We already have the following confirmed speakers for ARGFest Boston lined up:

• Dave Szulborski, who we know from, among other things, Chasing/Catching the Wish fame and Audi’s ARG Art of the Heist. More recently, he has been working on applying ARG-mechanics to train the military.
• Ken Eklund aka Writerguy, whose innovative production World Without Oil just won a Web Award at SXSW.
• The lovely Jane McGonigal, who, in 2005, spoke at the first conference portion of ARGFest-o-Con and is continuing her tradition of being a panelist for ARGFest into 2008. She is currently McSweeping the McWorld with her latest game, Find the Lost Ring.
• Apart from the three mentioned above (who were already announced during episode 50 of the ARGNetcast), we can now also confirm that Frank Lantz and Greg Trefry from area/code will be speaking at ARGFest! The folks at area/code have been doing awesome stuff in the field of cross-media entertainment, pervasive gaming and urban gaming and we consider them an inspiring addition to the ARGFest panels!

These speakers already make for a really promising conference, and they are just the beginning! You will hear more on the conference schedule soon.

Besides the conference, we’re also working hard on making ARGFest as fun and entertaining an experience we can. On Friday evening, we’re kicking off with an ultra-cool Meet & Greet Cocktail Party which you will soon hear more of, and for Sunday we have put together a four-track program of suggestions on where to go and what to do when you have a day to spend in Boston. This way, we hope to offer something for everyone!

With that in mind, consider The Society for the Preservation of Awesomeness at ARGFest 08. Who are these shadowy figures who will preserve all that is awesome in this ARGFest, and perhaps ARGFests to come? That’s for you to find out. If this sounds like an issue that matters to you, follow the link and learn more. And perhaps become one of the few, the proud, the keepers of the awesome; the last line of defence.

Well everything went off today with the ARGNetcast totally without any sort of hitch whatsoever. Hooray for technology! Just ignore that bit about “technical issues;” if you weren’t there live, it never happened. And it wasn’t a trap either, we swear.

Okay, so the Netcast didn’t work out exactly perfectly, but we’re still confident that it will be posted anyway, and likely in short order, like hashbrowns on a Waffle House griddle (which, sadly, don’t exist in Boston). Both smothered and covered during our chat were a few of the people who have so far agreed to speak at this year’s ARGFest, and some of the details about the upcoming venue. We hope that you find all of this as exciting to listen to as we did making it, although that might be asking a lot.

In the meantime, we’ve added some basic information to this site for you to peruse, including a skeleton weekend schedule (enticing!), a zombie hotel booking page to hypnotize you into staying at the venue (oooo shiny!), and a scary mummy hotel tracking survey because tests are…scary! Wow, that seemed funnier before we typed it. We’ll do better next time. We almost promise.

Things are heating up at ARGFest HQ! ARGFest-o-Con 2008 is scheduled to take place the weekend of July 18 to 20 in Boston, Massachusetts. But you probably figured that out already from the header at the top of the page. We’d tell you more right now but instead we’ve been invited to announce the venue and other early information at a live, town-hall style recording of ARGNetcast Episode 50. ARGFest planners will be on hand to answer your questions (if possible), so if you have or can install Skype by then, join us!

Never fear, however. This site will keep you updated on planning progress as well as registration and booking information. Add us to your RSS reader or keep checking back get the latest down low on the party in beantown.

Meanwhile, we have also begun inviting prospective speakers for this year’s conference. Got someone in mind you’d like to see there? Help us out by offering your last minute suggestions in this thread at Unfiction.

Or something.

There’s also a handy wiki!