Aerophilia 2025
The future of aviation, on one platform.
Aerophilia 2025 is the digital experience layer for India's premier aerospace and aviation showcase — connecting enthusiasts, students, professionals, and innovators through a platform built for the industry's scale and ambition.
The Story
Why this exists.
The Problem
Aviation events in India are massive in scope but tiny in digital presence. Registration happens on Google Forms. Information scatters across Instagram and WhatsApp. Exhibitors have no way to showcase their presence digitally before the event. Attendees don't know what to expect until they arrive.
Why It Matters
Aviation is one of the fastest-growing sectors in India. The professionals and students who drive it deserve a digital home that matches that ambition — not a PDF itinerary and a WhatsApp group.
The Solution
A full-featured event platform built with React, Tailwind, and Firebase — covering exhibitor listings, event schedule, registration, photo gallery, and live updates. Designed to work as both a pre-event marketing tool and an on-site companion.
Product Features
What it does.
Live Event Schedule
Day-by-day schedule with session details, speaker bios, and venue maps. Real-time updates when sessions change or are added.
Exhibitor Directory
Filterable directory of all exhibitors — company profile, booth number, product focus, and contact information.
Event Registration
Online registration with ticket tiers, instant confirmation email, and QR-code pass generation.
Photo Gallery
Lazy-loaded, paginated photo gallery from past Aerophilia editions — optimised for mobile with pinch-to-zoom.
System Architecture
How every layer connects.
Technical Deep Dive
Under the hood.
Real-Time Schedule Updates
The event schedule is stored in Firestore with a real-time listener on the client. When an admin updates a session from the admin panel, all connected clients see the change within 200ms — no polling, no page refresh. This was critical during the event when session times changed due to speaker delays.
Gallery Optimisation
The gallery needed to load 300+ high-res images without killing page performance. Solution: images stored in Firebase Storage with a Cloud Function that auto-generates WebP thumbnails on upload. The gallery loads thumbnails first, full resolution on click. Intersection Observer triggers lazy loading — only images in the viewport download.
Engineering Decisions
Challenge → Decision → Result.
Performance & Scale
By the numbers.
Deployment & Infrastructure
Production setup.
Deployment
React SPA on Vercel. Firebase Firestore + Storage for backend. Firebase Auth for admin panel. Cloud Functions for image processing.
CI/CD
GitHub Actions — build check on PR. Auto-deploy to Vercel on merge to main.
Monitoring
Firebase Analytics for user behaviour. Vercel Analytics for performance.
Challenges & Failures
What broke — and how I fixed it.
What I Learned
Key takeaways.
- 01
Firestore real-time listeners are powerful but need careful unsubscription to avoid memory leaks in React.
- 02
Image optimisation is not optional for media-heavy sites — WebP + lazy loading is the minimum bar.
- 03
Event platforms need an admin panel built alongside the public site — content updates happen live.
Future Roadmap
Where this is going.
Aerophilia 2026
- —Live stream integration for keynote sessions
- —Attendee networking — match by interest and role
- —Mobile app (React Native) for on-site navigation
Screenshots
The product.
Event homepage with schedule and registration CTA
Filterable exhibitor directory
Technology Stack
Built with.
Frontend
Backend / DB
Cloud Functions
Deployment
Ready to dive in?