I am Hanxi Li. I just finished my first Master degree in Sustainability Management program at School of Professional Studies in Columbia University.

I Co-founded Yimingjingren, a company that specializes in the immersive reality entertainment shows and games in Beijing since the year of 2020.

The first show, Ming Dynasty was created in late 2020, and it won the gold award by the China Cultural and Entertainment Association under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture.

I led a collaborative project with Yuanmingyuan or the Old Summer Palace in Beijing to transform a commercial street in the Palace ruins into an immersive educational showcase and workshop, for the restoration of historical artifacts.

I also Launched an additional immersive entertainment space, “8”, in Chengdu at year 2023, and it serves as an immersive education hub that centers around post-pandemic reflections on the relationship between humanity, nature, and the universe.

Risa Puno is an interactive installation artist who creates disarmingly playful experiences for the public realm that help us examine and understand how we relate to one another. She uses the mechanics of popular games and pastimes as metaphors for larger social systems, creating new ways to collectively confront difficult human experiences.

In 2019, she was chosen by Creative Time as the recipient of their inaugural Open Call Award, for which she created ""The Privilege of Escape,"" an escape room–inspired public art project designed to address social privilege and systemic inequity. ""The Privilege of Escape"" was critically acclaimed and was awarded Most Innovative Immersive Experience of the 2019 Immersion Awards. Puno was also named as FIGMENT’s first-ever Interactive Artist of the Year.

Based in New York City, Puno has exhibited with institutions throughout the US and internationally, including the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New Children’s Museum, Onassis USA, NYC Dept. of Parks and Recreation, Rose Kennedy Greenway, Science Gallery Dublin, and many others. Her work has been featured across radio and print, including in The New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, ProPublica, and The Boston Globe. Puno grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and she studied art and medicine at Brown University and earned her MFA from New York University.

The Pod Has Been Cast is a collaborative and creative ttrpg actual play podcast dedicated to making earnest, engaging, and intriguing stories where queerness is central and community is cultivated. Agile, inventive, and always down to have a good time, our team knows firsthand the joy and catharsis of connecting with characters—and the power that connection provides us, around the table or around the world. We invite you to join us as we continue to build our warm and welcoming corner of the universe—and we hope our stories inspire you to call up some friends and start making your own. Join joolz, Bianca, and Carlos talking about Gaming for an Audience.

Arlo Howard They/Them is an international award winning, non-binary creator working at the intersection of theatre and games. Their work focuses on creating positive change and learning through playful theatrical experiences and games. Arlo is the former Artistic Director of Chicago’s (re)discover theatre, and a current Associate Artists with Coney. Their work spans full-building immersive take overs, intimate one-on-one experiences, pop-up escape rooms, and city-wide adventures. They recently worked on “The Burnt City” with Pucnhdrunk and are the director/creator of “The Order of the Golden Scribe”.

Heidi Coleman is an Associate Senior Instructional Professor at The University of Chicago and the co-founder of The Fourcast Lab. This transmedia design collective creates Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), pervasive games, cross-platform stories, and networked performances.

Alistair is a UK-based indie developer who makes alternative-controller games and interactive stage shows. His games are played with controllers ranging from paper shredders to swimming pool inflatables, and he's often seen on Twitch making audience-controlled paintings. He loves encouraging players to get creative, break the rules, and make a mess.

His games career began in 2010, making games as a one-man studio for iPhone and iPad. His first interactive stage show, The Incredible Playable Show, won IndieCade's Jury Choice Award in 2017. In 2022 he won the Performance Award for his livestream game Artholomew Video's Stream Challenge, which has now been developed into a stage show.

His alternative controller games have been on permanent display in Berlin's Game Science Center and Nottingham's National Videogame Arcade.

Alistair is a keen practitioner of clown performance, and takes a lot of creative inspiration from improv comedy and fooling - a form of clown performance that explores the emotions.

His most recent livestream performances have seen him singing improvised musicals based on messages his viewers type into Twitch chat.

Lisa and David Spira founded Room Escape Artist in 2014. There they publish daily well-researched, rational, and reasonably humorous escape room reviews, design tips, player tips, and industry commentary.

Their professional expertise includes User Experience and Speech Writing (David) and Language Technology and Data Analytics (Lisa). They have experience managing projects, teams, and products in different areas of technology.

They are best known for:

• RECON - The Reality Escape Convention

• REPOD - The Reality Escape Podcast

• Golden Lock Award

• Annual Escape Room Industry Report

• Comprehensive Escape Room Directory

• Escape Immerse Explore Tours

• Speaking Engagements & Media Appearances

Lisa and David have been featured as industry experts in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and on a CBS Sunday Morning segment. They are the escape room industry’s most prolific leaders.

Professor Stephen E. Dinehart IV is a director, designer, writer, artist, and educator based in the USA, best known for his work in themed entertainment and games. He is the founder and CEO of the game studio Wonderfilled, Inc and assistant professor at the University of Tampa College of Arts and Letters. With over 25 years of experience in entertainment, he has a proven track record of creating successful projects for Rovio, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Warner Brothers, and more.

Professor Dinehart's expertise in the fields of game development, cinematic storytelling, and playcentric game design led him to create and take the first position of ""Narrative Designer"" at the former game publisher THQ Global. In 2017 NBC Universal created a new role for him called "Game Attraction Designer".

Stephen was recently awarded the industry coveted 'Golden Ticket Award for Best New Family Attraction' from Amusement Today (2023) ""Mario Kart: Koopa's Challenge"" as part of the team behind the project at NBC. The project also took 'Outstanding Achievement in a Theme Park Land' & 'Outstanding Achievement in Technical Innovation' from the Themed Entertainment Association (2022).

He is an Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. trained producer, Gene Autry and David Lynch Foundation scholar. Dinehart has worked with some of the biggest names in entertainment including: Gygax, Spielberg, Harryhausen, Miyamoto, Carpenter, and more. His works have generated billions of dollars in revenue, having contributed in various capacities to several of the top-grossing franchises and characters of all time.

One of Blooloop's top 50 influencers of 2023, Ryan is a larp designer and producer out of New York City. He's previously presented at IndieCade, Knudepunkt and Living Games on topics ranging from violence in larp to immersive marketing.

Ryan would claim to be a tinker, a tailor, a soldier, and a spy, but in truth he couldn’t hem a pair of pants. He developed his interest in storytelling as a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy, where he discovered theater as part of the Academy’s Bluebard’s Theater Troupe. His live action career has taken him from California to New York, producing over two dozen events in four states, as well as running events for hundreds (and one time, thousands) of people. Outside of larp, Ryan is a military and airline pilot with over 1,500 hours over Iraq and Afghanistan. He also has a teenage child who has been known to larp with him on occasion.

He became interested in storytelling as a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy, where he participated in the Bluebard’s Theatre Troupe. His live-action work has carried him from California to New York and he has produced over twenty-six shows for audiences of hundreds, and at one point, thousands, of people across four states.

Adrienne Mackey is a multidisciplinary artist who explores the potential of performance and play. With her company, Swim Pony, she’s created works including SURVIVE!, a 22,000 square ft choose-your-own-adventure installation exploring humanity’s place within the universe; LADY M, a feminist take on Macbeth; THE GIANT SQUID, a “crypto-zoology-horror-comedy” performed in science lecture halls; and THE BALLAD OF JOE HILL, a play with music created for Eastern State Penitentiary about the execution of a historic labor icon. She’s also the originator of CROSS POLLINATION, a residency program in which 32 artists took part in documented interdisciplinary collaborations. Most recently she focused on explorations fusing games and theater with works like TRAILOFF – a mobile app performance created with the PA Environmental Council using GPS to embed original BIPOC stories onto nature trails; THE END – a month-long mixed reality game exploring fears about mortality; AQUA MAROONED!, a wildlife card game commissioned by the Alliance for Watershed Education; and WAR OF THE WORLDS, a game/theater hybrid with Drexel's Entrepreneurial Game Studio looking at gentrification as an invasive force. She’s also trained as a classically trained soprano and sings funk music (featured on America’s Got Talent), is a former chemist, and teaches acting, directing and devising for University of Washington’s School of Drama. www.swimpony.org

Dan Comstock had his mind blown by larps many times, each one escalating him to a new tier of madness. His mission is to bring immersive roleplay festival style larping to the US, and eventually to build a larger space for families in larps.

Carissa Donker is the Production Oversight and Marketing Director of DrachenFest US. Additionally, she's part of the lead staff team of DrachenFest Germany. As a bi-lingual native speaker, her efforts have been critical in translating the European 'Festival Larp' model and bringing it to the USA in the form of DrachenFest US.

Her interests are in gameplay production, lore & plot development, and costume design.

Zach is a LARP writer and storyteller who created Dammerung, Dead Legends and Malleus. He now works as painter and the Design Director at Drachenfest US.

Sammy has a background in mental health as a social worker with a focus on group dynamics and circle process. Their approach to gaming is trauma sensitive and informed by an understanding of human motivations and needs. Their belief in play as a form of truth telling runs almost as deep as their passion for arming even the most casual participant in becoming their own best storyteller.

To this end, they believe that we all have a story to tell. All it takes is a little education that is both accessible and enjoyable and we can learn to take control of the narrative in our own lives and use sociodrama to safely scratch itches that would otherwise be impossible fantasies. More importantly, it gives us the opportunity to explore the endless universe of creativity that each and every person holds inside of ourselves and share it with the people we hold dear.

Bela Turk is the City Director of DrachenFest US, who has designed and is responsible for the Bazaar at DrachenFest, an emergent LARP gameplay space where participants create a simulated medieval fantasy town. Bela Turk is also a staff member of DrachenFest Germany and designs similar medieval urban spaces, gameplay interactions and plot.

Bela is a professionally trained concert violinist, orchestral conductor and jazz pianist, who outside of larp is an MD in academic medicine at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, at the Johns Hopkins University in the field of pediatric neurology. His scientific endeavors are in developing brain MRI methods, Artificial Intelligence tools and clinical trials for hereditary children's brain diseases.

In his role as a larp organizer, and as a musician and a scientist, Bela is very interested in the dynamics of interactions between living soundscapes, and the behavioral psychology of how urban settings and third spaces influence player decision making-, agency- & ownership within game theory frameworks. One of his most enjoyable roles is in mapping out the physical play-space of the DrachenFest's 'town'.