In October of 2023 Aethermon Studios attended its first SXSW festival, and the inaugural SXSW Sydney. This post is a breakdown about how that went, and the second post about this year’s conventions. You can find the previous post here.

SXSW is a little different from the other conventions and games festivals we have attended. Let’s once again pretend that you are a curious enquirer and I am answering your questions. Ready when you are…

Q: What IS SXSW Sydney?

SXSW Sydney (South-by-South-West Sydney) is the spin-off or little sister festival to SXSW which has been held in Austin, USA for over 20 years. Unlike other festivals/conventions which take place at one location and feature one subject or theme, SXSW is split into different streams of thematic content, and takes place across multiple venues in the one city. You can buy a pass to just one stream, just one event, or to absolutely everything.

In the case of SXSW Sydney specifically, the streams were Film, Music, Tech & Innovation, and Games. SXSW Sydney also differs from its Austin sibling in that all of these streams were held concurrently over one week, rather than over successive weeks – which meant a lot of mingling between attendees and cross-pollination of ideas. 

Q: Were you attending the Games stream?

Yes, Aethermon Studios was invited to exhibit as part of the Games Festival, and specifically the Tabletop Games Festival which spanned the weekend of that week. We were scheduled for two exhibition timeslots, all day Saturday and all day Sunday. When we were not scheduled to be exhibiting we had access to all the other Games festival events as a high priority attendee, and secondary or low priority access to all the Film, Music and Tech & Innovation events.

Q: So you didn’t have a permanent booth?

No, we shared our space with other exhibitors over the course of the festival. However, it did happen that our scheduling was back-to-back so once we had set up, we were fortunate to be able to leave our items at our table space overnight and just re-set them the next day.

Q: What was the booth like? How much space did you have?

Booths for the Games Festival varied depending on whether you were exhibiting as a video game or a tabletop game. The video game exhibitors had two chairs and a roughly 1.2m-wide booth space, with a monitor on the booth top and a second television screen hung just above head height. This meant that demo-ers could sit and watch the action in front of them, while passers-by could see your demo booth even over the heads of the crowd.

As a tabletop exhibitor, we had a 6-foot table, six chairs, and the empty 1.2m-wide booth with the head-height television screen. We used the table for our demos, festooned with our branded tablecloth, and the booth at the back of the table held a pyramid of our games. Underneath the booth we kept our backpacks, extra stock, and so on. Because we exhibited after the video games and thus inherited the television screen, we ran a looped (silent) video on the screen. Do note that this was just how things ran in year one – it may well be that future years have different setups.

Q: This sounds very spacious. Was it a bigger space than somewhere like PAX Aus?

Yes and no. The actual venue was the Mercure Sydney, in one of their event rooms, so it was a much smaller venue space, especially once it got kitted out with 30+ booths and so on. By comparison, the PAX Aus venue is the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, so the room itself is a giant hall like an airplane hangar. 

Technically we probably ended up with more booth space at SXSW Sydney, but line of sight was a little different, how people could move around the space was a little different, and expectations of what we could do with the space were a little different too. Overall – they’re just different.

Q: How did you get invited to the convention?

We had to apply – applications closed around August, if memory serves. We then found out we were accepted in September, and the event itself was late-October. If this feels very short-notice, it might be because this was the first year the SXSW teams were taking on the enormous challenge of running an entire festival, so it’s possible that in future years their timeline may be a little different. Sign up for their mailing list if you want to know.

Q: What was the convention experience like?

Overall much more festival-y than other games conventions we have attended. On day one/Sunday we went to collect our badges, but the Games stream of the festival didn’t start until day five/Thursday of the week, and we weren’t scheduled to exhibit until days seven and eight/Saturday and Sunday, which meant the early part of the week afforded us a lot of time to attend other events, talks, music acts, analysis of technology, exhibitions, etc. This was really interesting, and I enjoyed it a lot. Cross-discipline inspiration is a big part of how I like to engage with my work, so this was a good opportunity for that.

Another thing worth noting is that the hours were quite extensive – if you wanted to, you could attend events from 8am (breakfast mixer) to about 2am (music gigs) practically non-stop except for running between the different locations. Of particular note are the industry awards nights.

Once the Games events began, we attended a few mixer events, which were a great way to meet other industry folks. It’s really hard to introduce oneself cold – an event that is specifically for meeting people makes that much less challenging. We also attended a few Games-related talks, although Games, like the rest of the festival, suffered from long lines for each event, meaning frequently the venue was full before we could take a seat.

Come Saturday and Sunday, the festival was much closer to other conventions we have attended, in that we had no free time and were at our booth the entire day. What was different was the attendance. These weren’t the typical games convention attendees – many people from other streams popped their heads in, and there were also a number of industry professionals – publishers, distributors, media, grants officials, etc. This gave a slightly different flavour from previous conventions and a slightly lesser emphasis on purchasing, which our sales numbers reflected.

Q: Did you say awards?

Yes! The Games Festival awards night was on Friday, and included the announcement of the SXSW Sydney Games Festival Awards. Shortly before the festival, Aethermon Studios discovered that we were a nominee in the category of Best Tabletop Game, and we were beyond delighted and honoured when they announced that we won! As we were exhibiting the very next day, we had the additional delight of displaying our trophy at our table over the weekend.

Q: What about the exhibitor experience?

Going in, we didn’t know what to expect. A lot of information reached us very late in the process – again, it was the first year the event was run – so it would have been exceptionally difficult for us to attend had it not been a familiar city, because by then things like hotel bookings were ultra-expensive and frequently booked out. Sydney is one of the priciest cities in the world, and we are very grateful to family for putting us up over this time.

Likewise, we weren’t sure until very near to time whether we would be able to sell our games at the event – in the end we were able to, so it was fortunate that we already had stock in our location because it would have been difficult to get it from our China warehouse to Sydney in time once we found out this info. Worth noting – merchandise sales didn’t strike the right note here, and we didn’t bring any. By comparison, pins and even t-shirts made for a noticeable part of our sales figures at PAX Aus.

Q: Was it financially viable?

For us, yes it was worthwhile attending, although if we had had to afford last-minute hotel fees, it would have been prohibitively expensive. Additionally, because we were invited to exhibit, we didn’t have booth fees or ticket fees to afford, which would have been outside our current scope.

Q: Any last thoughts for future exhibitors?

• Give yourself a chance to explore what the rest of the festival has to offer. We met some lovely people outside of our own Games stream, and it was just a richer experience overall.
• Expect that what I have described may look very different in future years. As a first event, I imagine the behind-the-scenes was a big learning experience for everyone, and undoubtedly they will be looking at how to optimise future events based on this one.

Overall, SXSW Sydney was a fantastic event that we hope to attend again in the future. It offers something distinct from other games festivals due to the multiple thematic streams, and we are decidedly honoured to have received SXSW Sydney’s Best Tabletop Game 2023 award. We’re excited to see the shape of this festival in years to come.

Thanks for reading, AetherRen!

We’re the SXSW Sydney 2023 Best Tabletop Game winner!

AetherRen, we have some very exciting news…:

Aethermon: Collect is the SXSW Sydney 2023 Best Tabletop Game!

This is an incredible honour for us! We are very thankful to the team at SXSW Sydney Games Festival for such a distinction – thank you Luke, Peak, and Luella! We tip our hats to fellow nominees Vee and Hayley from Storybrewers Roleplaying, and to Craig from Ghoul GG. It’s so exciting to see what’s coming out of the indie tabletop scene at the moment, and we’re thrilled to be part of it!

For the full list of official SXSW Sydney 2023 award winners, go here.

Thank you for your support, AetherRen!

It has very much been on our minds that we’d like the Aethermon product lineup to be a force for good in the world, and a big part of that is not generating future waste – ideally after the natural lifespan of our products, we’d prefer them to break down and not create big piles of landfill. At the same time, tabletop games are a product designed to be physically touched and interacted with, ideally multiple times, and nobody wants to spend their hard-earned on something that will fall apart within a short timeframe.

Longevity vs. biodegradability. What to do?

We are currently right in the middle of Collect being manufactured, which is to say we have now made the manufacturing choices as to what goes in (and on) the box, and large un-sliced sheets of cards are shooting through the manufacturing machinery getting gloss coatings applied this very day (maybe not, it’s a weekend).

Some of our decisions oriented around the use of plastics. For example, even though cards are predominantly considered a paper product, many have a laminate coating applied to make them less susceptible to tearing (this also affects shufflability and overall tactile effect). While tear-resistance sounds great, laminating is plastic, and makes cards un-recyclable at the end of their life. Rather than choose this route, we have opted instead for an oil varnish which will reduce their susceptibility to damp but without the plastic use.

On the other hand, we are including an acrylic standee as a group token, which is obviously made from plastic. We carefully thought through this choice, bearing in mind quality, longevity, price, and customer experience. We decided that the value of a wipe-clean game piece that is being touched all the time, that can withstand a few scratches or the occasional chew by a dog, and that wouldn’t fall apart after being assembled and disassembled, justified the use of (not-single-use) plastic in this situation.

Some pro-environmental decisions were really easy for us to make – like using FSC-certified paper. Not only did our manufacturer, Hero Time, have this available, but they offer it as the default option, which we appreciated. They offered eco-friendly inks as their default too – fantastic both in reducing environmental impact and in reducing the negative respiratory (and other) effects on factory workers.

Arguably one of the most important decisions we made was which manufacturer to choose – the eco-friendly manufacturing options Hero Time offered as their standard was a huge influence on our choice.

Some decisions though have been much harder. It would be nice, for example, to be able to package our game entirely without single-use plastics: no shrink-wrap on the cards or the box, no bubble wrap or plastic shipping bags. It’s not that there aren’t options – like paper wrapping the cards inside the box, or using paper stickers to seal box lid and bottom.

But paper wrappers have a habit of inadequately protecting cards, especially those without an insert tray, and we’ve chosen no tray (trays are frequently – though not always – made from plastic, but they also limit people’s ability to sleeve their cards, which affects longevity).

And paper stickers to seal the box aren’t accepted by Amazon fulfilment, which is very likely where we will be selling our excess stock. I’m sure they have a good reason (I would guess this is to reduce customer complaints due to damaged goods) but it’s a pity all the same.

It’s hard to argue that board games are a necessity, but there are many gamers who consider anything other than absolute perfection of product an unacceptable compromise – especially when a large portion of that audience consider themselves collectors as much as players – boxes protected only by paper stickers are much more subject to scratches or smudges than those in shrink-wrap, to say nothing of water damage or insect nibbles.

We can’t assure customers of every single part of the supply chain, not when that chain includes factory, warehouse, transit container, next warehouse, trucks, handling, a postbag, and eventually a letter box or front doorstep. Customers do have a fair expectation that we have taken reasonable steps to protect their product. To make it trickier, choosing outside of the ‘normal’ (i.e. standard single-use-plastic) options are generally more expensive. On a small game, the profit margins aren’t exactly massive. Despite this, we’re planning on shipping as much as possible in cardboard boxes rather than bubble wrap and plastic bags.

If you’ve read this far it’s likely because you’re a board gamer who already cares about the environment. Thank you for that – frankly, same. I’m not sure we’ve got this all perfectly figured out yet, and I’d like to hope that our future manufacturing endeavours will be able to improve, both because we figure out how to be better, and because the companies we are working with offer more earth-friendly options.

If you’re in the process of manufacturing your own tabletop game, may I suggest a good start point for all these considerations is the Green Games Guide, which passed our metaphorical desks a few weeks ago at an ideal time for all these considerations. While I can’t say I agree with every suggestion, I definitely agree with the proposition that it behoves us as game designers to take care in the manufacturing choices we make.

Stay thoughtful, AetherRen!