A whole generation of gadgets are coming that marry mobile gaming and living room play. And the folks behind the Razer Edge want it to be the Lamborghini of these hybrid gadgets.

Unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the Razer is a beast of mobile PC gaming, and it is moving toward its launch in April. This mobile gaming machine is a tablet, a laptop, and a living room console that runs PC games and Windows 8 applications. Priced starting at $999, it’s not a cheap machine. But Razer chief executive Min-Liang Tan believes that it will appeal to the people who are true gaming fanatics.

The Razer Edge delivers a true PC gaming experience that exploits discrete Nvidia graphics that will probably enable it to run circles around other Android devices that are seeking to invade the living room. It will face competition from the likes of Valve’s rumored Steam Box, the Xi3 Piston, the Nvidia Project Shield, Green Throttle Games, and Ouya’s $99 Android console. These are all slightly different variations on a theme. And that theme is the disruption of life as we know it in both mobile and living room gaming. We’ll hear a lot about these devices at next week’s Game Developers Conference.

Of all those devices, the Razer Edge should be the favorite of Microsoft and Intel, because this machine is an authentic high-end PC. The base model sports an Intel Core i5 processor, a Nvidia GT640M LE graphics processing unit, 4GB DDR3 random access memory, and a 64GB solid state drive. The upgraded Razer Edge pro has an Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB RAM, and a 128GB or 256GB SSD. The system costs $999 for the base model, $1,299 for the 128GB model, and $1,449 for the 256GB model.

Tan first showed us the device as Project Fiona at CES in 2012. After that, the Carlsbad, Calif.-based company put the design up for a vote, and the crowdsourced advice from the community helped shape the machine into something else, said Brian Jang [pictured], the product manager at Razer, in an interview with GamesBeat. The community wanted to be no more than twice the weight of an iPad (the Edge weighs 2 pounds). They wanted detachable controllers, discrete graphics, and the capability to play Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 3 game, at the very least.

“This isn’t just for Angry Birds,” Jang said. “It’s hardcore PC gaming.”

The device has USB 3.0, Bluetooth 4.0, and four configurations. You can use it in a tablet mode, a keyboard in a dock mode, game controller mode, and docking station mode. It has a multitouch touchscreen so you can play Windows 8 apps, movies, and music. The keyboard in a dock mode turns the Edge into a laptop. That mode has a removable 40MHz battery. (The keyboard is shipping in the third quarter). You can also play it as a console system, with console-like controls on the side of the machine. And you can play it on your living room TV with an HDMI cable connection. Since it has 3 USB 2.0 ports and an HDMI port, you can play it on a living room TV with multiple players. The 10.1-inch display is 0.8 inches thick.

The machine has a battery life of about an hour, so you’ll probably need that a $69-extra extended battery, which gets you two to six hours. The docking station is $99, and the gamepad is $249.

I played the system in all of its modes in a recent preview. The machine can run a demanding game, the stealth-action game Dishonored, at 59 frames per second. It played the racing game Dirt: Showdown at 41 frames per second. The graphics ran in a fluid way. I saw the occasional “tearing,” where one part of the screen has to catch up with the rest of the screen when the scene is moving fast. But it wasn’t annoying, and you can adjust game settings to eliminate the tearing altogether. It makes some noise because it has a fan.

Overall, it’s a very cool device. But the price tag is going to limit the audience that will buy the machine like this. Here’s our video tour of the Razer Edge below. Check it out.

Razer Edge demo from VentureBeat on Vimeo.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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2013 is on course to be the year that PCs show you that a smoother, higher resolution world exists outside of the walled gardens of gaming consoles. Two products, one of which is supposed to hit the market later this year, tout themselves as respectable gaming rigs in packages that are not just small but as accessible as an Xbox 360.

Xi3′s so-called Piston is a full PC that fits nicely in a normal, adult-size hand. All of the components necessary for running a gaming computer reside within the diminutive, aluminum frame, largely thanks to the fact Xi3 has broken the motherboard into thirds for a compact arrangement. In addition, it reduces the processing hardware footprint with a quad-core AMD APU. Whatever else is inside (Xi3 hasn’t said as of this post) is equally tiny and doesn’t consume much power because the Piston draws only 40W, less than some of the old incandescent light bulbs burning in your basement.

While this little miracle might fit nicely on your home office desk, Piston, it appears, has designs on your living room entertainment center. Xi3 says Piston works remarkably well with the online PC game distribution service Steam. Valve, the company behind Steam as well as noted games Half-Life and Portal, even invested some money into Xi3′s otherwise failing Kickstarter project.

Valve also primed the mill for this type of device with the development of Steam’s Big Picture mode last fall, an alternative user interface to the service that is designed for navigation with a traditional controller on a large HDTV. Anyone who bothers to lug their PC tower — or at least a really long HDMI cable — from his work station to his television has, in theory, been enjoying access to his Steam game library in the living room for a while now. Xi3 promises its device will streamline that transition; although, you should remember not all PC games automatically support controllers.

For those of you who prefer your gaming PC to be a bit flatter, Razer (a company that sells PC gaming peripherals and at least one high-end laptop) will soon release the Razer Edge, a Windows 8 tablet with enough oomph packed inside to run some of the most demanding games currently on the market.

Starting at $999, Razer Edge gives you a tablet with an Intel Core i5 1.7GHz processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, an Nvidia GT 640M LE graphics card and 64GB of storage. A Pro version bumps up the specs on all fronts. You can also attach the tablet to a number of peripherals (at an extra cost, of course), which includes a docking station for play with controllers; a keyboard for the MMO enthusiast; and, most uniquely, the Gamepad Controller that attaches a set of handles adorned with thumbsticks, triggers, and buttons on two sides of the tablet in the landscape orientation.

Outside of gaming, the Razer Edge is an otherwise fully functioning Windows 8 tablet, so you’ll never want for the ability to put together a PowerPoint presentation.

If you’re a truly hardcore PC gamer, by now you’ve spotted all of the drawbacks to these setups and have likely lost interest. There’s a reason for that. These aren’t PCs made with you in mind. You’ll continue to tinker away, slotting and wiring components into that big, ugly black box of yours year after year, anyway. PCs are working on asserting themselves as gaming machines for the masses — of which you are certainly not.

They are seeking people who don’t know what overclocking is or obsess over frame rates; people who simply want to sit down and play a fun game, the same as they can on an Xbox 360. Nevermind that these powerhouse tablets will likely get better and faster chips in them each year, but the one you bought last year, sadly, can’t be upgraded. Nevermind that unusually small PC components might require more time and money to get than your standard graphics card at the local Best Buy.

The convenience factor in these units still requires some degree of compromise when it comes to raw horse power, but it’s an undeniable fact of the human eye that even a basic build of a specialty gaming PC renders and plays games better than current-gen consoles.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Normally, we video game guys don’t have to work too hard when it comes to covering consumer electronics. We have a few consoles, a few handhelds, maybe a few peripherals here and again, but it’s nothing like crazy world of phones and tablets … or at least it wasn’t.

This year, something happened: We started getting video game consoles from companies other than Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft.

These alternative gaming devices, sometimes called microconsoles, come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. You want to stream your games like Netflix? You can do that. Want to play Android-based games on a tablet with controls built into a handle? That’s a thing. Want Valve’s Steam experience on your television? It’s happening.

But it’s damn hard to keep up with everything. How do they work? What kind of games will they run? How much do they cost? OK — I’m panicking now just thinking about putting all of this information together for you … but I did.

We’ll try to keep this easy. Let’s get started.

Android-based microconsoles

Ouya

Price: $99
Release date: March (preorders)/April (retail)
Website: Ouya.tv

The Ouya is the single biggest reason I’m explaining all of this. When the tiny console box launched on Kickstarter — and raked in over $8 million from backers — it created more questions about the future of gaming than it answered.

Ouya’s basic concept is to bring the open platform of Android gaming to the television. It accomplishes this by providing a cheap box that has the guts of a smartphone but doesn’t rely on touch-screen controls. Instead, it comes with a physical controller with buttons, analog sticks, and everything else that gamers require to rack up a dozen headshots in a first-person shooter.

The console plays Android games, most of which aren’t designed for a controller, so Ouya is also a digital-distribution platform that will showcase original games (and Android games that the developer redesigned for physical controls).

On top of that, Ouya’s creators also promise the device is completely open to hacking. That means emulators and piracy. A good chunk of consumers may get something like Ouya just to play classic Super Nintendo games on one of the many Android emulator apps. A bunch more might get the system and pirate Android games (not that the developers can’t fight that on their level with authentication).

For Ouya to succeed, it will have to build a library of games that convince a portion of the audience to get their software directly through the new microconsole. This is possible.

Ouya is about to ship out to consumers in just a few months. It could easily launch with games like Minecraft Pocket Edition and others that already have full controller support.

The little Android has a few months to prove it’s worth the HDMI input it’s taking up on your television, otherwise people are likely to forget it as the new consoles come pouring down and wash it away.

GameStick

Price: $79
Release date: April
Website: Gamestick.tv

Take everything I wrote about Ouya and apply it to GameStick. It’s nearly all the same, but the GameStick is smaller than Ouya and $20 cheaper.

This thumb-drive-sized HDMI device uses Android. It has smartphone-like components. It comes with a physical controller. It has its own digital distribution platform.

The main difference between Ouya and GameStick is that PlayJam, the company behind this tiny device, is a game developer first. That could mean the GameStick will have better software support.

GameStick’s Kickstarter still has nine days left. So far, 4,240 backers contributed over $450,000.

Android-based tablet-controller hybrids

Project Shield

Price: ?
Release date: Q2 2013
Website: Shield.nvidia.com

Now things start getting weird. We went full hands-on with Nvidia’s Project Shield Android handheld at the Consumer Electronics Show. That’s when we discovered Project Shield is an impressive gaming device with some seriously cool features.

Nvidia’s handheld looks like an Xbox controller with a TV jammed into it. It features the company’s next-gen Tegra 4 processor and a 5-inch touch screen that flips up during gameplay.

It’s another controller-focused take on Android gaming. It has an HDMI port, so gamers can plug it into their televisions and use it just like Ouya. Developers are gonna have a lot of options if they want to make a mobile game that supports physical buttons.

But Project Shield has something Ouya and GameStick do not: The ability to stream games from your PC directly to the portable unit. This doesn’t mean you’ll be playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the bus, but your PC could feed games to the system if you’re sitting on your couch. In that way, the device is a lot like a Wii U GamePad controller for the PC. Only instead of New Super Mario Bros. U, gamers can tap into their entire Steam libraries.

If Nvidia prices Project Shield competitively, it will take a lot of the oomph out of the impact that the other Android alternatives will have.

Wikipad

Price: $499
Release date: 2013
Website: wikipad.com

Wikipad is the name of the company and the product. The device is a 10-inch Android-based tablet that comes with a game-controller dock. This shell adds analog sticks, face buttons, and shoulder buttons to what is otherwise a pretty standard Android slate. Those controls, however, allow for precision in games from both the Google Play market and the PlayStation Store.

Sony provides a lot of classic PlayStation titles on its Android store, and a system with physical controls is the ideal way to experience them. Only Sony-approved devices can access its store, so hopefully GameStick, Ouya, and Project Shield can get on that list.

Wikipad should have launched its tablet in late 2012, but it delayed it. It still isn’t available, and the tech grows old. Tegra 3 is capable, but Tegra 4 hardware is due out as early as April and will likely blow it away.

Windows-based tablet-controller hybrid

Razer Edge

Price: $999 (base)/$1299 (pro)/$1499 (pro + gamepad)
Release date: Q3 2013
Website: Razerzone.com

OK, enough Android. Perhaps you prefer your console/handheld alternatives to have a PC flavor? Gaming equipment company Razer might have what you need.

It’s called Razer Edge. It’s a 10-inch Windows-based gaming tablet with screaming hardware. The $999 “basic” version starts with a Intel Core i5 1.7 GHz processor that can overclock to 2.6 GHz. It has 4 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD, and a GeForce GT 640M graphics card all packed into something not much bigger than a standard tablet. The $1299 Pro model upgrades the system to a Core i7, 8 GB RAM, and 128 or 256 GB SSD.

A rig with the Edge’s specs can run Skyrim at around medium to high settings. That’s not bad for a portable device.

Add $200 to the price and it comes with a controller dock similar to the Wikipad. Razer Edge also has a keyboard dock for traditional gaming and a living-room dock with a plethora of inputs and outputs. Just like most things on this list, the Razer Edge can connect to your TV, work with wireless controllers, and replace your console.

Valve-approved Windows/Linux-based Steam Box things

Xi3 Piston

Price: $999
Release date: March
Website: Xi3.com

The Steam Box is something much more nebulous than the Xi3 Piston micro PC, but it gives us a good idea of what Valve wants.

Valve is pushing the idea of a TV-connected gaming PC pretty hard. The Xi3 is a result of that. Valve put some money into Xi3 and is definitely experimenting with the company’s hardware. We’ll get into what exactly Valve is doing with the Steam Box as a whole in the very next section, but let’s explain the Piston first.

The Piston is a tiny little powerhouse. It’s a small cube-like device with a 3.2 GHz quad-core processor from AMD that packs the graphic on the same chip. It has 8 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of storage capacity.

You’re supposed to plug this thing into your TV and run Steam in Big Picture mode, the interface the company designed for television displays, and that’s it. You have a Steam console.

The Steam Box

Price: ?
Release date: ?
Website: ?

Valve is working on a piece of hardware all their own. It is a Linux PC that will plug into your TV, but the company is also inviting others to do the same. If those companies want Valve’s help, Valve will help.

The software giant is going for a three-tiered strategy with the so-called “Steam Box.” Valve chief executive officer Gabe Newell called it a “good, better, and best” model in his interview with The Verge.

The “good” solution involves streaming devices. Not something like OnLive or Netflix that streams the data from some centralized location out to your house, but something that streams the games from your gaming PC to your television. Nvidia revealed a graphics card called Grid that is capable of something like that at CES.

The “better” solution is the one that Valve will release. It has a dedicated CPU and GPU. It doesn’t have a physical-media player. It’s small and quiet. It runs Linux, it has its own controller, and Valve will sell it itself.  It is a lot like the Xi3 Piston.

The “best” solution is the craziest, most expensive rigs you can think of. They have all the bells an whistles. They run big, hot, and loud. They aren’t even really Steam Boxes.

Games-streaming service

OnLive

Price: $99.99
Release date: Available now
Website: Onlive.com

OnLive is still a thing.  In August, GamesBeat reported that OnLive went through restructuring that saw its assets sold to another company. It’s still operational, and users can still play games on the service.

For those that don’t remember, OnLive is Netflix for video games. Gamers can stream full console games, like BioShock or Saints Row: The Third, to their PC, tablet, phone, or television without any serious hardware.

For the television, OnLive released a microconsole that can zap the digital platform right to a television. It works surprisingly well, but it the occasional lag is enough to keep it from fully replacing a dedicated gaming system.

Turns out your phone is already a console

MHL cables

Price: $7.65
Release date: Available now
Website: Monoprice.com

The thing about the Ouya and the GameStick is that they’re just focusing on a feature that your Android smartphone is already completely capable of. The Ouya plugs into your television and is compatible with a physical controller. You can do that with a Nexus 4, Samsung Galaxy S III, or an HTC DNA.

MHL cables allow people to connect a phone to a television HDMI input. Then some Android apps allow players to use a PlayStation 3 or Wii controller to interact with games. It’s a cheap and easy solution that basically amounts to the same thing as Ouya.

Of course, Ouya may encourage more developers to produce controller friendly games, but those titles are compatible with standard Android phones.

Green Throttle Atlas Controller

Price: $44.95
Release date: Early spring 2013
Website: Store.GreenThrottle.com

Green Throttle takes the idea of MHL cables a step further. The company designed its Atlas controller to work with Android phones. It sells the controllers in bundles with the cables required to connect your smartphone to the television.

Green Throttle wants players to use their phones as a console and they want them to use the Atlas to interact with it. The company has its own proprietary digital-download store similar to Ouya and GameStick. With this device, your phone truly is almost no different from either of those dedicated consoles, and it is probably more powerful than at least the GameStick.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you’re lucky and know where to look, you can see the future in Las Vegas in January. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people clog Las Vegas for an annual orgy of electronic gadgets known as the Consumer Electronics Show. It’s crowded, noisy, and so flooded with TV screens, B-list celebrities, and sparkly cellphone cases that it’s hard to find any real innovation.

But one thing the show is good for is showing the patterns of the tech world over time. A trend begins at one show, and it becomes stronger at the next. Or it fizzles out. This year, LG said more than 70 percent of its TVs connect to the Internet, compared to about 50 percent last year.

You could say that such patterns make CES a cavalcade of copycats who can’t teach you anything. But part of the definition of innovation is building on what others have done before you. CES can help you figure out what’s cool enough to be worth copying. Google’s Project Glass, for example, isn’t a trend yet because nobody is copying the web-connected eyewear, which debuts next year.

If anything, CES gives you perspective on what is working. More than 3,250 exhibitors showed products across a record 1.92 million square feet of exhibits. Looking at those exhibits gives you a glimpse of the future and what should go on sale in the coming months.

We took a couple of stabs at this last year, for CES 2012, once before the show, and once after. We didn’t do so great with a prediction that ultrabooks would breathe new life into laptops. But the two-screen experience materialized in a big way in 2012 as companies linked smartphones, tablets and smart TVs.

And for an even longer perspective, you can go back two years to read our top trends of CES 2011.

Here’s our list of the top 10 trends of CES 2013. Please vote for your favorite in the poll at the bottom.

The mobile generation has become the biggest target audience

When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave up the opening keynote to Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, it was the changing of the guard. Jacobs had a memorable keynote because it was ridiculed so much, but his theme of “born mobile” was genuine enough. A whole generation of kids are growing up untethered from computers and hooked to their mobile phones instead. They are embracing not just one platform but many. As clumsy and laughable as Qualcomm’s keynote was, it got the basic trend right.

After all, Qualcomm has sold more than 11 billion chips for mobile devices over 27 years. And mobile is leading the way. U.S. homes now have 1.4 tablets per household, compared to 1.2 a year ago. We spend 130 minutes a day with smartphones and tablets, compared to 170 minutes a day watching TV. Expect that to flip. In the U.S., about 44 percent of homes have tablets, up from 1 percent in July 2010. Smartphones are in about 55 percent of homes, compared to 36 percent in July 2010. Jacobs said that 84 percent of people worldwide can’t go a day without using a mobile device. We look at our phones 150 times a day.

Shawn Dubravac, a senior analyst at the Consumer Electronics Association, refers to consumers as “digital omnivores.” This generation isn’t picky. It loves anything tech that works and gets the job done. If you target this mobile market, you have a potential audience of billions, several times larger than the PC audience. This year, larger numbers of companies came to the show knowing that. Next year, they’ll call it the Mobile Consumer Electronics Show. – Dean Takahashi

Fitness and health tech get real

In the cavernous South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, three exhibitor regions were clustered together: the Fitness Tech Zone, the Digital Health Zone, and Gaming. Some companies belonged in all three. The show space in Digital Health was up 25 percent from a year ago.

Last year, the realm of fitness counters was the domain of startups. But bigger companies are getting in on the act. The health insurance giant United Healthcare had a “fitness gaming” exhibit where people played Dance Dance Revolution. Clearly, if people are more fit, the health insurance company’s costs go down. Companies with new offerings in fitness gadgets included Fitbit, Withings, BodyMedia, Basis Science, and Hapilabs (maker of the goofy but intriguing Hapi Fork). They were joined by the likes of Bosch, Nike, and others. HealthSpot introduced an interesting Telehealth Kiosk, which takes your vital signs and then allows you to consult with a doctor via remote consultation.

Ariana Huffington, the creator of the Huffington Post, moderated a session with Reed Tuckson of United Healthcare on “The Human Body: The Next Digital Revolution.” That must be a sign that digital health and fitness tech are revving up a hype cycle that could come crashing down. But we’ll bet that the square footage around these trends will be bigger at next year’s show. My own Striiv step-counting app showed I walked about 31 miles at CES across five days. – Dean Takahashi

The user interface is you

CEA analyst Shawn Dubravac also predicted before the show that gesture and voice will join touch as new ways to control devices. New technologies based on gestures and voice are coming from the likes of General Motors, Texas Instruments, Intel, and Nuance. Those controls will be useful in cars, and it is no accident that there are more car makers than ever coming to CES, Dubravac said.

“Over the next 36 months, we will see fundamental changes in voice control and gestures as well,” Dubravac said.

At Intel’s press event, Tobii showed off its “eye recognition” technology, where it would detect whether you spotted Waldo in a Where’s Waldo puzzle image. Meanwhile, Samsung included voice recognition in its smart TVs. And PrimeSense, the maker of the depth camera technology used in Microsoft’s Kinect (the motion-sensing system for the Xbox 360), demonstrated further uses of 3D sensing technology, including sensing what objects consumers inspect on grocery store shelves. Movea, in a demo pictured above, showed how sensors on a dancer could be translated into an entertaining digital animation in real time.

Intel calls this trend “perceptual computing,” and it wants to mash-up all of the input technologies into computers to improve things such as device security. Microsoft’s slogan for Kinect, “You are the controller,” is looking better every day. – Dean Takahashi

3D glasses are undead

LG had perhaps the prettiest booth with scores of big-screen 3D TVs chained together in a giant screen. And Nvidia had showed off its 3DVision goggles for gaming. But all mention of 3D was curiously absent from the lips of the many executives who touted it in years past. Some companies are still working on glasses-free 3D TVs. But the computing power required to produce a separate image for every viewing angle is a huge obstacle to doing glasses-free 3D right. That computing power is better used producing better images. That’s why 4K Ultra HD TVs were hot this year.

3D was a fad aimed at stopping movie piracy or pumping up the box office receipts. 3D made an appearance as a zombie trend, or something that just won’t die, for a few years. TV makers may include it for free in a last-ditch attempt to keep it alive.  But market penetration of 3D TVs topped out at maybe 20 percent or 30 percent. Judging from CES 2013, that market share is going to drop dramatically this year. – Dean Takahashi

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Last year, Razer brought a prototype to the Consumer Electronics Show. Dubbed Project Fiona, it was a tablet for gamers. Now the hardware manufacturer has come back to CES with a finished product: the Razer Edge.

The Windows 8 tablet can play full PC games on a 10-inch screen. It is a newfangled beast, and it is something Microsoft probably didn’t dream about when it pondered the design Windows 8 systems.

The Razer Edge model has a Core i5 processor, a Nvidia GT 640M GPU, 4GB RAM, and a 64GB SSD. And the high-end Razer Edge Pro has a Core i7, the same GT 640M GPU, 8GB of RAM, and either a 128GB or 256GB SSD. The Edge will sell for $1,000, wile the Edge Pro will go for as much as $1,500. Both will be shipping in the first quarter.

The display has a resolution of 1,366-by-768, similar to a lot of laptops known as ultrabooks. The black design is cool, and the control buttons on either side of the handles are mapped out to mimic an Xbox controller’s control buttons. You grab either handle and hold the Razer Edge on your lap. You control movement of your head or character by using the analog joysticks with your thumbs.

The tablet is a little heavy, so you’ll want to play it while it is resting on your lap. Battery life is likely to be around 10 hours or so.

You can also convert it into a PC by attaching a keyboard. And you can connect it via HDMI port to a TV. Product manager Brian Jang said that Razer took feedback from 10,000 gamers on Project Fiona.

Razer Edge demo at CES from VentureBeat on Vimeo.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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