Every event at the inaugural Berkeley Storytelling Festival sold out. From Sept. 18–20, 2026, organizers brought performances, a storytelling workshop and an open stage to downtown Berkeley. The announcement came through paid-service content distributed by XPR Media; USA TODAY Network editorial and news staff didn’t create it. Organizers called the festival a new Berkeley tradition. That framing came from them, too.
Who Gets the Stage
The festival took place at Impossible Stage, with four programs: Stories of Berkeley, a personal storytelling workshop, Berkeley Open Stage and a special closing-night edition of Third Culture Tales. Local voices shared the bill with internationally recognized artists, first-time storytellers and musicians, in front of local audiences.
Stories of Berkeley opened the festival on Sept. 18. Its performers included award-winning storyteller, humorist and human-rights activist Max Houghton; Human Rights Activist and Writer Anirvan Chaterjee; Berkeley-raised writer, documentary filmmaker and stunt performer Kelly Richardson; musician, singer, oud player and yoga instructor Sara Saberi; Diaspora Arts Connection Founder and human rights activist Nazy Kaviani; and business leader and arts supporter Payman Najafpour. Festival organizer Shayan Ravandoust hosted.
Shayan Ravandoust, founder of Third Culture Tales, led Saturday’s sold-out workshop. Kavian Ravandoust, a licensed therapist, writer and storyteller, co-facilitated it. Participants worked with character, scene, detail, tension, reflection and performance to turn lived experience into stories. Many had no previous writing or performance experience. By the end, they’d developed and shared stories in a supportive setting.
The Berkeley Open Stage welcomed experienced performers and first-time participants to share five-minute true stories. No judging, no competition. Organizers aimed to make storytelling accessible beyond professional artists. Iranian American singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, educator and Persian setâr virtuoso Fared Shafinury appeared as special musical guest.
The Organizers’ Case
The final sold-out program took place Sunday, Sept. 20: a special edition of Third Culture Tales, a live storytelling platform devoted to migration, identity, cultural inheritance, belonging and life between worlds. The storytellers included interdisciplinary Iranian American artist Shirin Towfiq, UC Berkeley alumna Nasrin Murad, artist and four-time Moth StorySLAM winner Eva Schlesinger, master musician and ney player Mohammad Khodadadi, and Stanford lecturer and First Person Story founder Harriett “Dr. J” Jernigan. Their stories touched on migration, displacement, family, tradition, reinvention, humor and the search for home.
“The response to this first festival exceeded what we imagined,” said Shayan Ravandoust, who led artistic direction, programming, hosting and operations. Ravandoust said audiences listened generously, storytellers took creative and emotional risks, and people stayed afterward to talk. Kaviani said people were “hungry for spaces where they can encounter one another beyond headlines, labels, and assumptions.” Those accounts of what the sold-out rooms meant came from the organizers.
Diaspora Arts Connection is a Bay Area nonprofit that supports artists, preserves cultural heritage and creates opportunities for dialogue across cultures. According to the release, it has presented more than 500 events, supported more than 2,200 artists and welcomed more than 30,000 audience members. The organization described the festival as community-centered, intimate and accessible. It said future editions would continue with performances, workshops, open participation, music and cross-cultural storytelling. Plans for the next festival will come later.
Who Published the Announcement
The release carried an Oct. 6, 2026, date. It identified the content as paid-service material distributed by XPR Media and said USA TODAY Network editorial and news staff didn’t create it. EIN Presswire provided the content “as is” and disclaimed responsibility or liability for its accuracy, completeness, legality and reliability. The page also said an independent third-party provider supplied the information, and XPRMedia and the site made no warranties or representations about it. A sold-out community event—and the promotional machinery telling its story—arrived together.