Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

GlitchCon 2020: How Twitch Created a One-of-a-Kind Virtual Experience for Fans in Place of TwitchCon

05/12/2020

GlitchCon 2020: How Twitch Created a One-of-a-Kind Virtual Experience for Fans in Place of TwitchCon Multiple virtual stages, 425 creators attract 6.7 million viewers to 12-hour live stream By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Friday, December 4, 2020 - 1:22 pm

Print This Story | Subscribe

Story Highlights

Each year, content creators and fans from across the globe flock to TwitchCon, the world's preeminent convention for gamers and streamers. However, with the pandemic continuing, Twitch was in search of a way to bring its community together for a singular experience that didn't include a large public gathering. Enter GlitchCon.

The virtual replacement for TwitchCon Amsterdam in May and TwitchCon 2020 in September (both canceled due to the pandemic), GlitchCon was a 12-hour marathon live-streaming experience offering 425 Twitch creators across four separate virtual stages - /twitch, /twitchpresents, /twitchgaming, and /twitchrivals - live-streaming a wide variety of content.

Twitch has relied on tools like NewTek TriCasters, VMix, OBS, and Discord to produce GlitchCon.

The goal was to create a special experience for the core Twitch community, and we achieved that, says Steven Flisler, head of esports and content production, Twitch. The problem we were solving for was, how do we create four separate virtual' stages with different entertainment experiences but still unify them to have a common beginning and ending with a theme stitched together. We needed to mimic what our community knows and expects in person at TwitchCon but reimagine it for the Glitch of the year that 2020 has become.

The Concept: Five Teams, Three Production Approaches To achieve this goal, Twitch split its team up to focus on five areas: the four content channels and a fifth team responsible for the overall hub, keynote, and musical after-party. Each team was led by a senior Twitch Channel producer: Erin Schmalfeld, Callum Hanlon, Chris Ambrosio, Sean Keegan, and Cyrus Ghahremani. And the teams were supported by the Twitch Original Content production arm: Mitch Rosenthal, Matthew Lamos, Farnoush Ansari, Sean Sullivan, and Alex Solomita.

Twitch Rivals used a physical stage to implement the Virtual Arena.

The team combined three production approaches to balance out the effort: well-known TwitchCon favorites like the Cosplay Contest and Artist Alley, existing formats from large content franchises of Twitch Gaming and Twitch Rivals, and new formats -each with a glitchy twist - developed specifically for GlitchCon.

I often joked that we took eight months of work and fit it into eight weeks, says Flisler. The overall theme and content plan took some time to come to life to make sure it was perfect. Designing and executing the production plan happened incredibly fast, and we didn't have time to pause.

Twitch also was forced to secure key production partners and studio facilities while simultaneously building show segments.

All the elements of the flow of the show and how we were promoting across the shows and feasibility testing happened back to back, with some show mechanics being seen only during our dress rehearsal, Flisler says. We moved fast to ship a cohesive event experience, which forced us to right-size a lot of elements and, of course, make quick decisions to execute.

Creating New Experiences: Twitch Rivals, Twitch Gaming Lead Out-of-the-Box Thinking Caleb WavePunk Simmons hosted the Twitch Rivals live show at GlitchCon from the Rivals Arena stage.

In addition to its in-house team, Twitch tapped existing partners Vindex/NGE and Butcher Bird Studios, along with new partners ADVNCR UK and ADVNCR Done & Dusted (AD&D) for a number of production services.

When moving TwitchCon to an online experience, says Flisler, we saw an opportunity to test and learn with different partners and thought-leaders in the virtual-event and technology space to help deliver the most unique, immersive, and entertaining experience for our viewers. With such a high volume of content, we sought out different companies to help bring our vision to life for each of the marquee moments.

For the Twitch Rivals esports channel, Flisler and company were looking to create a more immersive experience for the viewer and player. They built a Rivals Arena environment using extended reality (XR), which has seen exponential growth in esports, including the League of Legends World Championship earlier this year. The Rivals Arena included a Verizon 5G super suite with fans live-streaming into the arena, hundreds of fans as audience members with prerecorded reactions, and various video surfaces used for live gameplay, scoreboards, or other explainers.

The XR technology has become more prevalent as of late, says Flisler. By partnering with AD&D, we were able to achieve a larger-than-life experience and elevate the bedroom' caster backdrop to a presentation that matched the magnitude of GlitchCon.

Twitch created a unique Rivals Arena environment deploying extended reality (XR).

On the Twitch Gaming front, the production team worked with Warped World to build a custom top-down shooter game leveraging Unreal Engine, with key game-design decisions determined on-stream by fans via Twitch Chat. This game is set to be released for the Twitch community to download and play for free.

In all, Twitch had 20 content segments across the entire GlitchCon event. According to Flisler, in a normal world, one of those shows could be considered a full day's work and a single production team's focus.

Dealing with so many different creators across different time zones and languages was a Herculean talent-logistics effort, he explains. Coordinating so many different vendors, some of which we worked with for the first time, takes a lot of trust. And there were a number of new technologies that were unteste
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2020/12/04/glitchcon-2020-how-twitch-creat...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

04/07/2026

Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in Dolby Cinemas Across Japan, Presented in Dolby Atmos and Dolby ...

April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...

24/06/2026

NoiseWorks Audio add Mouth De-Click to VoiceAssist

Plus: VoiceAssist Basic now available to UA LUNA users NoiseWorks Audio have just released an update that adds a new Mouth De-Click module to the Advanced t...

24/06/2026

Gator introduce the Frameworks Studio Mic Boom 2000

New heavy-duty mic stand joins range The latest arrival to Gator's Frameworks family introduces a new heavy-duty boom stand that's been designed for...

24/06/2026

Waves V17 now available

Latest major plug-in update goes live Waves have just announced that the latest major update for their hugely popular plug-in range is now officially availa...

24/06/2026

Why Four Bars of Signal Doesn't Always Mean Good Performance

When assessing cellular coverage, many people look at the signal bars displayed on a smartphone, router or modem. More bars are often assumed to mean better per...

24/06/2026

Rohde & Schwarz THORIS sets new standard for counterUAS defense

Rohde & Schwarz THORIS sets new standard for counter UAS defense At Eurosatory 2026, Rohde & Schwarz is unveiling THORIS, a German engineered, sovereign count...

24/06/2026

Rohde & Schwarz expands voice communications modernization program for Egyptian air traffic control

Rohde & Schwarz expands voice communications modernization program for Egyptian ...

24/06/2026

Clear-Com FreeSpeak Cell Successfully Tested by RTL Deutschland in 5G Network at...

eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...

24/06/2026

Nielsen's Q1 2026 Ad Supported Gauge

Streaming sets record high of 46.6% of ad supported TV viewing, driven by Super Bowl and Winter Olympics; overall share of ad supported TV remains steady NEW Y...

24/06/2026

FCC Flooded with Nearly 28K Comments Regarding Its Probe of 'The View'

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/06/2026

Hearst Television Brings Ad Addressability to Local Broadcast TV

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/06/2026

FCC Raises $3.5 Billion in AWS-3 Wireless Auction

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/06/2026

RE:Vision Effects Announces Twixtor Standalone v 8.1 and a Sale!

RE:Vision Effects Announces Twixtor Standalone v 8.1 and a Sale! Brie Clayton June 24, 2026 0 Comments Twixtor v8.1 Standalone adds support for variab...

24/06/2026

Dreamtek Uses Full Blackmagic Workflow for Vercel Next JS Event

Dreamtek Uses Full Blackmagic Workflow for Vercel Next JS Event Brie Clayton June 24, 2026 0 Comments Blackmagic cameras, switchers, routers, recorder...

24/06/2026

Chyron LIVE Unveils New Features: Haivision StreamHub Integration, SCTE-35 Ad Insertion, and Refined Switching Tools

Chyron LIVE Unveils New Features: Haivision StreamHub Integration, SCTE-35 Ad In...

24/06/2026

Mapping an Education

Mapping an Education How composer Chloe Clarke Smith navigated her Boston Conservatory experience and brought new meaning to her work June 24, 2026 By Sara...

24/06/2026

The Next Act

The Next Act Dean Krisha Marcano's vision for a connected Theater Division, and the fund making it possible June 24, 2026 Photo by Eric Antoniou The Or...

24/06/2026

Announcing STAGES Magazine 2026

Announcing STAGES Magazine 2026 Marking a decade since Boston Conservatory and Berklee College of Music joined forces, this issue spotlights some of the groun...

24/06/2026

Rede Legislativa Chooses Appear to Support Brazil TV Ver...

In Brazil's TV 3.0 Trials, Appear's X5 is transporting live signals from Bras lia to S o Paulo over the public internet using secure, reliable next-gene...

24/06/2026

Mediaproxy partners with HVS for US broadcast market

Melbourne, Australia - 24 June 2026: Mediaproxy, the global standard for software-based IP compliance monitoring and multiviewing solutions, has named Heartland...

24/06/2026

Gray Media Launches Political 360 Digital Advertising Solution

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/06/2026

Walmart to Pay $1.4 Billion to Acquire Ad Tech Firm Vibe.co

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/06/2026

FCC Flooded with Nearly 28K Comments on 'The View'

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

24/06/2026

First Rush Brings SDI Multicam ProRes Recording to Apple Silicon Macs

First Rush Brings SDI Multicam ProRes Recording to Apple Silicon Macs Brie Clayton June 23, 2026 0 Comments First Rush is a native macOS application d...

24/06/2026

Vertical Drama Beneath Crimson Sails Created with Blackmagic Design

Vertical Drama Beneath Crimson Sails Created with Blackmagic Design Brie Clayton June 23, 2026 0 Comments Thunder Child Productions relies on cameras&...

24/06/2026

X-Rite Pantone Adds MSI PRO MAX Displays to Pantone Validated Program for Proven Color Fidelity for Real World Colors

X-Rite Pantone Adds MSI PRO MAX Displays to Pantone Validated Program for Proven...

24/06/2026

Dara Briain forms Dara's Dull Appreciation Society for U

24th June 2026, London: Dara Briain will host brand new comedy entertainment series Dara's Dull Appreciation Society (4x40') celebrating members of th...

24/06/2026

Sky reveals wild new trailer and images for Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom

Wednesday 24 June 2026 Sky reveals wild new trailer and images for Shaun the Sh...

24/06/2026

Seven paradoxes shaping the next era of media production - Episode 1

Why Dynamic Media Facilities Matter In this series, we explore the technologies, architectures and operational realities shaping modern media operations. Along ...

24/06/2026

Comscore Announces Partnership with Amazon DSP to Expand Content Addressability to Drive Campaign Performance

Comscore Announces Partnership with Amazon DSP to Expand Content Addressability ...

24/06/2026

RT is supporting 21 Arts and Cultural Events all over Ireland this July

From Cork to Limerick to Earagail: RT is supporting 21 Arts and Cultural Events all over Ireland this July RT Supporting the Arts is delighted to spotlight...

23/06/2026

Case Study: YES Networks IP Transition Expands Production Possibilities and Redefines Workflows

When we began planning our transition from an SDI-based infrastructure to a new ...

23/06/2026

Imagine Communications Appoints Greg Garmon as SVP, Americas Video Sales

Imagine Communications has announced the appointment of Greg Garmon as Senior Vice President, Americas Video Sales. Garmon will oversee account growth and busin...

23/06/2026

Snap Promotes Emma Wakely to Head of Sports and Media Partnerships, Americas

Snap has promoted Emma Wakely to Head of Sports and Media Partnerships, Americas, succeeding Anmol Malhotra, who has been elevated to Global Head of Content and...

23/06/2026

YES Network and Gotham Sports App to Air MI New York Major League Cricket Matches

YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air MI New York's Major League Cr...

23/06/2026

HAND Issues Persistent Digital IDs to 2026 NBA Draft Class

The Universal Talent Identifier (HAND) has issued HAND IDs to 34 top projected prospects in the 2026 NBA Draft class, including AJ Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer, and...

23/06/2026

World Boxing Launches World Boxing TV Streaming Platform

World Boxing has announced the launch of World Boxing TV, a subscription-based streaming platform built on the Joymo platform, offering live events, on-demand c...

23/06/2026

FloRacing to Stream 32 Off-Road Motorcycle Racing Events Including AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship

FloSports will stream 32 off-road motorcycle racing events on FloRacing, includi...

23/06/2026

SES Adds 14 Regional Channels and New Set-Top Boxes to ASTRA TV in Spain

SES has announced the expansion of its ASTRA TV platform in Spain with the addition of 14 regional channels in HD and UHD quality and the launch of new hybrid s...

23/06/2026

Appear Supports Rede Legislativas Contribution Workflow for Brazils TV 3.0 Trials

Appear ASA has announced its role in Rede Legislativa de R dio e TV's contri...

23/06/2026

PBS Selects LTN for Nationwide IP Video Network Across 330 Member Stations

LTN has announced that PBS has selected it as its IP video partner to modernize content distribution and contribution across more than 330 public television sta...

23/06/2026

Ease Live Powers Interactive Experience on Rally.TV for WRC

Ease Live has announced that its graphics overlay platform is powering an interactive fan experience on Rally.TV, the official streaming platform of the FIA Wor...

23/06/2026

Chyron LIVE Adds Haivision StreamHub Integration, SCTE-35 Ad Insertion, and Switcher Updates

Chyron has announced updates to Chyron LIVE, its cloud-native live production pl...

23/06/2026

ESPN Announces ESPN Fan House, Fan Engagement Hub Powered by Flowcode

ESPN has announced ESPN Fan House, a fan engagement hub powered by Flowcode, launching in August ahead of the 2026 college football season. Publicis Sports will...

23/06/2026

Sennheiser Relocates Americas Regional Hub to Nashville

The city's solid position in broadcast, entertainment, and sports attracted the major microphone manufacturer Sennheiser Group is moving its Americas Regio...

23/06/2026

Violet Audio's dMix 128 now shipping

128 channels of signal routing & DSP Announced just before the NAMM Show 2026, Violet Audio's latest digital audio matrix offers 128 channels of signal ...

23/06/2026

Minimal Audio launch Memory Rites

Latest Current expansion created by EPROM Minimal Audio have just launched the latest Current Expansion, Memory Rites. Designed in collaboration with renown...