This year's Shining Hearth wrapped up two weeks ago, so it's time for our post-event summary.

 

Attendance and presentations

This year 105 people attended, which is an increase of more than 20% since last year, and more than triple our first year (2021)!

We did not get any presenter sign-ups for the time slots that were primarily aimed at Oceania, but besides the full schedule for the Americas, this year we were able to to fill all six of the workshop, game, and movie sessions aimed at Europe, and they attracted attendance from the low teens up to about 30 people.

Our schedule is entirely dependent on who volunteers to present or stream, plus getting staff who are available at the right times to assist them, so hopefully we will get some more takers to round out the whole thing next year!

 

Demographics

We had 64 responses to our anonymous survey. More detailed results will be available on the website soon, but here's a brief summary:

The largest kintype category was fae, which over 50% of attendees marked themselves down as being (whether or not in addition to any other type). Besides other parts of the elfae spectrum (elves/sidhe/Tuatha), we also had sizable contingents of shapeshifters, dragons, and therians, and among the miscellaneous "other"s were a motley crew of kitsune, Jotun, troll, satyr, vampire, hobbit, changeling, stone, and void!

We continue to be a little older on average than many online otherkin spaces, with slightly more than half of attendees aged 30 or more. Most are still from North America, followed by Europe, plus a handful from Oceania and then Central and South America; but North America's supermajority is slowly decreasing.

 

What to expect next

We'll be removing the Hearth-Folk role from server members in one more week, which will make the event channels become invisible, so if there were any messages you wanted to save, you have a few more days to do so. Presentation materials that were posted to the #resources channel will be archived on the website, so if you miss getting a copy of those or did not attend this year, you will still be able to access them on the resources page. If you did attend this year, this is also your last chance to get a virtual gift bag, as those will be deleted from the website in one more week. (The link is in the #info-desk.)

 

Next year

Our event dates next year will be Friday, March 26th through Sunday, March 28th, 2027. If you are currently a member of the server and would like to attend next year, you won't need to register again; just stay a member, and you'll be able to check in again next March. Announcements about next year's event will begin in October, and general registration will open January 1, 2027.

 

Be well, everyone, and you will hear from us again in about six months!