RISK! Podcast Announces February Livestream as Part of 2021 First Person Arts Anthology

RISK!, the long-running live show and storytelling podcast hosted by Kevin Allison, has announced its upcoming livestream on February 19, 2021 @ 7:30pm EST will be a part of the 2021 First Person Arts Anthology, an annual festival whose mission is to transform the drama of real-life into memoir and documentary art to foster an appreciation for unique and shared experiences. Early Bird tickets are on sale now for $25 through February 11, and $29 starting February 12.

Founded in 2009 by Kevin Allison of MTV's legendary sketch comedy show, The State, RISK! has been downloaded tens of millions of times and has featured incredible true stories from Sarah Silverman, Trevor Noah, Dan Savage, Margaret Cho, Michael Ian Black, and regular folks from around the world. The show has toured extensively in the USA, Canada and UK, offering audiences the experience of hearing RISK!' s wild and true stories told live.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, RISK! quickly switched to a livestream format, offering fans across the globe the opportunity to watch the show live at least once a month since March 2020. The livestreams have been so successful, both The New York Times and Forbes featured them as prime examples of how touring acts can monetize their shows while stages remain shuttered.

Kevin Allison says, "We've been delighted with how well our live RISK! shows have translated to the Zoom format. Thousands of people from around the world have attended the shows and told us how entertaining and moving they found them to be, as well as how much easier to attend they are when compared to in-person live shows. Distance, physical challenges and parenting responsibilities are no longer the roadblocks to attending shows that they used to be, and we are so glad to hear that."

First Person Arts was founded twenty years ago when they created the only annual festival of its kind to feature true first person stories across multiple genres. Much like RISK! , the festival has migrated their programming to the digital stage, offering the ability to reach a global audience for the first time. The festival, now segmented into four volumes, will launch with the RISK! show. Each volume of the festival will focus on a theme that exemplifies what makes a story truly compelling.

"It is a WITNESS to history; something about the story PUSHes us out of our ordinary world; it empowers us to RELEASE old views, and EMBRACE a new way of thinking or being," says Jamie Brunson, Executive Director of First Person Arts, about the theme of each of the festival's volumes. "This is the powerful movement of the human spirit through life."

The February 19 livestream will be hosted by Allison, and will feature true stories from Jenice Matias, Ray Christian-Dickens, Gabriel Pages and Dave Emanuel, and will begin its broadcast via Zoom at 7:30pm EST. Tickets are on sale now.