Aethercon

*^{Screencap of one of the live feeds at Aethercon IV. Paizo Publishing Q&A Panel in the Coin & Quill room with Sean K. Reynolds, Wes Schneider, Adam Daigle, James Jacobs, and moderator, Rone Barton.}*

AetherCon was an online gaming convention focused on tabletop RPGs, particularly known for being one of the first fully-online high-profile conventions in the tabletop RPG gaming community. It ran annually from 2012 to 2019.

The convention distinguished itself by being an entirely online event, eliminating the need for travel, lodging, or badge costs typically associated with physical conventions. Sponsored by over 200 industry publishers and game companies, attendance was 100% free.

The convention utilized online virtual tabletop platforms to facilitate online gameplay sessions. Including publisher-run game tables, and industry luminary-run game tables.

Aethercon featured a wide range of activities. Such as, live streaming video events including Q&A panels with publishers and industry luminaries, artist events, miniature “speed painting” events, live topical panels and presentations.

The convention also included live face-to-face vendor booths with virtual e-commerce storefronts, voting booths for miniature painting and art submission contests, massive prize giveaways (digital and shipped physical products) to attendees throughout the event, and opportunities to play at dozens of scheduled tabletop RPG sessions via virtual live-feed convention tables.

^{Screenshots from AetherCon Web Platform…}

^{Note: these screenshots are from communications about various stages of development changes I was making rather than actual live event screen captures. They were all I had to share, but accurately portray what the convention platform looked like.}

How I Was Involved

I was a member of the senior staff, senior management, and on the planning committee for Aethercon. From 2012-2018 I was the website designer and software developer for the convention, creating and supporting its web presence and functionality. As with all the staff, the position was unpaid, voluntary, and an effort I took up as a personal project with intent of helping to bring the gaming community together.

When I stepped down from senior staff in 2018, it was on good terms. I volunteered roughly 6,000 hours of work over my seven years in the position, and it just felt like it was time to shift that effort into other opportunities. Working with the Aethercon remains something I’m proud of having taken part in.

I did not continue with development or support for AetherCon VIII in 2019, and the the convention ended its run after that year.

I built the platform that the convention took place upon. The bulk of the system was completely proprietary, built around specifications that the planning committee requested. The convention platform integrated with anymeeting software to create private rooms for moderated live streaming and bolted into the Google hangouts API for participation.

The web platform was divided into self-contained sub-sites called “taverns”, with each focusing on a specific aspect of convention events. Each sub-site was managed by globally shared XML that functioned to keep everything between the areas synced. This allowed the convention platform to be fully scalable to accommodate flex traffic, yet also have centralized back-end management.

With each subsequent year, I would add new features to the convention platform which included:

Self-service ticket system with built-in schedule handling, “roll call” notices when ticketed events went live, and attendee-facing dynamic itineraries.
Vendors hall with “booths” offering live video for face-to-face interaction and built in custom e-commerce storefront management so vendors could sell items in their booth (both digital and physical goods) via their own payment processing services.
Live voting systems with built-in scheduling and syncing to live events like “miniature painting” and “speed painting” contests.
Automated integration into social media for event announcements, and site wide announcements and reminders.
Contest and prize giveaway interface, and attendee tracking (analysis of how the “crowd” moved through the convention areas).
Staging functionality for all live-feed areas to provide “back stage” functionality before live events hit the feed to attendees.
Marketing and advertisement feed based on sponsorship levels, assuring that ad exposure wasn’t tracked unless attendees remained in a given are of the convention for longer than two minutes.
Management of the game hall with announcement system to help make sure game tables were filled to capacity before the games began. Included a “looking for game” flag based on attendee preferences to alert them anywhere in the convention platform when a spot at a compatible table became available, providing them access to immediately claim the ticket if they still wanted to attend.