140 Guests in 1 Ep?! Meet the Podcaster Chasing a World Record

Back in 2023, Rob Oliver broke the Guinness World Record for the longest podcast interview marathon ever. He managed to interview 137 podcast guests in just under 38 hours.

Another podcaster, Chizoba Clara Kronborg, has since taken the record. With an interview marathon under her belt that lasted over 55 hours, she still currently holds the title.

But a few weeks ago, I heard from the latest podcaster to attempt a world record. After completing a whopping 140 interviews in just 16 hours with no breaks, host of The Martin Talk Show, Martin Colton, has attempted to break the world record for ‘the most interview guests in one episode’. 

I spoke to Martin about what it was like to podcast for 16 hours solid, and got some insights into the challenges and motivations of organising a podcast interview marathon with 140 guests.

Interview with A Record-Chasing Podcaster

Q: Can you tell us about how your podcast journey began with The Martin Talk Show?

A: It started about 18 months ago during what I’d call a ‘midlife crisis moment’. I was struggling with my theater and acting career, and feeling a bit lost. Initially, the podcast was going to be a way to promote a business, but it quickly transformed into its own thing, and something much bigger.

My podcast is mainly one-on-one interview conversations. But because I’ve got this community theater that I run, it started to turn into a live show. It started to transform into group sessions where I got different elements of the town’s community involved. It started to become this thing that people wanted to get involved with and I discovered I’m not the teacher, but the student. My curiosity became the driving force, and it evolved into this dynamic talk show that explores creativity and community.

Q: What motivated you to attempt breaking the world record for most podcast guests in a single episode?

A: I’ve always been fascinated by world records. As a kid, I constantly looked through the Guinness Book of World Records. But I was never in a place where I could figure something out: What could an actor do as a world record? The longest play? Everything I thought of, I just felt like it was a bit naff, and nothing was connecting. And then a friend of mine, Leo Shepard, said, “Why don’t you attempt a world record with the podcast?”

“In a way, that felt more important than the world record itself—being able to say thank you to the hospice.”

The actual push came when I lost two close friends who were supported by the same hospice. I saw an opportunity to fulfill my childhood dream, but also give something back at the same time by raising some money for Sinclair’s. I was thinking that I might get £100 tops. But in the 16-hour podcast that we did, we raised £900. In a way, that felt more important than the world record itself—being able to say thank you to the hospice.

Q: 140 is a lot of interviews. How did you manage to get so many guests for a single podcast episode?

A: I knew I couldn’t do it on my own, so I asked my friend Leo Shepard to co-host with me. He’s the one who originally sparked the idea of attempting the world record. 

First, I reached out to previous podcast guests. In the 18 months of running the show, I’ve published over 300 episodes and interviewed more than 500 people, so that was a good start. I reached out to all of those people individually, told them what I was doing and the response was really great. People wanted to be involved. 

The first half of the day, just over 100 people turned up in person. Once I got through all of them, I had some phone calls and video calls too.

Then we hit a wall near the end, where we were short about 17 guests, so I started calling everyone I knew. At midnight, I was reaching out to my best friend from primary school, old work colleagues—anyone who might be willing to join. Between me and Leo, we managed to find 20 people in the middle of the night on a Sunday.

We also had people watching the live stream on YouTube and they didn’t want us to fail so they were sending people our way. So we had a few random people on there towards the end.

Q: And logistically, how did you manage to organise it all?

A: To be honest, it was like herding cats! Trying to get guests to come into the community theatre at certain times – that wasn’t easy. 

I had a small team backstage as well, organizing people and keeping them happy while they were waiting. It was quite nice backstage too – some of them knew each other and there was a real community thing going on. At one point, I could hear singing going on and a guitar being played.

People keep saying to me, “You must have felt really tired,” but I wasn’t. There was adrenaline pumping all the time, and it was fun—actually, really enjoyable.

Q: Did you hit any technical obstacles along the way?

A: There were a few technical difficulties afterwards, yeah. I discovered that both Spotify and YouTube no longer allow podcasts longer than 12 hours! I searched everywhere and learned that there’s no podcast platform that will allow a file past 12 hours unless you’ve got hundreds of thousands of subscribers already and you’re signed up to their creator programs.

So, I had to speed up the audio and video by 1.3 times to fit it within platform limitations. I’ve kept the original file for Guinness World Records verification, though.

And if you look back at the video, the lighting was very nice in person, but unfortunately for the recording, the quality isn’t great for the video. It’s quite bleached and overexposed. I’m learning with this podcast as I go along.

Q: Do you have any advice for podcasters looking to do something similar?

A: Start with friends and family, and choose a cause bigger than yourself. If I was just trying to break a record for myself, I don’t think I would have gotten 140 people together. The fundraising and community aspect was really crucial.

Martin’s world record attempt is currently awaiting verification from Guinness World Records – a process that can take up to 20 weeks. You can still donate to Sinclair’s Hospice on Martin’s donations page and watch the full live stream (in 2 parts!) over on YouTube. 

What’s the most guests you’ve ever had on a podcast episode? Be sure to let us know in the IndiePod Community – it’s free!