Paley Fest 2024

Twenty years ago, I attended my first ever Paley Fest, the annual TV festival held by the Paley Center for Media. I learned about the event by accident back in 2004 while I was an employee at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.

I think it was either a radio ad or an article that I somehow stumbled upon that mentioned that cast members of Smallville, then one of the biggest shows on the WB Network, was going to be part of a panel about the show.

Since I was a BIG fan of the show at the time, I went in search of what this panel was going to be about and how I could attend. That started a nearly 15-year journey for me, attending the annual Paley Fest almost every year from that time on as well as many other Paley events with numerous friends I made over those years.

The Paley events that I attended during that time frame were vast and covered a wide array of TV shows, ranging from Lost to Veronica Mars to Revenge to Outlander to Supernatural to Suits to Castle – and I could go on and on with show titles.

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Every year I anxiously looked forward to the announcement of the panels for every Paley Fest, which were normally announced – well, at least a few of them anyway – near the beginning of each new year.

Typically, the folks at the Paley Center would have about 3 panels lined up at the beginning of January and then a few weeks later the full line-up would be announced. Then it was waiting for the day to purchase tickets and then, naturally, waiting for the big day, or days, to roll around to attend those panels. At one point in time, I would attend more than half of all the panels scheduled each year, having the chance to report on many of those panels for our readers.

How things changed in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic.

While we all had much more important issues to deal with in the world because of that horrible time, the Paley Fest was still held – albeit virtually – and since that time, the annual fete has had to change. There haven’t been as many panels set up over the last few years and let’s not even talk about the debacle that took place last year with the Yellowstone panel. But if you really want to know, if you’re not aware of the scandal, you can read about that here.

This year, the folks at the Paley Center announced Paley Fest 2024 with only one panel confirmed to date. That show is Curb Your Enthusiasm.

It is unclear at this time when other panels will be announced, but this year’s festival will be held from April 12 through April 21, again at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood; and given that the pre-sale of tickets is expected to start next week (January 29 to be exact), I would say the Paley Center needs to be kicking plans into overdrive or else ticket sales will be delayed.

In the meantime, you can learn more about this year’s event here.