What is AirBalloon?
A short tour of the AirBalloon conference management platform: what it does, who it's for, how the pieces fit together, and the two ways to use it.
AirBalloon is a conference management platform that supports the full lifecycle of an academic or professional conference: paper submission and peer review, camera-ready, registration and payments, presentation and scheduling, attendee networking, and conference websites.
Under the hood, AirBalloon is a suite of packages (each handling one part of that lifecycle) that share a single data spine, so an attendee, a submission, or a payment is the same record everywhere it appears. You can run a complete event with everything connected, or pick up just one package on its own.
Who uses AirBalloon
Author Reviewer Area Chair PC Chair
Conference LeadershipThe platform is used by:
- Authors submitting papers, abstracts, posters, and proposals.
- Reviewers, Area Chairs, and Senior Area Chairs evaluating submissions during peer review.
- Program Chairs running the review process, making decisions, and managing camera-ready.
- Conference Leadership (General Chairs and System Admins) configuring the conference, managing programs, registrations, and finances.
- Attendees registering for and participating in conferences.
How the pieces fit together
- 1
Conference Leadership creates a conference, configures its programs, invites a committee, and connects Stripe for registrations.
- 2
Program Chairs open submissions, recruit reviewers, run the review cycle, and announce decisions.
- 3
Authors submit, respond to reviews, and prepare camera-ready files.
- 4
Attendees register, attend the conference, and connect with the community.
The packages that make up AirBalloon
Each part of the lifecycle is handled by its own package. You don't have to think about them as separate products (in a full conference they're already wired together), but it helps to know the names you'll see around the platform:
| Package | What it does |
|---|---|
| AirMaster | The Conference Management System: create a conference, configure programs, invite your committee. |
| AirReview | Submission & peer review: collect papers, assign reviewers, run the review cycle, make decisions. |
| AirReg | Registration & payments: sell tickets and collect attendee payments through Stripe. |
| AirUp | Presentation materials: slides, papers, posters, and recorded talks, stored for each presentation. |
| AirExplore | Proceedings, camera-ready, and DOIs. |
| AirRoom | AI-assisted room and session planning: auto-builds the floor plan and room assignments. |
| AirUpNet | The event mobile app for attendees. |
| AirOne | The full conference platform: connects every package through one shared record for each person, paper, and payment. |
Communications (WebMail), alumni, and job-board features round out the suite, and Zoom capacity can be added for online and hybrid events.
Two ways to use AirBalloon
- 1
A full conference (all-in-one). Every package above, connected through AirOne. Submissions flow into decisions, decisions into camera-ready, accepted authors into registration, and registrations into the schedule and the event app, with no exports, no re-keying, no reconciling four different tools. Peer review is included free in a full conference.
- 2
A single package on its own (standalone). Need only registration for a workshop, or only submission & review for a journal-style call? You can use one package à la carte without running a whole conference around it.
AirBalloon is free to set up; you only pay when money or materials move. Registration is a flat 3.0% per registration (in a full conference, AirOne's fee is set in your Platform Services Agreement). Presentation storage is a one-time $5 per PDF/PPT plus $5 per 200 MB of video, billed once at the end of the event. Stripe's own processing fees, and Zoom capacity if you buy it from us, pass through on top. Peer review is free in a full conference.
Where to go next
- New to the platform? Start with Creating an account.
- Everyone gets an inbox and discussion spaces: see Webmail and Channels.
- Looking for a specific role's guide? See the For Authors / Reviewers / PC Chairs sections in the sidebar.
- Want the public homepage while signed in? Click the AirBalloon logo at the top of the sidebar. It opens the homepage in a new tab, as a visitor sees it, without taking you to your dashboard.
- Need help while using a feature? Look for the
(?)icon on console pages. It opens a contextual help drawer. - Something broken or confusing? Click the Support icon (the headset) in the top bar for Report an issue or My support tickets, from any page. Back on the report form returns to the page you came from.
- Long sidebar? Click a section title (MAIN, ORGANIZE WORKFLOW…) to fold or unfold its links, or use the two small buttons at the top of the menu to fold or unfold every section. Your choice is remembered in this browser.