Dank Art from the Arcade Superplay Expo Charity Event
I flew out to San Fransisco this past weekend to participate in The Arcade Superplay at Twitch headquarters. I was awake for most of the event which ran non-stop from October 21st to 23rd where some of the top Arcade players gathered to show off the games and help to raise donations for the The Save The Children charity.
We helped to raise $47K+ to help children who need help by transforming their lives by offering them protection from harm. Over 80% of Save the Children’s funds are spent on programs and services for children and families in need, and helping a child in need is one of the simplest yet biggest things anyone can do. I am a huge supporter for children’s rights, needs and safety so I was not only happy to donate my time and skills for this event, but I also made donations.
It was a crazy few surreal days where I left the colder comforts of my small town of Milton and made that trip to San Fransisco. One of the first people I met was Murphagator in Chicago O’Hare after noticing a tweet he made where he said he had a few hours to waste waiting for his connecting flight. It was amusing to me that I had originally looked into taking the same connecting flight as him but went with an earlier one instead. Trap15 picked me up from the Airport in San Fransisco but was almost an hour late due to traffic and just as we were pulling away he messaged me saying he had landed. We looped the terminal for a while until we could pick him up and take off to the hotel where we would not be for most of the time we were staying in the city. Also I want to point out Trap15 was listening to hardcore punk in his car which was awesome.
The hotel we stayed at was an original hotel of the city that survived many earthquakes and even the biggest one that ravaged the city almost a century ago. It was cool to see such splendour though I have my own reservations about staying in hotels. However most of our time was spent in the staff kitchen at Twitch headquarters where the actual marathon was taking place. After arriving at the hotel we met up with PJ, LordBBH & DevilREI who I was also meeting face to face for the first time. I broke the ice awkwardly by pulling out the ol’ selfie stick.
I had my station set up on a table just in reach of where the hosts were sitting for the entire 3 days we were live making all my Dank Art for the event. I tried my best to make art for almost all the games featured for the event and made sure to try and give those pieces to the players who donated their time to be there. We even made donation incentives for people watching at home to get in on the fun and put donations down on original Dank Art I am currently making. I was a constant creating force that entire weekend painting & tweeting out all the Dank Art I could all for the event and to help make it just a bit more special for everyone, players and viewers.
There was so much that happened and so many people I got to meet that it would take too long to mention them all. To keep things quick, I’ll list all the neat things that happened in point form:
- One of our Hosts was DeadFlip who’s personality is almost on par with how tall he in
A wild Dead_Flip IRL. I made a warm up Dank Art of him playing pinball to help get over my nerves and to kind of introduce what I do as I was the only guest there tha
t wasn’t playing a game or part of Twitch staff. - Kevin DDR was probably one of the most interesting persons I met there & his enthusiasm for playing games and collecting arcade PCB’s is like nothing I have ever seen. I drew him like a busy beaver eating a PCB because thats exactly what he was- busy and enthusiastically addicted to games.
- Totoroslayer asked if I needed anything on the second day we were there. I put great thought into this question & said “Bubbles. Lots of them. Preferably a bubble pipe.” He actually found me one.
OOOH Bubbles :3 - I shared a room with Aquas and Softdrink but we barely slept there. I think my stuff got better rest at the hotel then I ever did.
- PJ broke the baggage security system at the airport when he flew in and continued the ongoing theme with him where his presence alone is enough to make things break or catch on fire, hence his comical Dank Art.
- There was a lot of technical problems involved with doing a marathon that I am sad to say were not all PJ’s fault. We were lucky to have so many dedicated players who knew their stuff to be on hand to help out that weekend preparing boards, figuring out capture card issues, swapping out sticks and so on. We all worked effortlessly behind the scenes.
- All I wanted was a hamburger & I didn’t get my hamburger until DeadFlip & I went to catch our return home flights at the airport & he was kind enough to buy me dinner. Thanks, good buddy!!
I think I maybe got 20 hours of sleep the entire weekend I was there. I also messed my back up really bad sleeping on the floor the first night. My flight home was rather long and I tried to sleep thru most of it, but as soon as I touched down in Canada I was careening towards Milton to get to my job as I had promised to my boss before I left. The days that followed have been somewhat hard on me trying to get back into the swing of managing what happened on the week.
Reflecting back I am so happy we all got to participate in a marathon such as this and I hope that have it again next year but bigger and with more guests from other courtiers to make this more of a global effort. It was all for the children and for the love of the games and I think overall the +$47K that was raised that weekend was a huge achievement for Twitch, Save the Children and all of us who were part of it. Thanks guys!