Game Day/Community Recap: Gamers for Good

Hello Extra Lifers!

My name is Nate, and I’m the co-captain of the Gamers for Good team.  We’re a team that started as college students, and since 2013 we’ve been thrilled to raise money for our local Children’s Miracle Network hospitals as part of the Extra Life program.  This last Extra Life was a particularly special year, as it was the first year we brought Extra Life into our community by working with our local brewery to host our team of Minneapolis gamers at Luce Line Brewery in west Minneapolis!

By bringing our game day into a public space we were able to have our biggest year of fundraising ever!  We extended awareness of Extra Life in our city by being invited to be on the local news, and we created a great environment for our friends, family, Miracle kids, and community to gather, game, and celebrate all the fun and impact that Extra Life can bring.

If you’re interested in learning more about hosting your Extra Life team in a public space, stay a while and listen!  Below you’ll find tips on how to connect with a venue, what logistics you’ll need to consider for Game Day, and some ideas we found worked well to engage patrons and make the day memorable.

Where We Dropping? – How To Secure A Venue

When looking for a venue it’s best to start with a place that already offers event hosting services.  We chose our local brewery because they fit the four criteria you’ll want to look for:

• Space and Facilities:  As a brewery with event space, we knew we would be able to fit not just our gamers but our local community for Game Day.  Because the brewery has hosted multiple fun events in the past and was equipped for a variety of the basics, we didn’t have to supply simple things like tables, restroom access, sufficient internet speeds, and power (all of which are crucial for a great LAN party).

• Public Outreach and Exposure:  While many of the folks who attended the brewery the day of were there for Extra Life, the majority of patrons had never heard about it before.  We tried to help increase general excitement by sharing with people that we were fundraising for the Children’s Miracle Network through this fun 25 hour (love a good daylight savings time bonus hour!) event, and asked that they consider a donation to the Children’s Miracle Network by scanning one of the many QR codes we had around the brewery.  The brewery also helped us advertise the event through their existing Socials and even helped engage the local news allowing us to share the excitement further than we would have been able to on our own.

• Activities for Non-Participants:  While there’s never a shortage of games to be played on Game Day, not everyone who attends your event will be able or interested in joining for the full Game Day.  Having activities at your venue that entertain guests is a great way to get them to hang around longer and be more involved in the event.  In the last section of this post you’ll find a few ideas we used for our Game Day, but picking a venue that already has a good setup for guests is a great way to make the day fun for everyone.  Great examples of this include breweries, bowling alleys, arcades, and anywhere else where it’s easy to come and go as a single player or a full party.   

• Food and Beverage:  No good LAN party is complete without the food and drink needed to fuel gamers and visitors alike.  We were able to take advantage of the food truck that the brewery already had scheduled for the day, and it was a great way for us to support another local business without having to host anything or directly participate in the serving of food.  If your location doesn’t offer food or drink consider contacting local companies who might be willing to offer discount or free pizza, sandwich platters, or other easy to mass order and eat options.

Once you’ve found your venue you’ll want to work with them to make sure you’re all set for Game Day.  Some important points to consider is that you may need to secure a sponsor if the venue is unwilling to waive their normal event hosting fee.  We were able to work with our venue to bring them on as both a sponsor and a partner which allowed us to gain additional fundraising opportunities including:

• Partner Matches from Gateway Fiber and Luce Line Brewery – $1,083

• Cash Raffle Ticket Sales for Partner Prizes – $153

• Digital Donations Through ExtraLife.org QR Codes – $435

By working with your venue and community you can do some pretty cool things, and in the final section of this post you’ll find some of the ideas we put into action on Game Day that helped raise more money and have more fun!

Choose Your Loadout – What Logistics To Consider For Game Day

Before the computers are packed, the energy drinks are chilled, and the big day arrives — you’ve got sidequests to conquer!  You can’t have a successful game day without games, and we found that much like preparing for any LAN party you’ll need to bring all the necessities.  In addition to your normal gaming setup you’ll want to consider:

• Internet:  Some locations may be able to provide a hardwire port, but the location may be far from where action will be.  We ordered a 250’ ethernet cable and also had wifi which we ran a speed test on before the event.  Make sure you have the bandwidth needed if you plan to steam!

• Power:  Don’t get caught in Electrical with the lights out!  Make sure however you’re powering all your devices you have the right circuit breaker setup, and bring lots of extension cords in case you don’t get it on the first try!

• Streaming:  If you’re going to run a stream of the event make sure your venue doesn’t have any concerns with a live recording.  Try to find ways to get any patrons engaged by displaying your stream around the venue (we found running an HDMI and putting our stream preview on a tv fullscreen worked great!) and consider if you can position a camera to capture the room for any viewers to get an idea of the fun happening in person.

• Local Hospital Engagement:  We were so excited that our local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital, Gillette Children’s, was able to get involved!  They arranged for one of our local Miracle Kids to attend the event and brought swag and photo material to spread some awesome awareness for the impact we’re having on the lives of kids everywhere.  Gillette Children’s was also able to help secure additional raffle prizes and share the event details on their Socials, all of which helped make a difference!

• Schedule:  And you thought trying to get the whole crew into the same game was tough?  In reality, a good schedule can really help to give guests who may not be able to attend for the full event an idea of when fun activities may be happening.  I found it challenging to both be engaged with games and execute events, so ask your friends (the ones who never sign up for Game Day no matter how many times you ask) if they would be willing to help run a small part of the day!  Lastly, we found it difficult to time events so they started and ended when we thought.  You may find it best to space your events out by at least a few hours depending on what you are planning.

• Getting the Word Out:  Make sure to share your event with the same energy you share your fundraising!  If there is something that feels like a party people will want to show up and support you, but only if they know about it.  Work with your venue, local Children’s Miracle Network hospital, and local sites like reddit and facebook events to excite people about making a difference and helping kids and families in your local community!  Share your schedule and any prizes, raffles, tournaments, or other news that would convince you to ready up!
  
  

⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️🅱️🅰️ – Cheat Codes For Game Day

It wouldn’t be a Game Day without some fun activities to break up those grinds!  There are so many different ways from tournaments to charity ideas you can use to liven up your event and increase your fundraising, and below are some of the ideas we executed on our Game Day and what we thought worked well about them:

• Breakfast – Pre Event:  We start every game day with a traditional breakfast crunchwrap from Taco Bell.  It’s important to make sure you fuel for 24 hours of gaming and event hosting, and having a great incentive to get your team to the venue early for setup (it took us an hour and a half to get everything ready) is the best way to make sure everyone starts on time and ready to roll!

• Open for Business:  Our venue was willing to let us in early to start the event and stream on time, but they didn’t open for business until their normal hours at noon.  This gave us a really nice chance to make sure everything was working and we could do some last minute fundraising during the morning games.  Once the brewery opened it was more difficult to run both a fun event and an engaging stream.  Raffle ticket sales and tab roundups started in preparation for the first scheduled event of the day…

• Tournament Time:  We held two tournaments throughout the day, one for Mario Kart 64 where we slowly eliminated a single player each round until our final four raced to the finish in the Star Cup, and one for Super Smash Brothers where we held a free-for all battle that took the last two alive from each round until the final battle.  We asked each participant to make a $5 donation to play and the winner of each tournament received swag donated by the brewery.

• Raffles for Luckdos and Loot:  Throughout the event we were reminding people to purchase raffle tickets for $5 each.  We did three drawings using some excellent prizes donated by our local Children’s Miracle Network hospital (a signed hockey stick from our local pro team), our local internet partner Gateway Fiber (a new gaming monitor), and our local sports radio KFAN (a chance to visit the studio and sit in on a show).  We didn’t see as much fundraising from the raffle as we had hoped, and next year we plan to replace the raffle with a silent auction for big ticket items.  Raffles are still a great way to give out swag and lower cost items, and every time we announced a winner it added excitement to the event!

• Trivia Throwdown:  One of our friends offered to help with the event by running an online trivia game for the brewery where people were able to play in teams, using their mobile phones to answer questions and score points for speed.  Our friend set up the questions the night before and added a fun mix of gaming, general knowledge, and Minneapolis-based trivia to make the game fun for all.  We asked each team to make a donation they felt appropriate and the winning team received a gift card for the brewery.

• Donation Slices – Late Night Pizza:  We worked with our local Jet’s Pizza who sponsored free pizza for the gamers and late night guests.  We asked people to donate whatever they felt appropriate per slice, and leftovers gave us some great fuel during those early morning hours.

• Pajama Party:  Originally an idea from the brewery owner, halfway to our 25 hour goal a few of us donned onesies and shifted into comfy clothes.  Patrons were invited to bring their PJs as well, and we set up some water-pong tables to play games and get some energy back by moving around.  It made for a great theme to close out our final photo!

If you’ve made it all the way down to the credits, let me start by thanking you for your involvement in Extra Life.  This charity is such an amazing way to take something we all love and turn it into a meaningful difference in our local communities.  Keep on finding new and exciting ways to make a difference and hope to see you all running your own public events next year on November 8th!

A special thank you to Nick, Jon, Max, Rod, Justin, Elizabeth, Alex, Haley, Anne, Tim, Peter, Emily, Morgan, and everyone else who helped make this year’s Extra Life amazing.

Nate