Hey, y’all.

Been a while, hasn’t it? One of the unfortunate but unavoidable truths of SideQuest is the cyclical nature of our activity. Things ramp up quite a bit leading up to RTX and SQ Community Weekend, hit a crescendo as the big weekend unfolds, and then we drop off a cliff as our staff and directors divert attention and time back to the non-SideQuest parts of our lives (work, family, sleep, etc.). And now that things in my life have gone back to a relative balance, I’d like to update everyone on what’s happening.

RTX and SideQuest Community Weekend

We had another fantastic weekend of community events and meet-ups! We raised over $6,700 at the Charity Gala alone. Merchandise sales from our RTX booth will also go towards our general fund to support a variety of charities by the end of the year. Many, many thanks to the following groups of people:

• the community members and corporate sponsors who created and donated items to the auction
• the guests and attendees who bid at the auction (even if you didn’t end up with the winning bid, you helped us in raising money for charity!)
• the many fantastic Rooster Teeth staff who took time out of their evenings to come out in support of SideQuest and the community
• the staff at our venues (Four Seasons Austin, Buffalo Billiards, Pinballz Arcade) for putting up with us, taking care of us, and helping us pull off such memorable events
• our team of Spectres and SideQuest staff for giving their time and energy in the name of charity and community
• everyone who stopped by the SideQuest booth on the RTX expo floor to learn more about our mission, support us with donations, or just say hi
• each and every person who attended our events and contributed to the fun, supportive community spirit that defines SideQuest

I personally had a great time seeing old faces and making new friends. We’ve received some great feedback on what folks would like to see at next year’s Community Weekend, and I plan on taking your comments to heart to improve our events. If you have anything you’d like to share, please let me know (brian@sidequest.org).

PHOTOS! We’ve finally gotten around to amassing our photos from Community Weekend, and you can view them here! Feel free to share the links on social media if you’d like. Also, if you object to any photos of you being made public in these albums and would like them taken down, just email me (brian@sidequest.org), and I’ll make things right.

Charity Gala Photo Booth, 6 July (Google Photos)
Charity Gala Ballroom, 6 July (Google Photos)
Barlympics, 8 July (Google Photos)
SideQuest Lounge, 9 July (Google Photos)
…or, check out all the albums in one place on our Facebook page.

SideQuest @ RTX London and RTX Sydney

I had the pleasure of meeting several community members from abroad during RTX, and one thing was clear: there’s an appetite for more community events and meetups at the other RTX’s (London in October, and Sydney in February). I’m very excited for the prospect of hosting satellite events at these locations, and we’ll begin to work with the community groups in the UK and Australia to make those events possible.

Stay tuned for more details, but no matter what, you can expect awesome people getting together in the name of community and supporting great charities!

Future Fundraising and Streaming Events

We will continue to host live community and charity events here in Austin, but we know the SQ community extends far beyond our quirky little city. In our future charity streams, we’d like to feature programming from you, our community members. For instance, rather than having SQ host an entire 24-hour stream, we hope to put together a schedule of charity streamers, to show off the diversity of our community and the games we don’t think suck all that much. Streamers would get exposed to different audiences, the SQ team in Austin isn’t flailing to be entertaining for countless hours on end, and our partner charities still benefit from a solid fundraising effort.

If you or a streamer you know might be interested in joining our roster of streaming partners, reach out to streaming@sidequest.org.

Welp, I think that’s enough of an update for now, lest I end up with an excessive wall of text. Thanks for being awesome and continuing to be a part of this journey. Quest Onward!