Aethercon After-(In)action Report
November 16-18, Imperfekt Gammes attended Aethercon, the online tabletop roleplaying game convention. We provided convention support in the form of prizes, manned a vendor booth, and planned on running demos.
It’s important to me to be positive and professional, but I’m not going to lie; nothing went the way I’d hoped.
The event was, well, a non-event. Over the course of three days, only a handful of people stopped by our virtual booth, and none of our six planned demo sessions (three demos, two sessions each) had enough people wander by for us to run. The entire set-up of the con was confusing for all participants, the Roll20 voice software isn’t even beta-quality, and the con organizers were not ready for how busy they’d be.
It wasn’t a total loss. It was a good time to make connections with other publishers, and as always, the Imperfekt Krue and I had a good time hanging out. We made good use of the time, but that’s not what we were there for.
The idea of the online con has a lot of potential, which is part of why I stuck with this event. We’ll will be interested to see what Aethercon looks like in a few years. I hope that the con organizers learn from this experience, and we hope to hear from others that everything’s been straightened out next year. We’ll see, but unless there are lots of changes, Imperfekt Gammes won’t participate.
I give many, many kudos to the Imperfekt Krue (Joseph Piatt, Keith Schneider, and Kevin-Lynn Kubli) for their hard work in preparing for the con, and for their patience during the event itself. You guys are the best.