The Popcast with Knox and Jamie is a nationally ranked pop culture podcast with a highly engaged fan community. Its live shows draw audiences of 1,000+, but I noticed a particular barrier for some fans: they wanted to come, but they didn’t have anyone to come with.

For a community-driven brand, I saw an opportunity. Instead of letting a single ticket mean someone experienced the event alone, what if we gave solo fans a way to find each other before the show even started?

I conceived, built and personally ran the Solo Travelers Meetup, a pre-show experience specifically for fans attending The Popcast Live alone.

I owned the experience from idea through execution in Chicago, Atlanta and Austin: identifying and securing local restaurants, promoting the meetups through Instagram and email, managing attendees, designing personalized icebreaker badges and hosting each gathering myself.

I intentionally capped each meetup at 40 people. The goal wasn’t to create another big event before the big event. It was to create a small enough environment for strangers to actually talk, connect and walk into the show already knowing someone.

The idea was simple: if fandom gives people something in common, fan engagement should give them a way to find each other.

• 103 solo fans participated across three cities, each of whom purchased a $75–$175 ticket to The Popcast Live, representing $10K+ in ticket revenue.

• Created and executed the initiative entirely from scratch, developing a repeatable fan-engagement experience that could travel with the live tour.

• Reduced a meaningful barrier to attendance by giving fans who were hesitant about coming alone a welcoming way into the live-event community.

• Increased connection and participation at the main event, including attendees contributing content to #ThePopcastLive on Instagram.

• Received positive feedback from attendees who said the meetup made them feel less anxious and more confident attending the show alone.

• Sparked connections that extended beyond the event, with participants continuing friendships after the tour stops ended.