we didn't know we were doing it in July.

But, you know, we just knew we were doing it at some point in 20. 26 and that's all we that's all we had so yeah yeah that's right yeah stoke on trent no one really it would have been funny but i don't think anyone wants to go there so we didn't did that one was struck off bristol was too expensive newcastle had loads of venues available and cluny too just seemed like a really good spot and yeah you know there's without revealing to i mean we can we can talk not specific details but some venues and this is is a new, totally new world to me and possibly,

you know, to you guys as well, about what it costs to put on a show. Some want an upfront amount of money. Some, you know, just take a percentage of your ticket sales or whatever. And Clooney too seemed to have just like a really sort of generous and friendly setup

for putting on a show. And, you know, they gave us a sound engineer. They had someone on the door and on the bar and stuff. And that was, you know, listed the tickets for us and did all that and then just took a

took a percentage and that was yeah that just seemed a really simplified way for us to do it yeah it's just incredible it's just basically like we like we told them we wanted to put on a show they provided the infrastructure and basically all the main bits we needed to do the show and took a very very nominal fee for all and like just yeah just I kind of overstayed how how lovely they were to work with how yeah like for months and months just like we're like always on in conversations with us like, I've responded to everything and I think kind of,

I can't, I've worked with a lot of venues over the years and like, they were genuinely just so good to work with and very reassuring for three very nervous boys who'd never done a live show before and were staring down the barrel of spending a fair chunk of money to get people in a room. It just, it was nice to know, it felt like everything was in control and like we didn't really have to worry too much

about just the really boring stuff. It was just, we just got a walk in the room and set up a yellow table. cloth basically. So responsive, so game for us to do silly things. Like we thought, without jumping too far ahead to, things that happened in the show, which we'll come to in more detail later, but, you know, talking about, oh, if we have someone run on in a costume amongst the chairs and maybe onto the stage and cause some chaos,

is that going to be okay? And, you know, we're almost sending that message to them with like three question marks on the end. Like, they're just going to say fire hazard, health and safety. And, you know, I'm not, I'm going to get, like, through no fault of their own. I can see how they would just say, look, I'm really sorry, our insurance doesn't cover that. But they were like, no, absolutely. And also, here's how you could make it even more chaotic.

Yeah, we've got this and you could do this if you'd like. Yeah, yeah. We were like, cardboard cut out. Can we just have it on stage? Is there maybe a spotlight? And they were like, hey, here are all the different places you could put it and how you could reveal it in the funniest way. Like, it was, yeah.

We've got a curtain behind the stage. You could reveal him from behind that. And that is what we ended up doing. for the DVP's reveal. Yeah. On the day, you know, all the credit in the world, we shouted him out in both of the shows

to Thomas, our sound engineer, who was just so up for it. And he was like helping us out, you know, he was saying, we could bring that house lights up here and like, where would you prefer the curtain?

Like, would you like the curtain of this angle or this angle? You know, all that sort of stuff. Just like really, really hands on, really just wanted to help us make a success of it. Now, to a degree,

it's possibly because, no shade at all the wonderful indie folk acts that come through Clooney 2, but acts very rarely sell out at Clooney 2. Because of you flipping crazy lot, we sold out two shows in a matter of minutes. And I think that was possibly some extra motivation on their side to be like, okay, yeah, we will absolutely make sure that you guys are looked after. Yeah, maybe so. I'm sure they're just as good to everyone, but it probably helped that we were.

I mean, I'm sure, you know, we're scrolling through some images now in the video version of this conversation. There is a lovely photo to see, which is the poster outside of the Clooney, listing all the acts of the month, you know, talking about what's going on. And we were the only one with the words sold out next to our names. I feel very smug about that. And it was cool being in that venue and seeing all the posters all over the walls from like shows that had been and gone. Some were in frames and we all sort of said to each other that, oh man, I wonder if we can get our poster off on the wall? Like, can we be immortalized? Like maybe even in a frame.

So you dropped off a signed poster yesterday, didn't you Peter? I did. They did say they would put it up. Currently, we don't know if that has or will happen. Yeah. It's cool. We asked them ahead of time. I said, hey, I've accidentally come home with one of your HDMI splitters, so I'm coming around to drop that off.

Also, we have got a poster which we've signed for you. Would you like it? And they said absolutely yes to poster. So, yeah, it's good. We have to go back and see where it ends up in the entrance to the bogs. Yeah, it could be. It's just been defaced or something. So, yeah, we worked with them.

They were brilliant. And then it was sort of, it was almost time for us to construct our team. If that makes sense, is it worth talking about that now before we talk about show structure and original plans versus what actually happened? Yeah, we should. I think, you know, we were told that we asked pretty early on, like, can we have a guest list? You know, because some people will have some friends and family that might want to come see it. And then I think we ended up just sort of employing every single one of those people to help us out. So partners were involved, family members were involved, friends were involved.

We had the privilege of recruiting the wonderful Dan Heppel, formerly of Culturolic, who was on the camera duty that evening and he did an incredible job. And everyone was just amazing. They were so up for it, so attentive. And I think it was a little bit not necessarily uncomfortable. Or as you described it to me yesterday, Peter, as a sort of like almost prima donna-esque. It wasn't that.

But I think we were all, because we were quote, unquote, the talent. There were a lot of things that we couldn't do. Like, we couldn't run our own merch store. We couldn't go and fetch ourselves bottles of water while we were doing meat and greets and stuff. And everything was just handled for us. And it was so, it just made that day so much easier

by having an amazing team that just took care of everything we could possibly need. Yeah. Yeah, the way I put it, I think, is that some people are actually divas because they are too good to get their own bottle of water. But it gave me a new appreciation for the fact that some people who are, as you say, quote unquote, the talent are probably actually just absolutely shitting it and have all they can think about is, what am I going to do and say when I'm standing on that stage in an hour's time? And it was more like, we're not divas. We are toddlers. We are babies who please take care of us. Please help.

We're scared. Not sure where masking tape is. Please find masking tape. Help. So not divas, but just helpless little children. And our carers were very much carers for us. And they did such a good job. There were such calming presences.

Everyone involved just with like, they were like, it's okay and it's going to be great. And all these people are here to see you. And they were right. Who'd have thought it in the end? They were right. People didn't come just to be nasty. How weird is that? It's not like YouTube comments.

Yeah. No, it was amazing. And it was just like things were anticipated. So we were doing, and we'll talk about this. Yeah. In more detail. But like, we were doing the meet and greet, the second one. And we ended up having to conclude it on the street, which again, we'll talk about.

And while we were finishing up inside, like, all of our team just sort of disappeared. and we're like, oh, shit. Like, we're flying now on our own. It was genuinely a 10 second moment where I looked at Ben. Where's everyone gone? Like a lost child in a supermarket. I was like, oh, my God. We had someone working the show with us, and he was basically our fixer.

Like, he would just make shit happen. And he was gone. And I was like, where is he? And it turns out that they had organized everyone into a queue on the street already without us even having to lift a finger so that we just had to walk upstairs and carry on. It was stuff like that. Just, just, just an amazing effort. Yeah, yeah.

I remember between the two shows, we managed about half an hour, maybe 40 minutes, where we were able to inhale some pizza and try and just chill out a bit. And we were in the back room. And I, like, ate some pizza real quick. And I was thinking, like, oh, crap, no one will have thought, no shade to anyone. I was like, no one will have thought to put out fresh cards and pens for the pub quiz for the second time. so I'm going to have to go like I'll run out and I'll do it myself or I'll try and find someone and they can do it for me. When I got there, the first few chairs I saw near the door had cards underneath them and I was like, oh, well, we put out way too many anyway.

So those are just some left over from the first show. And I was like, hang on, there's someone that there's someone's done it already. Someone, again, like you said, Ben, they were just, they thought of stuff. They weren't just there to say, tell me what to do. They understood the show, the moving parts. And while I'm eating some pizza in the back room trying to catch my breath, I think it was your lovely partner, Mikey, or possibly one of your helpers, Ben, that you shipped up, had done it, had done it just of their own volition and, you know, taking the initiative.

And just things like that made so much difference. Yeah. As I said in a post that I did, the phrase, I can't thank you enough has never been more apt. I've said thank you so much, so many times. It's just so meaningless now. It just doesn't mean anything anymore. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It was just so nice. And, oh, sorry, I had something. Give me a second. It's covered. My brain is falling out my ears. It's been a hell of a week. It hasn't really stopped.

Yeah. Well, while you think of that, Mikey, I just, I just want to say that, like, they, what was especially lovely is that they were all just so, like, proud of us. Like, they were just fucking made up that, like, it was going well and that people were having a nice time. And they got to see us. be silly on stage in front of people who really wanted to be there. It was like a room, like a team full of proud mums, which is really just so, so, so lovely. So lovely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You there, Mikey. Have you got it? Have you worked out? It's gone. I don't. You know, it was so good, but it's gone like, like tears in the rain. It'll come back eventually. It will. It will come back. So yeah, a massive thank you to our team. Of course, we, we could not have done the show without the pod squad who have been just diligently donating ever since the last episode went out on like that i think 15th december was the last pod squad entry we included and so the pod squad for the live show was fucking huge so bonkers but but like just that we didn't even for a second consider you know cutting it and recording it afterwards or anything like that because there were a number of those pod squatters who were in the room and so it was amazing to hear people

go, woo, when they had their name read out. And, you know, that was essentially seed money for the show. You know, we didn't touch that. That just sat there and we bought what we needed to buy and rented what we needed to rent and, like, made sure that we had money to cover people's expenses and things. And that was all down to the Pod Squad. It just would not have happened without it. Yeah, because it just removed a huge barrier or what would have been a potential barrier

where we're faced with the realities of ever, all each of us fronting, like these huge sums of money for like something. And hoping we make it back. Yeah, it just gave us a little bit more wiggle room to just kind of just be like, whatever happens,

like we can, we can have some fun here. Like, like we've got a safety net and just basically made it all, without it, it would, it sure would not have happened. And like all the other bits and bobs that come along with it,

like feeding people, transporting people, getting like getting everything in the venue. It's just, yeah, like the amount, the amount that goes in, for a show it turns out is bloody, bloody enormous.

And this is quite a small show in comparison, but it took, you know, a crew of like eight people, like all of their attention, like all day to make sure it ran smoothly. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends and family to walk twice. 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer.

Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. There's no mean feat, but as you say, everyone did so well. And I just, it's, it's a, I don't, like, I know we kind of make jokes about us being a bit crap and videocing things up. It's a brand, yeah, sure. Yes. But you know what? We can pull it out of the bag when it really matters. Yeah.

It's bad in the little ways that we wanted to be, but actually it was actually a great show at its core, technically, in terms of the execution. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, it was just, like, it was just really nice that, like, as you say, with, like, everyone taking on all the jobs, we were able to focus on, I guess, providing an experience that we were happy with to an audience, like, fans who've known us for years,

and, like, basically being able to deliver something that we'd be proud of, which we couldn't have done if we were running around, worrying about cables and whatnot. It just, like, it just allowed us to focus on. on what we needed to focus on, which was ultimately that day, you guys in the audience, and to make sure we did our very best, our very best for everyone, everyone there. And what an audience. I mean, you talk about how long Pod Squad was.

Like, we did a run through at the, like before we did a run through. And we realized, shit, this is going to be like 15 minutes long, maybe like 10, 15 minutes long. And I was like, oh, man, are people going to kind of like, again, through no fault of anyone's own, but are people going to kind of switch off a little bit if we just read names for 15 minutes at the start? Like, as you say then, we were, we're absolutely going to do it no matter what, but it was just saying, I was thinking, like, have we painted ourselves into a corner here where we have this really slow start? And they were loving it, you know, not just listening out for their own donations and giving a whoop, but people were laughing along to Caroline names and

silly messages and clapping as we reached the end of the next. page of names. Yeah. And it was like that all the way through. I think once you can get through the long list of names at the start of the show, it's all going to be much better from that point on. And it certainly was so supportive, so much cheering, so much involvement, especially the evening show where I think perhaps a few drinks had been consumed

beforehand. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, as I think as it was described, it was the rowdy crowd. There was a marked shift in kind of energy and torn. It was good. But it was a louder. It was a much more filled room in the evening.

It was literally to the rafters. Yeah. The James Jenkins, VIP. The overflow balcony. Yeah. It became just regular seating. Definitely. It was just an unbelievable day.

And we haven't even started talking about sort of the show itself yet. But yeah, just an unbelievable thank you to everyone who came. you were all with zero exceptions lovely and I think there were probably realistically a couple of people who did head off but from what our help has told us it seemed most people if not everyone stayed to say hello afterwards like for the meet and greet and stuff like no one wanted to to go and if you did stop and say hello thank you because many of you were really really patient especially in the evening show where we had to change venue briefly, or not briefly, actually, for quite a while.

And it was just so nice to meet everybody and hear all your lovely stories. You said so many nice things, not just about the show, but about poddietes and vidiots. And it was just a real privilege to be able to put some usernames to faces. Yeah. And it was just, it was nice. Everyone was just really, really nice. And it was one of those proper sort of life-affirming things,

because I don't want to speak out of turn here and I don't want to speak for you two either but occasionally in this line of work you do have wobbles where you think do people like do people care like is this I'm putting so much I'm like sort of pouring my heart out here and like putting a lot

of effort into the into this sort of creative thing that I'm trying to do and like you know it doesn't take much sometimes if you're not in the right head space to start doubting yourself and this was just sort of the most, as I said, just the most life-affirming thing, getting to meet so many of you

and hear so many nice things about how what we have made together over these years, what it's meant to all of you. Like it was just, yeah, it was beautiful. And I'll remember this for a very long time. Yeah, it's the kind of realizing, I mean, you know that the lurkers are there and, you know, absolutely fine. I mean, I, the stuff that I consume on the internet, I mostly lurk. I don't tend to comment a lot on things that I enjoy. And so you know they're there when you're streaming or putting out an episode of something, but you don't know how many there are or how enthusiastic they are. And then when actually you're in a room and it's not possible to lurk when you're in a room because there you are right in front of our eyes. And it's like people coming over saying,

yeah, you know, I'm normally a kind of a quiet enjoyer, but I had to come along. And yeah, It's so nice to just meet so many people and hear, as you say, Ben, what our stuff has meant to them over the years. Yeah, it's kind of like the tragic thing about the line of work is where so much of what you do and so much of blood, sweat and tears gets boiled down to a number, basically. Yeah. And it's a bit dehumanizing of like the whole process and the audience. And like, it's like, I think like online content creation has become quite an abstract weird beast where like numbers kind of become meaningless. like unfathomable numbers that you can't really comprehend in real life kind of become meh or gray or whatever but I think for that for that night it was just

an audience of 200 people and like if a video gets 200 views on YouTube it's nothing but it was 200 people in a room and like it was like the direct connection it was just nice to like it's not just those views aren't just you know statistics in the background each view is a person with a story with a history or some kind of connection yes or two tattoos as they saw two tattoos on the day It's just, yeah, it's just, I think, I don't think I could have asked for a better way to kind of round out pottyets than to just, I guess, come together and celebrate what it was in the flesh rather than like bring what was an internet kind of meeting point or kind of cultural touching point for a wider way of people and just put them all in the room and just, just enjoy laughing at Mr. Blobby and fart jokes and small monkeys and just being very at home and comfortable in that. And it just, yeah, just so nice to be able to have that. Yeah, completely.

People flew from Australia, from the United States, from mainland Europe, from Northern Ireland, from Ireland, from like, God, just about everywhere you could think of. It was crazy. Someone did tell me, if you're listening to this, this is for you. Someone was saying to us, I think in the first meeting, greet, he'd come from like the very south coast of the UK. And when we'd asked where people had come from and the guy said he'd come from Australia, he said to us, that's honestly, that's ruined. my day that has because I thought I'd come to furthest. I thought I'd come to furthest. I thought I'd driven the furthest.

I'd taken the wind out of my sales because someone's come from the other side of the world. And the fact that it was two different people who did not come together, one at each show from Melbourne, two different Australians came. Bonkers. Yeah, it didn't just happen once. It happened twice. It's just, I think we asked in disbelief, like this, like, you didn't just come for

this, right? And they responded, like, well, it was the main driving force. I'm going to do other stuff while I'm here, but yeah, I came for the show. This is bonkers. Like, yeah, I struggle to get out and how to watch a film in the cinema and people are getting 14-hour flights across the world. Yeah, it's really heartwarming. Madness.

And I think we also got some thank you as well for the ticket price going back to sort of the construction of the show. This was never about making money for us. You know, if we could break even, that would be lovely, you know, that would be really nice. but you know we wanted to set the ticket price at something like as reasonable as we as we could get it like we weren't about to do something really stupid we just we just wanted people to be there we wanted it to be you know geographically maybe not so much but like we wanted it to be as accessible as possible financially for people to buy a ticket income and we wanted as many people there as we could and you know what in spite of the fact that some people unfortunately could no longer make it the discord channel in the worst games ever discord server absolutely did its job people exchange tickets I think on the day at the very last minute sometimes for free just just to make sure that people could come and we we filled up the room both times and that was that was beautiful to see so thank you yeah we were

worried like we didn't really know what to expect like the actual attendance to be because these tickets all sold like you know like months and months and months before the show and you know things change like people might change their minds or forget or whatever but it's like we weren't sure what the room capacity would be but it was literally just both shows like every seat was filled, which was just amazing. I think it was, well,

maybe this starting to eke into show territory, but I remember it was like, just before the first, like morning show. And like, we had to sneak backstage because the doors had opened. And I think it was like, Freddie came through and we were like,

oh, is there many people there? He was like, yeah, there's a queue around the bloody block for it. And at that point where you're just like, oh, God, right. It's happening. Like, yeah,

like people have actually bloody. come to it. They did. They did come. And Freddie was our fixer, by the way, the guy who just made things happen. I'm just looking at a message from him. He said, I forgot to say, I didn't see their numbers for the matinee show, but I'd have 100 tickets sold. You guys had 97 through the door last night. Wow. So to have, I know some tickets changed hands, but to only have three not used is kind of astonishing, really. That's, that's insane. So thank you. Especially when you consider the like the length of travel like like like like I don't know like there wasn't really that many people who took a short journey to get there like

everyone came with a tale of like working a night shift and then driving overnight to get there on time and then driving back for like like every like so many people set aside like not just like an afternoon but just like days of their lives to get get there just yeah like it just shows the dedication it's yeah it's amazing yeah shall we have a quick chat about what are initial plans like brainstorming for the for the show was going to be because it was going to be a live poddyets we were going to do pod squad we were all going to bring a thing we wanted to do audience questions which basically played out exactly as we planned you know put a little box out get people to submit them

then we'll go through and pick a few to do um we reached out to a number of people celebrities this is to see who we could get should i briefly talk about my pepe sylvia and Neil Buchanan quest. Yeah, go on. Because it's, yeah, it's a slog. It took months, months of effort. So for, yeah, for nothing. For the last six months, I've had a reminder

pop up on my phone every Wednesday at 10 a.m. To eel, to email Neil Buchanan's website to ask about getting like a little video message. He's got a website, it's just for art, and I'm starting to believe that maybe he doesn't check it at all. all. Outside of this, Neil Buchanan is a ghost, right? He's always been sort of our white whale. We've always wanted to do something with Neil, even if it was just a message that said, hello podients, you know, that sort of thing. His only web presence is that. Any social accounts

claiming to be him are not him. He is not on LinkedIn. He is listed on a number of those bullshit sort of get in touch with celebrities' websites, including IMDB, where it says, hey, sign up for a premium account, we'll share what this particular artist's representation is, and you can get in touch that way. And I know that's worked because I used to use that to get in touch with voice actors to pester them about video games and things. So that is usually a valid strategy. None of those bore fruit.

None of them had any contact information that was helpful. So I'm emailing him every single week, and then at some point he does a promotion form, Mueller Corners. And I, from the reporting, track down who owns the images that were put in the article that I read. Then I worked out which sort of production creative agency put together the ad campaign and the shoot for it. And I got in touch with them.

And I said, do you, like, this is going to sound really weird, but do you have Neil Buchanan's, like, representations information? because like we can't find it at all. No reply, understandably. Fair enough. I keep going. I go down a big rabbit hole and eventually I find a company's house listing for something that is like a company that's since finished. And by all accounts, this is probably Neil.

This is probably him. And there's no contact information again. But there are two other people listed. So I get, I then start looking into these two other. other people. And these two other people started a business and other business together. It was like some sweet shop or something in a town down south somewhere. And I start Googling that. Nothing shows up at all. But it does also list the address for this business. So then I go on Google and I search the address and it doesn't match the name of the company. But I go on Street View and the

street viewers from several years ago and the front of the shop, it does have the same name as one of the last names of these two people. So I'm thinking, okay, so this is real. These people are probably who they say they are. I continue to Google these people. I get nothing. There's nothing there. In the meantime, I'm still emailing Neil Buchanan every single day, every single week. Then I ask Tom Campbell, lovely Tom Campbell, to see if he has BBC contacts who could maybe track down Neil Buchanan. You know, maybe people at BBC Merseyside. because he was from Liverpool originally. Again, a ghost.

Nobody can find this man. And at this point, it was about a week and a half before Showtime. And I had to give up. But like I had this ridiculous sort of mental spider diagram connecting different names to Neil Buchanan. And the only direct line is his website. And he never, ever got back to me. So I was really hoping, almost hoping that I could have made it my thing.

If I did indeed manage to track him down, I would have tried to have somehow kept that a secret from you two and just talked about the journey that got to that moment. But we've really fucking tried to get Neil in some way and that was ultimately fruitless, sadly. Yeah, we tried to get others as well. I DM'd the social media manager representation for Brian Butterfield, who we have directly communicated with back when he was on our podcast.

podcast. So I've had a bit of a back and forth with them over the past couple of years. And then in May, I sent a message to them saying that we would love just a little video message or even just a sound recording from Brian. Sadly, nothing. I sent a message to email me DBP to try and get the man himself. I mean, initially, again, just a video message. Dear Dave, my name is Peter and I'm writing on behalf of the Podiat's podcast. You may remember us from a period of social media silliness as the video's YouTube channel around 2018 to 2019

through which you were an excellent sport. I then reminded him that he has done video for us before just to sort of in case he was like oh these guys I'm like yeah but but you did though you did it so maybe you'll do it again nothing. I then sort of handed it over to you as well

didn't I ban in case that might help but you also got nothing at all. I did get a reply. Oh of course sorry you did from Yes. Yes. Agent. So this was Dave's agent in air quotes.

We're still not entirely convinced that it's not just Dave. But I had been in touch with this agent previously to get the video messages, including the time famously on the podcast where he said, just pay whatever you think is fair. Yeah. What does that fucking mean? You're his agent. So I got in touch and he did get back and he said, yeah, you know, sounds great.

You know, send over a script. So I wrote a script and, you know, it had. had all the stage prompts and direction and so on in there. I thought that this looks professional. Even Dave can't fuck this up, even though he has previous. And a week went by and I chased up, just said, oh, did you get the script? He said, oh, yeah, yeah, I've got the script. I'm just waiting on Dave.

And then a bit longer went by. And then I sent sort of, I followed up with a message that was similar to yours, Peter, about just out of interest, how much would it cost to get Dave to appear at the show? Yeah, that's what I put at the bottom of my initial email after the video. message inquiry. Yeah. No response to that. So I then just looped.

I just ignored. I ignored it as well because I was like actually, if we can get the video message, that would be fine at this point. Replied, you know, just checking in again. Any update? And he got back and said, hi, Ben. Yeah, so Dave's decided he's not doing video messages at the moment. And I'm like, that's, we all, we all said to each other, that's bullshit.

He's just, he's just decided he doesn't want to do it for us. And he's, you know, he said, yes or his agent said yes you know so unfortunately that was a that was a dead end at which point we all decided right fucking game on Dave

we would have if you if you appeared for us we would have treated you like royalty if you did a video message for us we would have had a little joke but we would have been very grateful now we're going to take the piss and it didn't have to be didn't have to be like this at all

because the way we offered his physical appearance, I said in my initial message to him, not just we'd love to have you, but like, I think it would be, it would go down and it would bring the house down if you came on, not just to appear on stage, but to sort of get your own back on us. And we would, I said like, I mean, there's too much AV equipment for a full on gunging, but like you could definitely come and just shove some shaving cream custard pies in our faces. Like, please do come along. And make us the butt of the joke and have your final, you know, get the last laugh. So we were very much open to kind of almost fall on our swords for Dave.

But hearing nothing back, it was decided quite late on in proceedings, like maybe only two or three weeks before the show to get a replacement, right, Mikey. That's right. Yeah, we figured, well, if you can't get real Dave, maybe we can have a stand in for Dave in the form of a cardboard cutout. and so we well we research we spent a little while researching options we had the option of either having like a sexy chippendale with Dave's face stuck onto it yeah in the end we decided to go like full on jazzy 90s Dave and his full colorful get up and we got like a life size accurately sized Dave Benson Phillips sent to a party making factory a party making factory like a party supplies company and the poor people who had to call you up and ask, ask, ask, Ben, if they could send the file for this, for the, for the, for the, for the,

Benson Phillips cut out, please. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know what? They did a great job. It arrived into, it was a custom order. It arrived in time and it looked great. It was, yeah, magic.

And, yeah, well, you got to live with him in your house for a week, just poking his cheeky little head around. I didn't, I didn't dare to remove him from his sort of cardboard crypt. until we were all together. Yeah, we thought, well, we thought we'd lead into it and just, yeah, just have, like, well, we got the get-your-own-back music ready, like to act, like, be part of his appearance. We weren't really sure what Dave was going to do until on the day.

And then on the day, we just decided, well, we just stand here and let the song play out and just hype up the crowd at the Dave Benson-Philips Carpock get out and, like, treat it as if, it was, like, try and tease as if, you know, Dave Benson-Philips could actually be there. which we were slightly scared would maybe upset people, but it went down well enough. I think Dave did still manage to bring the walls down or bring the roof down, despite the fact he wasn't actually physically there.

He's there in spirit, though. The power of DBP. Spirit is almost the right word because Fixer Freddy was in charge of putting Dave behind the curtain and then removing him from behind the curtain during, you know, while we were on stage doing other bits. And after we finished the second show and went backstage for five minutes before coming back out for the meet and greet, he had placed the ghost of Dave Benson Phillips just in at the end of a long backstage corridor. So we came through this door and we crapped our pants for a moment there because he was just there waiting for us in this slightly spooky corridor.

He was illuminated by one of the dressing rooms. So he was lit from the side. It was like, we've been pretty tense. all day. We'd kind of been like just flying by the seat of our pants and we finally step off stage after like the last show and we could breathe a sigh relief and then just to open the door to Dave Benson Phillips staring at us in the distance in a corridor was a nice cherry on top I suppose. So Dave, we got Dave sort of. Yes, yes. Obviously the incomparable Simon Miller who, and I'm sure he won't mind me saying this. We did offer and wanted to pay him for his time,

but he volunteered it gladly, and he was so excited and happy to be involved. And just such a good sport, as always. And yeah, he doesn't know how to say poddietz, but that's fine. You know, he doesn't need to learn it now. He's got it down. And obviously, there was a bit of a funny mix-up, wasn't there, Mikey, with the Miller video? Because we scripted it so that it had sort of like a Mr. Black-style, welcome to the morning show.

And it didn't quite go to plan. In all of the things we've been prepping and testing and rehearsing and getting right, the one thing, like one of the things I messed up also just so happened to be the very first part of the show where I accidentally played the wrong video message of Simon Miller. I played the afternoon one at the morning show. And so, yeah, I think it was the countdown had seen. started and we were stood behind the curtain where DBP would also stand to me, 45 minutes later. I remember as well, we were stood there and there was kind of a few audio cues.

You had to go off to know where we were in terms of like the countdown and how close we weren't to going on stage. And there was a bit where the countdown remix starts playing. It's just like, all right, this is a minute countdown. I remember thinking to myself like, oh, I wonder where we are on the countdown. And suddenly at that point, it was just a 10. from the audience and that woke me up. It was like, oh, right, okay.

Here we go. There's a noisy mass of bodies there. I got distracted. Where was the starting there? Miller. When we'd done the final run through, I'd been, well, we'd all been sort of making little notes and bits and bobs.

Like, we need to sort this thing out. We've identified a small issue here in the run through. And one of the things I wrote down was put the correct Miller video queued up because we had the afternoon one queued up. just we picked one of them randomly for the test and uh yeah yeah i think it was we stood there and ben turned to me and just said like oh this was peter he did swap was absolutely oh was it i can't i can't let him not have his flowers he you did uh change the video right and i just i was like i had a moment of like oh no it was just it was like to to fix it would mean going out on stage stopping the

video in the middle of it and starting all over again so we just decided it's funny it's funnier this way It's fine. This is funny. It's like we've done it on purpose. And then we switched it for the afternoon, didn't we? So we switched it. Yes. To continue the tradition.

I've seen you decided to come to the morning show. Yeah. Yeah. So that was good. Another person we reached out to unsuccessfully was one Bobby Babylonie, whose music we obviously ended up using as a walk-on. Hello, Bobby. I hope you're well.

My name is Ben and I co-host a comedy podcast called Podiot. I'm inquiring us to your availability for a short recorded video. After eight years of the podcast is, concluding with a live show in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, because she's American, she might not know. In mid-July, we are huge fans of the jingle on your website and have been obsessed with it for many years now. We just know it would make the show

to be able to play a video of some sort from yourself in front of our audience. It wouldn't need to be long, blah, blah, blah. Is this something you'd be able to help with? What would your fee be? This was last, like mid-June at some point. No reply. A week later.

Hi, Bobby, just wanted to check in, see if you've seen my email. Hope you well. Hi, Bobby, it's Evelyn. Not a thing, not a reply, unfortunately. So that was a dead end too. A lot of people suggested, oh, it would have been cool if you'd managed to find Michael Jugson. I think that would have been impossible.

And also, can you imagine... Exactly, can you imagine what a liability he would be... Not even from like a joking perspective. That could be, you know, based on the small amount of footage we've seen, that could be genuinely a very unstable, Like that would not have been a good idea to have him at the show. Yeah, he would have needed jugs and chaperone to mind him all night. And make sure he's didn't get into mischief.

Wow, I forgot how wide the net we cast was for people. We also tried Irish Dave to bring his reels and tucks as well. Dave on Twitter, yeah. I sent him a DM and said, firstly, like, could he possibly even make it physically in person? And he said, so sorry, like best of luck, guys, but I don't think I can get there. And then kind of a bit too late in the day, I sent him a, because it was a last minute idea. I kind of thought, oh, he can't be there. But actually, what if we get him to just record into his phone, him saying,

guys, before you start, would you like any drinks? And we could just add a little bit of reverb to it as though he's behind the curtain. And we could just look over our shoulders and go, no, we're all right. Thanks, Dave. No, we're all right. All right, great. No worries. Enjoy the show.

Sadly, too late. to get that organized from Dave, but he did wish us the very, very best, which is lovely. It is lovely. And it's when you list all this stuff that we tried and failed to get for the show, that I think you can probably start to understand why maybe we were, you know,

one of the many reasons we were very nervous for the show. Like what, you know, people might expect Dave, Dave Benson Phillips appearance or like, what about special guests? You know, we, I mean, I certainly felt like I felt a bit sad that we couldn't have, we couldn't follow through on some of the things that we wanted to do. And I was a bit concerned like, is the show going to be a bit dry?

Like, are people going to be excited about it? You know, we wanted to put on the best show possible. And if we'd have gotten everything we wanted, it would have been unbelievable, quite frankly. Yes. But we got Miller and, you know, we all brought our things along and we had the idea to have a special guest in each show that we had control over. that was relevant to poddits and vidiates. We did, yeah. We had two special characters.

We went all out since we couldn't get any of the rest of characters. We brought them to us. So the lucky people in the morning show got treated to a raid by a psycho seagull who stormed the stage and stole Peter's lunch in the form of some plushy chips and threw them about the audience. It was really nice, actually. at the meet and greet, several people came to see us and they got something signed and then as they turned their back to walk out the door and say bye,

on two occasions I saw a little chip sticking its head out of their backpack. So a few people got a little bonus souvenir from that, which was lovely. It was just a byproduct of throwing chips into the audience. It was nice. And then on top of that, I can't remember why we went with both. Did we kind of originally think we might put both of them in both? shows and then we're like oh let's split them up but uh i think we wanted to just distinguish the like differentiate the shows yeah because we knew there probably be the first again we can talk about this

in more detail in a minute but i think mainly our concern was that we would all have to react to the same stuff for a second time um and and also you know if anyone did get tickets for both shows then it you know it changes it up slightly it makes it feel a little different a little more fresh so we looked at getting a Mr. Blobby costume and those are available on you know Amazon where it's just sort of an inflated bit of polythene or you know you can get them from costume shops for whatever price and they just come by post but then we also realize well you can hire a slightly more not just a kind of costume shop Halloween outfit version but the one of the one that we found, well for one thing, when it arrived, we discovered it had had some considerable use

and was a little bit matted, a little bit sad, big crust. Like his eyelashes were not quite on fleek. But in addition, we realized whilst ordering it that it wasn't legally Mr. Blobby. Instead, it was the slightly distinct, unlicensed Mr. Blueby. I think of one of the shows we talked about that, but the other one we didn't, so that might been used to some people who were there. Yeah, Mr. Blueby. Mr. Blueby.

So, yeah, it was a planned stage invasion in both shows to shake things yet. Just sort of give each show a little something special and have a different fun thing. I suppose we should probably maybe address the fact that the matinee show was different to the evening show. and that the main thing that carried across was Pod Squad, of course, and Mikey's thing was the same. But I think we, after seeing it the first time, both Peter and I managed to notice more things to react to and new details. So actually it was even, it was a lot of fun the second time as well.

Yeah, I was really pleased because it was like the content was the same, but we took, I think everyone kind of noticed different things and kind of latched on the different bits of it. And I think as we knew the story, you start listening out for different things. And I think the absolute highlight of my thing is when Ben spotted that one of the emails I'd sent in my months long hunt for the origins of the image was sent at like 1257 AM. It's just this deranged letter email asking, do you know where this memes come from? Who's recognised as monkey? I think it was the biggest laugh of the night of both shows, spotting that Mikey had been sending small monkey John Deerty. emails at 1 a.m.

Only the important stuff gets sent at 1 a.m. And Thomas the sound engineer loved your thing as well, Mikey. He said it was his favorite. He did, yeah. When we saw it after. It was important to us that, you know, we had communicated with the audience in full sort of honesty that... Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer.

That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Both shows will essentially be the same because initially we didn't want people buying tickets to both, thinking, oh, no, I'm going to miss some stuff. And I think we kind of struck a really nice balance there in the segments, you know, if you just, which is bullet point the names of things, you could definitely write a generic piece of paper that absolutely applied to both shows.

You know, I mean, Mikey's thing was the same. Mine was a quiz with different questions both times. Yours was not the onion, Ben, but with different stories both times. Yeah. We had bird news, but two different stories. Stage invasion, two different characters. But, you know, so overall, the show was, essentially the same thing, but different enough that people who came to both in the end hopefully had a really good time at both shows. And, you know, I think there were probably more people at both than we expected, particularly as you were saying earlier, that, you know, last minute, there were some more ticket exchange, even for free. I think on the day, people were swapping them. Yes. We met and regret someone after the matinee show who said,

I'm going to, I'm just waiting on a DM back on Discord now, so I might come to the evening And then we did see him at the evening one. Yeah, you're right, Peter. We did say from the very start that like because some people were trying to, you know, I mean, amazingly, very fortunately, the tickets weren't up for long enough for people to even choose between the two. But people were curious like what's the, what is the difference? And I think, yeah, as you said, from the very start, we communicated that the structure of the show will be the same. but the content of the different bits of the show might be slightly different.

Because we didn't want anyone to miss out. And perhaps just as importantly, Peter and I, well, all three of us, didn't want to have to sort of almost not fake reactions, but sort of pretend we never heard the stuff that we'd heard in the, you know, in the matinee show for the evening show. So this was, and I didn't want anyone to have an advantage at the second quiz as well. Yeah, true. Very, very true.

Okay, what do we talk about now? Like, are we talking about how fucking nervous we were before we went out? Yeah. We could do, but I think actually just while we're on the subject of the two different shows, we should probably touch on the fact that we did record both shows in full. Yes. captured. And I think, you know, ultimately we will make sure that the matinee variations go out in some form, whether it's an entire matinee cut, admittedly maybe with slightly less editing, just as a

kind of bonus material, or maybe even just snip out the main bits that were different and just mash them out in a little, hey, here's all the cutting room floor stuff that wasn't at the evening show. Here's the matinee stuff. But if you were at the evening show or you weren't at any show at all and you were curious about what was at the morning. We will get that out somewhere, somehow eventually. That will come, I think. Yeah, the priorities, obviously the episode that's gone out, which was the evening show, that largely being not suggesting that it's superior in any way, it's just more that from the very beginning, obviously we were planning on doing a show at that time. And the matinee was a fantastic bonus that we were able to do once the tickets sold for the,

for the evening show so quickly. But they do differ, and it would be sad if that was not lost, but if it wasn't eventually released. But that is, for now at least, again, speaking three days after the event and before the evening show's even gone out, that is not currently the priority, but it would be nice at some point for us to get that out there. So keep your eyes peeled. Yes, yes, for sure.

Nerves. Nerves, yeah. I like, yeah, like, I didn't feel all that nervous and like the days leading up to the event. I think, I think we were all quite preoccupied, like trying to tick many boxes and finish our things and just put together things. So we never really had the time to kind of wallow in in being anxious about it. At least I didn't until like the morning of and I was just turning up to the event, turning up to the venue and just seeing all these boxes being laid down, all these people entering the room. room and suddenly realizing, oh, right, it's like, we've got to put this thing together. And like, like, we've got to do this to a point where, like, we're, like, we make the audience

happy. And I think I went a good, a little bit quiet for about an hour in the morning as I was like, heads down trying to get the, uh, the tech set up together, which thankfully did come together. But still, it was just, it was a slow, slow build and bubble was like, a little bit started coming together. We started, like, rehearsing, like, the key beats the show. We had, like, everyone watching. and like it was all quite relaxed and casual and like it all did kind of build up quite naturally and like everything kind of flowed quite smoothly but slowly kind of like it was almost like the the uh the uh what's the word I'm looking for the uh oh the oh god help word

a looming uh threat the stakes kind of started piling up I guess like it was kind of like as things started coming together it was kind of like all right we start because I think we kind of really only properly figured out the show at about 12 PM. Yeah, we had a running order, but we were like, we had it typed up and like prepared, because we wanted to run through it on stage and with the, you know, thinking practically about things like, okay, so how's Dave getting behind the curtain? Right. So at this point, on the running order, Fred needs to put Dave behind the curtain. You know, that sort of stuff that we couldn't really do until we were there.

Yeah. I kind of felt like most of the morning, fortunately, well, at the time, it felt like it was not, rushing by and you know it did kind of feel like okay we've got time to do everything we need to do the merch is being set out there was a bit of a scary moment at one point where the laptop was not connecting to the projector and I was just very I went very quiet as well watching Mikey and sound engineer Thomas just sort of on the stage trying to work it out and I was like I kind of want to go over there and just see what's going on but it's not going to be helpful if I'm breathing down their neck so people would I there were several times people came up and were asking me about

logistical stuff saying, oh, what should I do with this, Peter? And I was like, sorry, what did you just say? I'm just staring at the stage right now, waiting for that projected to work. And eventually it did. I think thanks in no small part to Thomas, actually. I think he fixed that particular issue. Yes, thank God. But then I kind of felt like, although it was, it was all going fairly smoothly for the most part, and we felt like we had a lot of time, suddenly it was half past one. Like, it didn't rush by until it had all gone. And then it was like, wait, no.

Like, people are outside right now. And we need to be out of this room by five to two because they're going to be piling in. And we've not really done a full, proper, thorough run through at that point. We just hit some beats, written some notes like, oh, shit, we need to fix this thing and that thing. But it was very, very nerve-wracking. And then, I mean, sitting backstage. and just waiting and the anticipation knowing people were filling the room up. Once it got to the point that people started filling up the room, we were essentially locked.

Yeah, we were away. We didn't have free room with the place anymore. We had to be kept behind the stage. Like, I remember poking at one point and making eye contact with an audience member. I was like, oh, God, like, yeah, this is it now. Like, we can't go back out there to fix anything or anything. We were running with it now. Just sitting in the changing room.

and like you could hear the the corridor door open at the bottom and just almost like sort of the grim reaper approaches you like here he comes and freddie pokes his hammer and said right three minutes boys all right okay and then you just go again and then your stomach just does a somersault and it's like oh god i uh i nipped into the stage just before well what i thought was just before they were about to open the doors just to either put something on the table or grab something from the table to bring backstage for us. And there was no specific warning to us that like, okay, doors are open. And I actually ran past four or five that the people right at the front of the queue.

I ended up having to walk past them and just sort of cover my face saying, I'm not here. I'm not here. Don't look at me. So I did very briefly see a couple of early birds. So hello to you if that was you. But I think where I was most nervous, as you might expect, and I'm sure it's true of you guys as well. We're standing actually in the room behind the curtain on the stage, not simply because we were there and we're about to go on and that's as close as you can get

to that moment where, oh God, okay, we're there. So it's about as tense as things get. But on top of that, the excellent video that you made, Mikey, for the kind of the buildup where there's some black and white footage with like reverie bits of us saying, hello and welcome to our new channel idiots and it's all these sort of memories. There's like a, there was kind of a low droney kind of ambient music underneath that. And back where we were behind the curtain, it was all bass. Like apparently, well, I know for a fact that out the front, the sound was really good. But, you know, when you're standing behind the curtain, it was just this like threatening, growling, droning noise of like, doodoo, do.

And I was like, the air was thick. It was just like, this is all I need. Like, you know, I'm nervous enough as it is. And I've got this, the most threatening me. music I've ever heard in my life. I really didn't think that part through. I was like, I went a dramatic opening. And then it was just, yeah, then it was like, like literally like like staring down

the Grim Reaper, these like church bells ringing and like apocalyptic soundscaps going on. I think you described it as a brown note, Ben. Yes, it was a bit sort of, yeah, as if our stomachs weren't, weren't upset enough because of the nerves. Just sort of, it's all we, like just blasting into us. Yeah, it was a lot. I didn't sleep well, probably the two or three nights before the show. And on several occasions the weeks leading up to it, I'd just suddenly, my stomach would just suddenly jolt.

And I'd have, like, worst-case scenario thoughts going through my head. And I was just like, I was worried people would be disappointed. I was worried people would come up and not enjoy themselves, or someone would have a bad experience and then, you know, have a very justifiable. If they didn't have a good experience, a little grumble online and like, oh, God, do we respond to that? Because I just really, we all really just wanted everyone to have a nice time. Like that was, that was really what we wanted. We wanted to put on a fun show and for people to have a nice time. And all I could think was, what if people don't have a nice time? What if one of us says, you know, something awful, which we wouldn't. But like, that's where my head was. I was like, what if we say something really bad? We're not going to. But what if we do? Like, what if that happens? Yeah, and there were a couple of moments where things happened where in my head I was like, oh God, I hope that's okay.

I hope people aren't thinking right now about this thing that's happened. So for instance, the second half, I managed to convince myself that it was lighter on content than the first, when it wasn't really, it was just a bit different. There was, you know, it was one thing rather than two things in terms of the actual erthings. But, you know, it was supplemented by Dave and by the super secret. video and the questions and stuff. But I think I just kind of looked at it. And even as we were going through that second half on the matinee show,

I was like, are we doing enough here? Like, I can see the ending coming. I'm looking at my running order. I'm on stage thinking, like, is this enough? Can I do something spontaneous now to pad this out or something? And as soon as we were done, I was like, no, no, that was fine. That was fine. And it was the same with the size of the cues for both of the meet and greet.

And especially for the second meeting greet. knowing that people have been queuing and queuing and we had to then announce to the room like we're being kicked out I thought before we even had chance to give people an option of like we will meet you all in the street like are some people going to be like

fuck sake I've waited here and now they're saying I can't even meet them but everyone was just so we've said it already but open to have a great time and they just did as far as I'm aware I think everyone from what we saw they enjoyed it yeah

and everyone that we thanked on the street like saying thank you for being so patient and thanks for waiting around they were all saying to us like no thank you for saying you'd take this outside and finish it off like you know you want to take this outside yeah I want to fucking go

there was clearly no kind of expectation or I guess entitlement would be the not very nice word on the part of the audience to be like no you need to be you need to be out there now like you know they were seemingly just really pleased that we chose to do that. And I mean, of course we did. But yeah, like, no, everyone went away satisfied as far as

I could tell, which was a huge relief. Yeah, I think so. It was, I think we were all quite keen to give people the, like, everyone who queued up. We, we didn't want, like, it was, it was a difficult juggling act, because we were stare at, like, especially in the evening show, like, the morning show, like, the room was filled, but the cue of people that meet us was fairly orderly, and it was just like a single file cue that whipped around the room. But then we emerged for the evening show and it was just like those people dotted about the entire room it was basically like the contents of the room hadn't like people hadn't left they just kind of shuffled around the room a bit yeah and like we were always keen like to give people the time a day because we wanted

to meet everyone as I think as much as they wanted to meet us really and like we didn't like it was a balancing act of like I hope everyone understands that like we're taking our time with people because you'd also want us to spend that time with you and and thanks I think everyone kind of understood like everyone's going to get a couple of minutes like say the piece. No one's going to be rushed away. And just I think that's that made the whole, the whole ending a lot nicer as well where while we were rushed outside, when we were actually doing the meet and greets.

It was never rushed. Like everyone got to say their peace. We got to like talk to people. We got to like ask some questions and really like going to be like, oh, what's your username? Oh, it's you. And da, da, da, da, like, put all these years of history together, which is lovely. Yeah. No, absolutely.

And another point of nervousness, just just going back a second. is, was that like when you went backstage, there was no signal. There was no phone signal. There was no Wi-Fi reception, even though the password for the Wi-Fi was stuck on the mirror in the dressing room. Like, you couldn't, it was dead back there. So once we went back there, we had nothing. We had no way to communicate. We had no way to, like, look stuff up.

So I just went like offline for about 14 hours, essentially, on my phone. And, you know, I was saying when I was on my way to the venue in the, morning just sort of chatting in the car with the people I was traveling with like oh like I can't even come and have a look through the curtain and see how many people there are and like oh we'll just we'll come and tell you and like but what if no one what if no one comes because I've been obsessively checking the discord to try and reply to everyone you know we've all been really trying to get back to people if people have questions and I just keep looking at the that's like obsessing over the ticket resale channel and there's so many tickets like that people you know

the people are trying to get rid of. What if nobody bloody comes? That was just, yeah, that was a real, I did that to myself, though. Like, I shouldn't really have been thinking too much about that channel because ultimately you go through and you count how many people couldn't actually come. It wasn't that many. And, you know, the vast majority could come and a lot of tickets changed hands, so that was fine.

But that was another thing that we were just reassured about by our amazing team as well. You know, after the first show were at the halfway point, They were like, we were just looking at the people in the audience. And you were just doing Pod Squad and they were all just grinning. Like they were just absolutely loved being there. And that was so reassuring to hear. And, you know, obviously everyone did come. So that was great too.

And it's confirmation bias as well. I think it was one of the team who was trying to reassure us about the, oh, what if, you know, there's so many people doing ticket exchange. They were like, well, for one thing, no one's going to be posting on the Discord. Well, hardly anyone's going to be posting saying, well, I'm still coming. Yes. Does anybody not leave a ticket? Because I'm using. So not only do you only see the people who unfortunately can't make it, but then I think also

the part of the problem, because I was obsessing over it too, I think part of the problem was you see the opening message that someone might put in there saying, I've got a ticket available if anyone wants it, and then you see no reply underneath that. Some of them didn't get immediate replies or direct replies saying, I'll have it. But probably because people immediately took it to DMs and said, like, I'll have your ticket. I think based on the fact of how far. full it was in the end, that must have been what was happening. Because although you don't necessarily see people in that channel saying, I will take that

ticket, most of them definitely got reassigned by the looks of it. So, yeah, it's so easy to obsess over that stuff. But of course people came. I mean, it seems obvious now in hindsight. I know, why would people come all this way if they didn't want to enjoy the show as well? That's another thing. I knew logically that was the case. but my stomach was in panic mode.

And so, yeah, you just assumed the worst. But that was, again, our amazing team really put us at ease, especially Freddie, you know, coming backstage. Like, guys, like, it's absolutely packed. People are there. They're really excited. There's a huge queue at the merch stand. Like, everything's fine.

Like, it's all good. It's going to be great. It's just, yeah, especially if you're locked back there with no signal. And it's so fucking hot. And we need to talk about that as well, that you just sort of feel like, Oh, God, what's happening? We're sat in the changing room and the dressing room. And like to our right is a dangling Mr. Blueby outfit.

Dave Benson Phillips cut out to the left. It's just such a bizarre scenario to be stuck in. Yeah. Just an absolute madness. But that's another thing we need to thank people for as well. It's that the venue was really fucking hot. It was so, so warm in there. The airflow was not good.

And again, especially with the meet and greet, everybody so patiently queuing for so long and being gracious enough to allow us to like spend a bit of time with each person so it wasn't just sort of right what do you want signed photo cool get out of here you know that's the thing we were able to we're able to talk to everyone we never felt any kind of pressure to like keep things moving really quickly um until the the evening show when uh one of our helpers came over and whispered like mr president um the It was such a dramatic moment because it was like Ben, you got pulled aside

and me and Peter were still talking to her. And then I pulled Peter aside. Keep them calm. Like glancing over, you're like, what's going on? What's going on? Mr President, the venue has a curfew of 1130 and it's 1120. I'm like, oh shit, well, what do we do? Well, we've got a bit of wiggle room

but we think we're probably just going to ask people to come outside. I was like, okay, right, well, we can't do the load it outside the loading door. because it's like a really steep cobbly street and that's not good. And obviously we want to see everyone who has mobility issues in here now. So they don't have to go up to the street. And so Mikey very bravely made the announcement. And everyone was... Yeah, you jumped straight in.

It's like you wanted to do it. Yeah. Big brave boy. I did quite like... This is the moment where we upset everyone. Teacher voice. I figured I was like, I think in the moment it was like I just wanted to be helpful. Yeah.

And it was just like, we just need to let people know that they need to move outside. And at that point, we didn't really have any information to give to people because Freddie was outside sorting out the queue and making sure everything was, like, going to work out. But I just shouted out, hello everybody. Thank you for waiting. Unfortunately, we have to fake it.

The premises fairly soon. We will continue the meet and greet outside. We will see every single one of you, but we do have to leave this room. And there was a lot of like, well, how do we file out? How do we get out? And I think that's when we started looking a bit panicked. There's no one here.

You've got everyone's attention. Everyone understood, you know, we apologize to people who are next in the queue. And you know what really filled my heart next when we actually got to the street? Is that the queue seemed to have reformed itself in exactly the same order. Like people actually let everyone go in the right order. So people who are at the front downstairs were at the front outside and I was like, oh, this is great. Like I'm really glad everyone was being decent about this. Yeah, the poor people.

front of the queue who got cut off. Sorry, you have to wait a little bit and go outside. I was very glad to see them stood right at the front of the queue when things resumed. The funny thing was as well that obviously we'd been offering people the chance to pose with Billy in their photo or pick another prop from the table. So we were like, oh, we kind of need the props outside. Like the belt is very popular. Jeff has been chosen a couple of times.

The pregnancy test. Yeah, yeah. Like which props do we need? And at that point, I don't even know where the carrier bag came from. I don't know if Amy brought it to me or something, but there was just an ASDA bag. And I just had to shove Billy in the bottom of a shopping bag and, you know, Jeff very carefully, the mongoose and a pregnancy test, just bung them all into a carrier bag and drag them out onto the street with absolutely no grace at all.

There's a photo that someone took of Billy just face down on the table outside because it was just so wonderfully chaotic the last, you know, sort of half hour of meet and greet and we were just sort of throwing things around like trying to make it work. And it did work, fortunately. The fact that someone even thought to bring a table out for us, you know, that's again the kind of switched on-ness, which is definitely a word that they had our team. Yeah, it was good. And we got through everybody. Everybody was really lovely and so, so fucking patient because it was gone midnight. Like we finished the meet and greet at about half. 12 and people were still patiently queuing up and everyone was lovely everyone was so

understanding and it was just it's just a bloody it was a bloody dream come true it was an absolute dream everything we did went as well I could have done without the nerves but everything went as well as it possibly could have done everyone was so lovely and it was just yeah just just great what a day it was and thank you to everyone who brought stuff for us as well. Oh my God, yes. Custom billies from Plushy Labs Jennykin.

We had some art, physical art, like a version of the physical version of an art that was submitted for the art gallery as part of the show from David Lever, which I imagine has probably been published on the socials by the time this recording goes out. We had some badges. We had some badges. We had some pin badges.

Yeah, the pin badges were great, yeah. And we're just on the subject of David as well. He said that he'd recently been. Well, it sounds like he'd been all over the shop. I can't even remember the names of places he said he'd been to, but he'd been sticking meat face stickers at various locations across the world. Again, he says he's going to send us the photos for those, so maybe they're out already.

But the craziest one, which he said he wasn't able to photograph for legal reasons, is that he put a meat face sticker somewhere very surreptitiously in the Korean demilitarial. zone. So he reckons it won't be found and won't be moved for a very long time, if ever. So right now there is a meat face at the DMZ, which is just bonkers. What an effort. What an unbelievable effort. Yeah, so that that was the day. And then, you know, we'd, we, everything was bundled into, well, again, amazing team. While we were doing the meet and greet, we needed to be out of the venue by a certain time. Apart from the people taking photos for us,

The rest of the team was emptying, the changing rooms, packing up all our gear, loading it into cars. Again, something we wouldn't have had time for. And we absolutely would have had to have cut the meet and greet short or asked people in the queue to essentially wait half an hour and then we'll be back. Just total peace of mind that this stuff was being handled. So the three of us met up at yours, didn't we, on Peter on Sunday? And we just had a nice catch-up.

and we sort of, you know, swapped things over that had gone into the wrong, you know, wrong person's car and stuff like that. And, yeah, just, just unbelievable. I don't, I don't, I can't really put into words, sort of what an almost fairy tale ending that was for Podians when we had initially agreed to just end with a normal episode, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, which was sort of Christmasy as well. Yeah. a little bit like okay that's how do we make this work as a final episode and uh yeah no it was what a way to go out and um yeah to to be able to meet everyone and share memories and listen to that stupid song and yeah it was uh just a dream dream come true yeah like vidyots has changed evolved our lives have changed and like we're all very different people to when video it's ended and I think video itself has been like had ups and downs has been like good times bad times but to have I know the culmination be that's like a massive roaring success

like basically a celebration of everything um I think it was always it was very high stakes because we basically had one chance to do this and like there was no retakes if something went wrong it was like that was like if someone went drastically wrong then like that was it there wasn't really a chance to to again so like when everything came off it was just like cool like this is a nice little bow on top of videos I think where yeah we've been able to like do something like

we've been able to hit all the notes that people love we're able to do it in like a kind of new and interesting way and we've all like been able to make like a proper like lasting memory from it like it's just yeah it's it's it's delightful

yeah I can honestly say that when people have asked me in the past either people I know in real life or if it's been a question sent in some kind of content that we're making what is your highlight your career highlight from all the crazy things you've done for the past year or so

it is the easy answer for me has been when we were lucky enough to go on I don't have ever mentioned we went on CBBC guys Ben and I and Ash triple jump

and that was an amazing day had a wonderful time it was a bit of a dream come true going on kids TV I can honestly say now and I never I thought it's going to take some beating

but without a doubt the video it's life show now is the best thing I have ever done the best experience I've ever had career-wise or even just in life in general. It's one of the best days I've ever had. I don't hesitate at all to say that.

Does Amy know that? Well, that's why I said a big. He shed a pretty big day. Not as big, not as big, though. She had an amazing time. I think she thinks it's better than our wedding as well, to be honest. Everyone, that's again, I know we keep talking about our amazing team, but everyone was just so into it.

And they, yeah. Yeah. It wasn't just work for them, I think. Yeah, they lifted us onto their shoulders metaphorically and I feel emotionally as well. They were just like, you did it. Well done. That was amazing. I had so much fun. I laughed loads, you know, and they're biased, of course. But it was just, yeah, they're the best. They're all the best. They really are, yeah. Yeah. My parents even made as an appearance at the first row of the day. So it kept very quiet. They were, they were hidden away up on the, on the balcony. And like my parents bless them are like I think they loosely understand what

Vidyates is but throwing them into a live show is putting them way out of their depth. And they did say after the show like we had no idea what was going on but it was bloody wonderful. We laughed from start to finish or something. Yeah. Didn't really get it but we were laughing all the way through. That's great. That could just go on poddy its tombstone, couldn't it?

Didn't really get it? But you know, we laughed. We laughed no way to it. So it's like. Yeah. And then before they hurried out the day. door my man pulled out a little bag of crisps called crinklies. I've eaten, you have some crinklies.

Like you're a little dog. That's great. Crinklies. I tell you what, though, it's like, it's also bittersweet, obviously, because this is the end. It does sort of make me kind of sad that we didn't think to do this earlier so we could have done a few. Yeah. You know, so we could have done one of these a year, for example.

I think it would have been really lovely. But it almost, it makes it that. much more special that this is just a one and done. You know, that this was, this was it. Would I necessarily, if we were to ever do anything like this again, obviously not poddietz, but would I necessarily suggest we do two shows back to back again? Probably not. Because you should have seen us slumped in that green room, eating pizza in silence for the

half an hour before the next show started. Eating our half a pizza. Yeah. Just really tight. tired boys that, you know, very, very excited. We weren't not looking forward to the next show or anything, but it was just like the adrenaline was just mad that day. It's like we know that we should eat,

but also if we eat loads of pizza, will we be able to stand up again and will we have energy? I mean, fortunately, adrenaline is an amazing thing. And of course, we were able to absolutely perform for the second show. But there was a moment where I was like, oh man, I should have just had one sliced. Like I'm just sitting here now and I can't even think about. Yeah, I think it's, but it was great.

In the halftime break of each show, I was just passing around ginger nuts. Like, right, sugar. Yeah, there's some sugar. Just eat some fucking sugar now. Let's try and get back on the horse. Yeah. Yeah, unbelievable. An incredible day and so cool to have done it.

You know, this isn't from a place of ego or big-headedness, but I'm really proud of us for doing it because I know the idea scared us. and on the day we were scared and we did it and it was really good and there was so much work that went into it, you know, over months and months and months from so many people. And yeah, I'm like,

I don't think I've come down from it yet. We've seen in the Discord channel on the worst games ever Discord where people are still talking about it and sharing photos. And, you know, we're Peter and I are live streaming and we've both only done our, you know, one stream so far this week, but it was full of people,

sharing their feelings on the day and like what a sense of community it was and I feel like as the week wears on it only being Tuesday as we said I think I'm just going to I'm going to start to feel a bit blue maybe you know because it's yeah still feels like it's we're still basking in it you know on yeah sorry Mikey go ahead I was just I was going to say like it's weird because like it's the end but it's such a roaring success for an end it's hard to be sad about an ending because it's like Oh, it's like, that was really good. And like, so like, if we don't do anything ever again, like, fine, because we kind of peaked. Um, like, it's, like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's so much fun doing it.

And it's a bit sad like that, like this will probably, it was never happen again like this. And like, like, like, the output is, is, is dropping off at this point. But it's hard to be sad about that because we just like, not to call it the magnum opus, but it's just, it is the, it is just like this perfect little package that that summarizes eight years of work and me, and in jokes. Yes, great. Well, as people always say, it's better to go out on a high, like while you're still kind of just about putting out the good content,

you know, towards the tail end of poddiots. I think we were like, okay, it's still working, but how long has this got left? And so to go out while it was still, it was still good stuff. And, you know, it was beyond good, you know, the show itself. But, yeah, the podcast was, it still had late. but we told all our funniest dynicotes and we were we were ready to retire it so yeah what better way

to finish it was really refreshing as well to like to go somewhere else with the format of poddiots as well like I think personally like I I struggle with like an audio-only medium like I quite like visual stuff and being able to kind of do all the ideas we've had for pottyets but put them to the nth degree and kind of like adapt them to be in like work in a physical room and like how how do you control the crowd like how do you integrate them into it and kind of like you know it's like adapting it like it's at its core it's the same thing but it's just it's just it was a different way of looking at it it and like different set of challenges and different like set of things to think about so it's like it's it's potty it's but like it's it's sleekest finest most refined form and to go back to

what you were saying then about you know maybe feel or maybe as mike you were saying feeling blue about it potentially as the week goes on. On, keep losing track of the days, on Sunday, I think, I'd just been like taking five. I think I was just having a drink in the kitchen or something.

And Amy came in and she was like, how are you by the way? I was like, what do you mean? I'm a bit tired and stuff. And I know like you're really happy with how the show went, but like, are you like,

do you have post show blues? Yeah. And I was like, oh, you know what? Like at the moment, no, because I'm still riding the question. crest of the wave, you know, I feel, feel so good about it. And yeah, I think potentially that

that may come. And it will be a little sad that, of course, Pottietz and Vidiots is over, but also that the show is in the rearview mirror. But yeah, right now, it's just, it was that good that I'm still not really sad yet. It did. It nearly got me the, just keep Pottietz on, it nearly got me in the second show. The first show, obviously, we'd we ended both shows by standing up and saluting for way too fucking long. To Peter's amazing Keep Polly It's on Repeat song. And the first show I was like, okay, when are we leaving the stage? How is this is taking age?

When are we leaving the stage? But the second show, when I was stood there saluting, the thoughts, the intrusive thoughts, they appeared. They were like, this is it. This is the last bit. Not only are you finishing this, you know, crazy long day and this show, an event that you've been planning and, like, working yourself up about for months now. But like, this is actually the end of potty. It's right here.

You standing here saluting like a fucking idiot while this song that absolutely destroys your heart, you know, pulls at your heartstrings is playing in the background. And for a second there, I was like, ooh, ooh, okay, no, you're all right. It's fine. We're all right. We're okay. It's not, this is not sad time. This is happy time. And it's, yeah, I felt it for a second, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk.

Challenge yourself, friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving, research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.ca. Yeah. I think my saddest moment was sat in the, on the toilet, in the burrito place where me and Peter got lunch after I slept at his house. And I sat on the toilet, and I opened up discord on my phone, and I just scrolled through, like, all these photos. And I just, I weld up just a little bit. I was like, oh, man, I put away the phone. And it's like, look. That's the best place for it, man.

That's the best place for it. Now, we did sort of dangle a carrot at the end that appears to have been not misinterpreted. I feel like if you hear it in the context of, you know, where we were, you would only infer one thing from it, even though it wasn't how it was initially, it certainly intended. But we've spoken vaguely about the fact, obviously, Podiotz is done now, and the reunion streams are done. But that Vidyitz is celebrating its 10th anniversary in a couple of years. years time, which is crazy to think about. And we've spoken very, very vaguely to each other about how it would be nice to do something. Now, personally, I thought basically a reunion stream in all but name, a 10-year anniversary

stream or something like that. But as soon as I mentioned it in front of a live show audience, I feel like everybody thought, ooh, a 10-year anniversary video, it's live show. How exciting. So that's giving us something to think about. I would like to reiterate that there are no plans currently. I think I'm hesitant to say that we've been bitten by any sort of live performance show bug, but certainly now that we've done one, we know it's possible.

So very much, again, no promises whatsoever, but we will communicate stuff to you if indeed there is stuff to communicate. We will. And we're hoping that if, if, if, if that was to happen, that, you know, it's essentially two years away. And will we still have... Yeah, will people care? Will people care?

And I think the answer to that is probably yes, because, you know, it's a shared audience on our various solo ventures now. So it's not like we're going to lose touch with a lot of the audience. And also, of course, the social channels will stay alive for videos. We won't be using them very much at all unless we see. a funny photo of some Heinz Beans or something. But so there will be ways to communicate and to test for interest and stuff. But I was thinking like, again, if, if, if, if we were to do something,

although 2028 is two years away, the process whereby we would have to start getting ready for that is a little sooner. So it's not even like it would be that people will have to wait so long to find out exactly what it is that we do to celebrate that. So, you know, not only did I, I'm glad that you've clarified there slightly bound on what the carrot may or may not be or what the intentions are or what the plans, what plans we do not have, but also that, you know, on the other hand, I wouldn't want to be too much of a tease and kind of be like, yeah, well, it's all kind of over now, but, you know,

in like two years you might hear from us. It's like, well, you know, whatever it is we decide to do, we're probably going to have to start making plans for it in about one year or a year and a half so you won't have too long to wait to at least find out what it is we've decided on so yeah don't want to be too coy and teasy and then make you wait too long so hopefully you at least get an answer without having to wait a really really long time yeah well one thing that we have come away from the show with that is physical is some leftover merch stock. We had many, many satisfied customers at the live show,

and we are so grateful to everyone who purchased some merchies. But there was definitely some interest online from people who couldn't make it to the show who saw the lovely cassettes and the signed vidiates certificates that certifies you as an official videt, the posters and the art prints and all the amazing stuff that we had. and we do have a surplus of a number of those items. And I believe the intention at the time of recording right now is to hopefully get the shop fixed and hopefully give you the opportunity

if indeed it hasn't already happened to buy some of this stuff that we couldn't sell at the show. Yes, that's very much the intention. I'm hoping if you're listening to this right now, It's because the episode is edited and out there and also at the same time, the merch has been released online as well for everyone who couldn't attend the show physically.

This is something I'm about to embark figuring out now. I'm keen, like we do have quite a bit left over and I wanted it all to go to loving homes. So we're in the process of setting up the online shop to sell the remaining bits from the show. I think we should also have one new, exciting bit of merch that wasn't at the show. That will be on the online shop.

And as part of that as well, we'll also, I want to offer, like, as international shipping as possible on those physical items we had made. Some places might be difficult, but we'll definitely try to cover, give options for postage to as much of the world as we can. And so, yeah, like, hopefully that's all gone up without a hitch. And we'll also have, at this point, hopefully we'll stop the hackers from her using our shop for nefarious purposes and we've also got

all of the old merch on there as well for all of the classics as well so you can have your picking from everything over the years to get some final merch yeah brilliant is there anything else you guys want to like any final thoughts

Mikey would you like to maybe start oh I just it's just it's just very nice to have creative control over something like this I think like it's just it's been an honor doing this doing Vidiots for years and years

and like I've learned so much and like we've been through hell and back and I think Vidiots started I've over the last year or two I've kind of come to the realization that I think for Vidiotes to have been successful it happened way too early in life to me to me like to truly like grasp the magnitude

of it and how to like I just didn't like we all didn't really have the experience I think to kind of run with a channel like that make it successful. I think like over the years after Vidyats, we've all gone off and done different things and experience, like, different difficulties in creating things. And, like, we've all kind of been beholden to certain, like, rules and, not rules and guidelines, but, you know, there's certain, like, ways we have to operate.

And, you know, all of those years of working have kind of put into context how special videos was and, like, how free it was. And I think, so to come back and kind of have one last big Vidyat's thing, that's entire ours like this was a completely well you know there's lots of help but it was an entirely independent production like we figured a lot of this out on our own and like we we managed to bring everything together and like I just it was something that we could make ours we could make silly requests because I've spent many years in the job producing events and putting together shoots and stuff and I so I've learned all of like I guess the nitty gritty skills of like what's

what's required and putting these things on and things to consider and like how to budget it and stuff like that. But to then use those tools to do something for me or for us more so. It's really nice. It's not, it's really not very often that you get to put something like this together. Like videos are one thing, but a live event is just like that's, that's, that's a truly rare and special thing to get the chance to do. And along with merch as well, I've got like, I really like, like video content and creating stuff, the internet's cool, but I like having some kind of physical manifestation of it in the world. And so getting the chance to make all these cool bits of merch and like again like i think everything we've ever done we've basically only ever

made it for us uh um especially maybe in like this this show especially but like we've never really bow to expectations of what we think you know like what people probably want it's always like what do we think would be fun to do and yeah this is like a really really good really good like strong tour de force of vidy's prowess i think and and letting the in jokes run run wild yeah sure Yeah, for me, I guess it's more, talking more generally about vidiates as a whole now that it's over rather than just the show, is that there are various positives and favorite things that I can take away from the assorted different places where we have all worked or me and Ben have worked together. So, you know, what culture, first job in the industry, that means a lot to me, although, you know, we've got things we could say about our time there. it was where we met the three met each other and we met lots of other wonderful people

we continue to work with and interact with. Triple jump, you know, that was a wonderful thing to be able to bring on a whole team and, you know, it lasted a very long time and there's lots of things there that I'm proud of. Worst games ever now, it's wonderful to have something that is completely ours and has been from day one.

You know, Ben and I just making something and we're beholden to no one else. But Vidiots, I think it will always be the thing that weirdly, despite it being so kind of juvenile and weird and silly and in some places kind of shit, it will always just be the thing I'm most, most proud of and feel the luckiest to have been able to do. Yeah. You know, it's, I feel lucky in other ways to have been able to, as I say, for example,

bring on a big team of people at Triple Jump and so many other things. But there's a whole, there was a whole different kind of special bottled luck that allowed us to, just mess about for in a positive I'm not saying we're taking the piss but you know just be be silly and actually make something of it make something of that silliness in an amazingly creative exciting way and build that community and that completely unique brand you know it kind of feels like it was lightning in a bottle and I am so proud of what Vidyits was and is and

and I feel so lucky that we were able to do that hardly anyone gets the chance to three people all be paid a wage and then just put out the kind of stuff we were putting out for a year. I mean it's no surprise it ended the way it did but you know whatever like I will always look back on that year and everything that came after with vidyots and polyates as just with such such fondness and yeah it's in its own way it is for me the best thing we've ever done the best company I've ever worked for or best brand I've ever created. Yeah. By some measures anyway. Yeah. I don't know. I'm finding it quite difficult to form a sort of cogent thought about

vidiates and poddits because I feel like in a weird way we've sort of been mourning its loss for the world pretty much since it started. So I feel like we've all sort of been doing a lot of processing along the way. I suppose as much as anything else, I'm just really, really touched that it means so much to people. And we always knew that because the people who listen are so lovely that they will tell us that regularly. And it's nice, but it's not the same as seeing people travelling from across the world to come and watch Simon Miller mispronounced podiates or, you know, do a quiz where we have to listen to three different fart noises. Like it's just

Yeah I said it early on It's like it's life affirming It my heart is full And the the wobbles will Come as they have done in the past And and they will always come to a degree And we will

All of us doubt what we're doing from time to time But I have a feeling that I will be Looking back through these photos from the day And we've all got a poster That we've all signed as well And I'm going to be putting that up Somewhere prominent in my house I'm going to look at that and I'm going to remember Saturday and just how amazing it was

and just how special videts and poddietz is. And I know we're talking about it as if it was a vidyat show, but obviously there were a lot of vidyots aspects in there as we talked about. It was just such an unbelievable day. And I know to a degree, as I said, I was building a lot of things up in my head about like what could go wrong. But the thing I'm most perhaps most happy about is, just how nice everyone was and how much everyone seemed to enjoy and appreciate what we'd put together for that live show.

Because we had an hour and then like maybe a two hour meeting greet where it was just people saying thank you. And over and over again, we were saying thank you back. Yeah, we were just having to say, what do you mean? You came here like this is this is because of you. Thank you. like yeah it's just just crazy and I'm gonna it's it's weird like I'm going to miss it I am and the one of the reasons we've stopped is because I didn't I don't I didn't think and I don't think any of us really thought that we potentially would miss it in that moment where it was okay we've been doing this for a long time now perhaps it's time to start winding things down and moving on to

other things but I'm fast realizing that oh shit like I'm not I'm not going to have anything that I'm working with Michael Johnson on anymore. Yeah. And that's, that's, that's fucking weird because that, we've been working together for, you know,

just talking videos onwards for, for the better part of eight years. And, I mean, yeah, like my entire professional career. I mean, very busy,

all of ours, like, what culture was, well, what culture was my first job? Was it your first jobs as well? In, it was my first industry.

Yeah, in the industry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, yeah, as bonkers like from the beginning like it's been a trio in some way throughout all the all the all the all

threads and stuff that have come on through vidiates yeah it's bizarre and i know we we've all said it to each other ad nauseum especially on sunday and like as we were going through the curtain we were giving each other hugs and like coming back we're giving each other hugs and but like what an honor thank thank you boys so much yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah thank you what a team what a team absolutely yep there's no one I would have rather have done it with and it would not have been anything like it is or was without the three of us all putting our own little

weirdness contributions towards it all yeah yeah because yeah videos is an amalgamation of weird parts of ourselves it's it's not like it isn't there's not like one particular voice in in vidyots and poni it's like it's just this mishmash of ourselves and there are parts where we speak the same language but there's other parts where we don't.

And like, yeah, it's a good, like, it's been a good interplay over the years. And, like, yeah, it's just, it's just been a delight making silly stuff for the internet. And, yeah, what an absolute privilege to get to do that for so long. Like, as I think I said it at the weekend, but, like, the YouTube channel ended seven years ago. Yeah. And, like, it's still kept going and there's still been people watching it. And, like, to get to do that together for so long for, like, such a loyal fan base is just, it's an absolute treat. Yeah.

Yeah. really is. We'll still be able to do funny stuff, silly stuff, you know, that maybe still has some little remnants of Idiot's DNA in there, little bits of language, little bits of in-jokes. It'll just be in different forms on different channels or just on our personal social media. I know Mikey or want to do some more of your solo video channel. And so it's still all going to be there. You don't just have to listen to Pottie at some repeat. you can find it just buried a little bit below the surface, I think, on what we continue to do.

And hopefully some of that will continue to be together as well. Obviously, it's easy enough for me and Ben to keep playing bad games. But Mikey, you ought to come along to my streams or, you know, we've got to, you know, this isn't the last you'll see of us as a three. Whatever we end up doing or not doing for the anniversary, I pledge now to the, to the public I'm beholden to this. You're all my witnesses. You know, I want to keep doing stuff with you guys.

However, you know, whatever form that takes. And yeah, it lives on in some way forever. For as long as birds are trapped in supermarkets, there will always be a video. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the Podiat's channel is, or the feed, sorry, may not be updated with much, if anything from now on, obviously, unless we decide to do something for the 10th anniversary,

in which case we will be in touch. But you can always keep POTIts on repeat and you can always rewatch from the Vidiot's Year. And yes, as you say, Peter, we absolutely should do some streams together at some point when we have some time. This will not be the end of us doing stuff together. It's just not going to be under the yellow umbrella anymore.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, now I'm sad. Yeah, damn it. Yeah, I think it's someone on the Discord side. like, oh, life's going to be a little less yellow without idiots anymore. Whenever I see just any sort of bright yellow, the point of comparison or the reference point in our household is like,

oh, look at that, look at that vidiates yellow van. Oh, look at that video's yellow lamp post. Yeah, that's exactly. That's what it is. That's what it is. Well, you know, we could sit here for ages and, you know, we could. Lament and remember.

But hopefully between this. Thank you. another hundred times. We could, yeah. Between this little chat here and the, you know, the reunion stream, hopefully we've seen off both poddietz and vidyots in satisfying fashion for all of you guys. I know we feel very satisfied with the conclusion here. We'll be in touch if there's anything that we are thinking of doing at any point.

But you mean the world to us. Thank you for your support over all of these years. And we'll catch you down the road. Yeah. I love you guys and I love you too guys. Yes. And love you too. Well done us and well done to everyone.

The commute, not just the three of us, not just the crew, not just the Clooney, but everyone in the community. Even if you weren't there, you know, over the years. But especially the Clooney. We love them. Especially, yeah. Well done Thomas. Well done. Well done.

All of Midiates and Podiers. Came in right at the end, but really sort of made the whole eight year. to see worthy. Yeah, for sure. Brilliant. Okay. Well, look after you. Sorry, Mikey, are you going to say something?

I was going to say, as we always say, I guess, probably it's his ending. Well, it's not ending. It's changing. It's like stars and matter and elements in the air. Everything gets passed on down and down. It's just dissolved and vitiates will be rebuilt in different things along the way over the earth. Little glimmers of it everywhere you look. Yeah, that's beautiful.

That's it. Well, we're going to go. now guys you look after yourselves and look after each other as well what a community that that you are a part of and hopefully those people aren't going anywhere so hold hold each other close look out look after each other stay in touch and find us elsewhere yes for sure yeah absolutely yeah we're around my one my one last aside is just how bizarre it was during when we're doing the pod squad donations whenever someone put kees kees in their donation messages there was a quiet almost like in church doing a prayer.

And also with you. There was, there was. Well, keys, keys to you all. Yeah, final keys keys from us. We will catch you later. Thank you so much, everybody. Goodbye from me. Goodbye from me.

And it's goodbye for me. Bye, everyone. Bye-bye. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca.ca.