2020 Sucked. Here's How To Help

 

2020 Sucked

It’s hard to explain how tough 2020 was for the Midwest Gaming Classic. In 2019, running the convention accounted for 97% of all of our yearly revenue. In 2020, the show was canceled three weeks before we were supposed to open. By this point, we had spent more than $100,000, over half of that unrecoverable expenses. Additionally, to ensure the Midwest Gaming Classic can live up to the quality that our guests deserve, I have been a full time employee of the show since 2019. When this is factored in, our losses come to around $100,000 for the year.

The Midwest Gaming Classic has applied for different grant and stimulus programs, but due to some unique circumstances we have so far been mostly unsuccessful in obtaining operating capital, with one $2,500 grant being our only successful application. We have not at this point received any additional insurance money or governmental help, nor do we know if any will eventually come.

Even with this, we believe that the future of the show is bright. We are still here because people like you stuck with us. Having said that, to ensure the quality of the Midwest Gaming Classic remains as high as it has been in the past, we need to be very careful with money for the foreseeable future.

But, you can help! Gary and I aren’t comfortable taking donations or doing a GoFundMe, but below are some of the ways you can support our mission: The Midwest Gaming Classic builds a community for gamers to share and celebrate the love of gaming.

Tell A Friend!

The easiest and best way to help MGC is to tell a friend about us! Suggest that interested people follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitch (more on that in a moment)! Each additional follower helps us to get the word out, and word of mouth is the best way to inform people what the actual show is like. So please, tell your friends!

Watch Us On Twitch!

Twitch allows us to stay in touch with you, work on show content, promote the show to other gamers, and to make a bit of money doing it. We started https://www.twitch.tv/tvmgc/ on Twitch to stream various gaming community and convention information, and currently host seven scheduled shows a week, and many other unscheduled shows and specials.

Help by signing up for a free Twitch account, “Follow”ing us, and picking one or more shows a week to tune in to. The search algorithm for Twitch is hugely dependent on how many watchers a channel has, so every viewer – even if you aren’t actively watching – helps us to catch the eyes of additional viewers.

Have Amazon Prime? Every month you can subscribe to one Twitch channel for free! Your subscription is worth about $2.50 per month for us, and if just 2% of the people who attended the 2019 MGC did this, we would make enough money to cover our loan payments. You do have to sign up monthly, but the process is simple and takes less than a minute. Here are easy instructions you can use.

Finally, are you a streamer? Use the contact form at the bottom of any of our pages and let’s talk about ways we can work together!

Buy a Forever Ticket

Forever Tickets are like Forever Stamps: buy one now, and it will be good for one future show admission for as long as we host the show. If you have the means to pre-buy a few years worth of tickets, that would really help us smooth things out. Additionally, ticketholders will get certain advantages like early access to our new limited access MGC concept show “Game Nights Lock In” when those tickets go on sale before the general public.

Mailing List

Are you signed up for our mailing list? If not, do so! We send a weekly Twitch schedule as well as regular show updates, and the more people we can directly contact, the less we have to pay social media to serve the same function.

Buy MGC Merch

Merch sales for the show help! Click here to shop. Don’t see something you’d like? Tell us what you’re interested in by using the contact form, and we can see about adding it to the store!

Buy Retro Games

We also run the GOAT Store, which sells retro Games Of All Types! Stop by and pick up a new game to play for your favorite Atari, Nintendo, Sega, or other consoles at https://www.goatstore.com

Sponsor Something at the MGC

This is as close to a donation as we would consider… if you have some money and want to do something for the show, use the contact form below and we can discuss what that might be. We keep a sort of wish list of content we’d like to add, and can work with you directly to help make something happen – from bringing in an industry guest, to helping to improve displays, to many other things, if you would like to discuss doing something special for the show… or, if you’re part of a company that wants to do something special for the show, we’re open to talk with you! Please use that contact form below!

Here’s to 2021 and Beyond!

While 2020 sucked, Gary and I believe that what we have done to expand how we can interact with the community will set us up for great success – with your help – for this coming year and beyond! Please do consider doing one or more of the things above, and make sure to tell a friend about how excited you are to come back to the show when it’s safe to do so. We appreciate it!

~Dan Loosen