Sonic Boom 2013 (lost livestream of "Sonic the Hedgehog" convention; 2013)

An image of the stream on its original webpage, taken when it was still live.

Status: Lost

Sonic Boom 2013 was an event hosted by SEGA on August 10th 2013 in St. Louis, at which fans of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise could meet others in the community, take part in various activities and watch a stage presentation, featuring new trailers, live performances, and fan contests. One of the heavily advertised highlights of the event was Crush 40's concert performance, a band known for making many vocal tracks for Sonic games.

An official live stream of the full stage presentation at the event was conducted online by Live Alliance, on behalf of SEGA. However, recordings of this livestream have become very scarce, with no official VOD available, although there was one for a short time after the stream finished.

The only video found so far makes up a dozen minutes, of the seven hours the stream ran for.

Contents

The stream contained professional-grade video with multiple camera angles (estimated to be 3 cameras + video from the projected screen). The audio on the stream was a form of direct/soundboard audio, potentially a custom mix for the livestream.

Release

The livestream was hosted on Live Alliance's website, with the URL http://livealliance.tv/sonicboom. This in turn used the Akamai content delivery system to deliver the stream to the viewers. After the stream finished, there was a VOD was available from this site for approximately 24 hours after.

In addition to the original stream on the site, a fan-run simulcast was set up at the same time, to host a live "reaction" to the stream. This was hosted by SSF1991 of Sonic Paradox on livestream.com. Unfortunately, despite the high probability livestream.com contained a VOD of this reaction stream for a long period of time after, there are very few found clips of this either.

In addition, there appears to have been a screen at the back of the venue setup to show video from the stream to the performers on-stage. Unfortunately, it is very rare for a camera to be pointing in this direction so there are only a few shots that show this clearly. An example is the official recap video.

Found media

Images

After contacting people who saw the stream, some images taken by viewers have been found. These give a clearer view of what the stream looked like. In addition, there are also two pictures of the fan simulcast - showing what that looked like.

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  A frame from the stream of the Crush 40 concert coverage, taken during an intermission where the singer talks about how he repeatedly introduces the guitarist

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  A frame from the stream of the Crush 40 concert coverage, taken at the end just before they bow and leave the stage

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  A frame of Aaron Webber, the main presenter at the show, from the stream

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  A frame of Aaron Webber talking to the crowd - this shot shows the variety of angles the cameras were set up to take

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  A frame from the stream of the Crush 40 concert coverage, taken just after they finished the song "His World"

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  A frame from the stream of the very beginning of the "Sonic Dancing" segment

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  A frame from the stream of the middle of the "Sonic Dancing" segment - we have this part in video, but it's in noticeably degraded quality compared to the image

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  A frame from the stream the Crush 40 concert coverage, taken during "His World"

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  A picture of the fan simulcast

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  A picture of the fan simulcast

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  A clip of Sonic dancing from the fan simulcast

Fan-recorded video

These are the only found clips of the stream uploaded by the viewers:

Sonic dancing, with the original audio replaced to be "more appropriate"

Poor quality video of the Q&A, with audio replaced as a joke

Audio of the Crush 40 performance taken from the stream

Recording from the stream of a previously unseen trailer shown at the event - At the end, you can see it fade to one of the stream cameras very briefly.

Recording from the stream of another previously unseen trailer shown at the event

Poor quality video from the stream of the host announcing a new section of the show - taken from the fan-run "simulcast".

Recording from the stream of the presenter (Aaron Webber) introducing a previously unseen trailer shown at the event.

Official media

After the event, SEGA created a short 3-minute recap video, attempting to capture and summarise some key moments of the event. A significant amount of this recap video is made up of video taken by SEGA's own internal media team, separate from the stream. However, upon some close examination, there are a few clips from the stream featured in this video as well:

• 1:54 - 2:10 - A clip of the Q&A portion of the show. The positioning of all the angles seen here match exactly with the already found clips of the livestream.
• 2:16 - 2:19 - 2 seconds of the Crush 40 performance taken from the stream. The exact positioning of the camera in this shot matches with already found clips, in addition to having a noticeable framerate difference to non-stream footage in the video.

In addition, throughout this video, soundboard audio is consistently used when portions of the event are shown, and it's highly probable that soundboard audio was taken from the stream, suggesting SEGA did at some point have a recording of the full stream. However, SEGA's HQ moved locations two years after this event, resulting in a large staff turnover, and it is possible that some of their archives, and by extension this recording, may have been lost during that move.

See Also

• Shadow the Hedgehog (lost Teen rated version of platformer; 2005)
• Sister Sonic (lost build of cancelled "Sonic the Hedgehog" localization of "Popful Mail" Sega CD side-scrolling platformer; 1993)
• Sonic 3D Blast (found cassette demo tape of unused game soundtrack; 1996)
• Sonic Adventure New Year's DLC (found "Sonic the Hedgehog" holiday-themed DLC; 1998)
• Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (found iOS game; 2010)
• Sonic DS (lost Nintendo DS tech demo; 2004)
• Sonic Generations (lost game demo; 2010)
• Sonic Jr. (lost build of unreleased Sega Pico game; existence unconfirmed; 1994)
• Sonic Saturn (lost build of cancelled Sega Saturn prototype of platformer; mid-1990s)
• Sonic Sports (lost build of cancelled Sega 32X sports game; 1995)
• Sonic Synergy (lost original build of "Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric" Wii U action-adventure game; 2007-2013)
• Sonic the Hedgehog "2006" (lost complete build of Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 platformer; 2006)
• Sonic the Hedgehog (lost build of cancelled Amiga port of Sega Genesis platformer; 1992)
• Sonic The Hedgehog (lost build of cancelled Sega CD port of Sega Genesis platformer; 1992)
• Sonic the Hedgehog (lost Tokyo Toy Show prototype build of Sega Genesis/Mega Drive platformer; 1990)
• Sonic the Hedgehog (lost Winter Consumer Electronics Show 1991 demo build of Sega Genesis/Mega Drive platformer; 1991)
• Sonic The Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (lost build of cancelled iOS port of Sega Genesis platformers; 2014)
• Sonic The Hedgehog: Awakening (lost build of cancelled "Sonic the Hedgehog" game; existence unconfirmed; late 2000s)
• Sonic X-Treme (found build of unreleased Sega Saturn platformer; 1996)
• Sonic-16 (lost build of unreleased Sega Genesis/Mega Drive game based on "Sonic the Hedgehog" animated TV series; 1993)
• Sonic Boom (non-existent lost episode of animated TV series; 2014)
• Sonic Runners (found endless runner mobile game; 2015)