COVENTRY’S first podcast studio has been launched at FarGo Village which has welcomed two new businesses, along with the expansion of an existing firm.
The city’s creative quarter just outside the city centre has a strong reputation for providing opportunities for small businesses to grow and this spring, it has celebrated three significant milestones.
Twentytwo Productions podcast studio and 3D Printing Forge have set up in FarGo Village while popular record shop Just Dropped In has significantly increased in.
Twentytwo Productions, a new venture from Twentytwo Digital, is a full-service creative design and digital agency based in the Coventry Canal Warehouse.
The new venue will become Coventry’s first purpose-built podcast studio, accessible for those just looking to record all the way through to a fully-managed podcast production.
Coventry resident Taylor Pattinson, leading the venture, is creator and host of the Waffle Shop podcast which has achieved more than of 500,000 downloads.
Taylor said: “It is going to be one of the most creative spaces in Coventry.
“I’ve only ever recorded from my bedroom because when I’ve looked at going elsewhere for a studio, you’ve either got Leamington or Birmingham.
“This is a purpose-built podcast studio, Coventry’s first, and it’s really exciting to have that title.”
Twentytwo Digital’s head of marketing Emily Williams said: “We’re a bunch of creatives, FarGo is a very creative space.
“We wanted the studio to be within a space where there’s other creative things going on so our clients can benefit from the other businesses at FarGo and vice versa.”
Just Dropped In started life as an independent record shop selling new and used vinyl out of a shipping container at FarGo Village in October 2018.
As its reputation for selling indie, psych, rock, dub and rlectronic music grew, so did its premises and nine months later, business owner Alun Roberts upgraded to a bigger unit increasing the range and depth of vinyl sold.
Now, Just Dropped In has taken its biggest step to the vacated space next door to double the record shop’s square footage.
The increased space will also allow Just Dropped In to build upon its already strong reputation as a live music venue that supports new music and artists as well as an even wider choice of new and second hand vinyl and cassettes.
Alun added: “A bigger unit means we can host more people for gigs, whether we keep stock out or strip it back and fill it up with people, it just increases the potential for what we can do and the kind of thing we can host.
“Coventry is a music city, there’s no doubt about it and the way people have supported the shop, especially since the pandemic, has really blown me away.
“We’ve actually come out of Covid stronger as a business and there’s a real sense of community about what we do and that is really important to me.”
3D Printing Forge is a new business launched by Estonian Argo Hobenael, who first moved to England in 2006 before settling in Coventry two years ago.
What started as a hobby designing and printing 3D objects alongside his full-time job has grown into a passion-project business, with the aim of creating an on-demand service to make 3D printing more accessible.
While 3D Printing Forge’s FarGo site isn’t a walk-in shop, with orders and enquiries coming through its website, Argo hopes one day to open the doors to customers if he goes full-time with the business.
He said: “It’s a cool community at FarGo Village.”
