Adam Stoner

Birthday

Thursday was a double-header: it was my birthday and also the night of the 2026 ARIAS at the Roundhouse in London. I spent the evening managing the social media coverage and tracking the winners for the Audio Academy. A huge highlight was seeing Trevor Nelson receive the Special Recognition Award from Craig David.

I spent some time making a second word game too. You might know alphaguess. Now it has a spiritual cousin, Wordrune. The underlying logic behind the wordlist is the same but the game mechanics are fundamentally different. It has been nice to work on something that thousands of people don’t play a day – there’s much less pressure to not break the thing every time you hit deploy. That said, its first 24 hours were very successful.

Crew in hard hats and hi-vis building the ARIAS stage under a lighting rig, a yellow stepladder in front of a big purple screen showing the arias and Audio Academy logos. An ARIAS banner listing the sponsors hanging above the stairs in the Roundhouse foyer, between old brick walls and a glass balcony. The Roundhouse main space in purple light during the afternoon setup, crew in hi-vis carrying equipment between bare round tables in front of the stage. The ARIAS ceremony seen between the Roundhouse's iron columns, a full room of tables in the dark facing a stage lit blue and purple. Looking down on the packed Roundhouse from the balcony during the ARIAS, guests at round tables scattered with cards, the stage glowing purple at the far end.