Welcome to Night Vale is an absurdist supernatural fiction podcast created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, presented as a community radio show for the fictional desert town of Night Vale. Its official site describes it as “a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale,” covering local weather, news and announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police. The first episode was released on June 15, 2012.
Origin
According to Wikipedia, Night Vale “originated as a production of the collaborative writing project Commonplace Books in 2012,” with Year 1 of the show beginning on 15 June 2012. The podcast stars Cecil Baldwin as radio host Cecil Gershwin Palmer, credited as “The Voice of Night Vale,” with Dylan Marron as Carlos, Cecil’s scientist boyfriend and later husband.
The July 2013 Breakout
The show went from cult to chart-topper in a single month. Wikipedia reports that in July 2013 it was ranked second on the iTunes top audio podcasts list and, the same month, “surpassed This American Life to become first on the podcasts list.” It received 150,000 downloads during a single week that July, and its Twitter account passed 20,000 followers. Jeffrey Cranor attributed the spike to “both Tumblr and fans of the television series Hannibal.”
Timeline
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| June 15, 2012 | Year 1 begins; produced by Commonplace Books |
| July 2013 | Reaches No. 1 on the iTunes podcast chart; 150,000 downloads in one week |
| October 2013 | Live shows begin, continuing into 2014 with a West Coast tour |
| July 2014 | Scheduled live show at #DashCon cancelled |
| 2015 | First novel, Welcome to Night Vale; the creators launch the Night Vale Presents podcast network |
| 2017 | Second novel, It Devours! |
| 2020 | Third novel, The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home |
Sources: Wikipedia; DashCon cancellation via Pollstar.
Where to Start
The official new-listener guide says “You can start listening to Welcome to Night Vale with any episode,” and notes that the novels and live shows stand alone. It recommends these single episodes, among others:
| Episode | Title |
|---|---|
| 13 | A Story About You |
| 26 | Faceless Old Woman |
| 33 | Cassette |
| 42 | Numbers |
| 60 | Water Failure |
| 71 | The Registry of Middle School Crushes |
| 79 | Lost in the Mail |
| 174 | Radio Jupiter |
| 224 | Liminal Spaces |
| 272 | Horoscopes |
For a short arc, the guide suggests “The Sandstorm” (19A and 19B) or “The Blood/Space War” (144–149). The show is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube, and by RSS.
The DashCon Cancellation
Night Vale was a headline guest at DashCon, the July 2014 Tumblr fan convention in Schaumburg, Illinois. According to Pollstar, the Night Vale team said organizers “were unable to pay for our flights, hotel, or performance fee,” and the show was cancelled. The full story is at #DashCon.