It’s hard to believe, but at the time of writing, it’s been nearly two months since Free Play concluded.
The best thing is that the good vibes keep coming. Even in the last couple of weeks there have been people who have come out of the woodworks to say that they watched and really enjoyed the event. I had assumed that at this point we’d have long known who came to listen, but I keep getting surprised—it’s really inspiring and I’m so thankful.
We also just finished uploading the last video of our set to YouTube. VGM Collective and the Consouls still have a couple of videos to post, I think, but other than those, everything is archived. I hope that you’ll enjoy the music from all of these groups again and again! I just re-listened to the sets and was basking in the great energy that everyone brought. I’m confident that when you revisit them you’ll feel the same way.
As for our GoFundMe, we raised a total of $1,706. After fees, that allowed us to donate a whopping $750 to the AbleGamers Foundation and pay each of the participating artists $50 each. That means that your support has brought everyone closer to a world where “everyone can game,” and it also has helped the artists continue to bring you more great video game music jazz.
Thought it might be nice to provide proof that I actually donated the money, haha ;D
Since the money is donated, at the posting of this update, our GoFundMe has officially closed. I can’t thank our donors enough, whether they donated $10 or were our $300 anonymous hero. Your generosity is seriously awesome and so heartwarming.
Ever since we played our last note of the festival I’ve known that I wanted to do Free Play again in 2020. Between now and then you know that I’m going to encourage the Modes to work hard so we can make the event even better than last year!
Speaking of, there are plenty of things that I would love to improve upon, and I’m happy to share my thoughts. Fair warning: There’s a lot of unbridled reflection below! It’s OK if you stop here : )
First, let’s check out the viewer stats for the event:
This graph shows both the maximum viewers a particular stream had and the average viewers across the broadcast time. Some takeaways:
It’s promising to see that the stats went up as the event went on! While I have no way of knowing how many of the 16 average viewers on VGM Collective’s stream stayed through the whole thing, I would guess that a good number did.
Also, I had figured that as more time zones entered more reasonable times of the evening (e.g., when it was 7pm U.S. West Coast time) we’d see more views. There’s not enough data to draw any good conclusions here, though. We only had a few views from Australia and Japan, which makes sense due to how early it was in their regions, but I don’t know how many viewers were split between the coasts of the U.S.
One thing that I’m interested in knowing is how many viewers from Europe we would have had if we would have started earlier. VGM Collective started at 11pm in England, which is pretty late in general, but also late for someone to *start* watching an event like Free Play. If we can get more bands involved and start at, say, 2pm EST, I wonder how things would pan out.
Our viewing party at Andre’s
Something to remember is that these stats also don’t show the whole viewership picture since we don’t know how many people were watching in each location. For example, one of our awesome fans and donors, Jordis, hosted a viewing party, but all of those people only count as 1 view In the stats. Maybe we can incorporate a post-show survey in the future to help with trying to understand this better.
We had a great chat room going, but we also had a significant number more viewers who weren’t chatting. It may be worth exploring YouTube Live next year to get more people on chat since it’s more likely people have YouTube accounts than Twitch.
To get more stats I have to groom the bands a little better. As someone who is relatively new to Twitch I didn’t know quite how deep they could get, but now that I know, I can ensure we get an even better picture of how the event did as a whole.
Fundraising-wise, while we didn’t meet the lofty goal of $3,000 that I set, it doesn’t really matter much—I feel great about what we accomplished, and I hope that everyone else feels the same way. There are two main takeaways from the GoFundMe, however.
When I came up with the idea of fundraising for both the artists and charity, I thought that meeting the goal would be a cinch. Considering we had 18 artists involved with their own fanbases, friends, and family (not including N!ESS since they didn’t participate in the fundraising aspect), I figured the average of $167 per person would be pretty easy to achieve. Furthermore, I was banking on the campaign being fueled by a large number of small donations. In both areas I was mistaken.
VGM Collective kicking things off with their dope video border
Adam from 8-Bit Jazz Heroes laying it down
The vast majority of the donations came from my family and friends. This makes sense to an extent; after all, Free Play was ultimately my dream and I would be the one pushing the hardest to garner support for the campaign. That said, outside of my own efforts I can only attribute the other donations to two others (though there may have been more—a couple people didn’t reference anyone when they donated and a couple others donated anonymously).
I think that I can safely say I overestimated two things here. More importantly, I overestimated the amount of effort that people who weren’t the band leaders would put into the campaign. Even in my own band it was difficult enough to get folks to advertise the show regularly, no less ask people for money in support. Then, I overestimated how much money would come in per person even if others were vigilant about advertising. Some of the performers were clearly making a strong effort, but not everyone has friends and family that can afford to put money towards an event like this.
As far as the average dollar amount, I figured that this campaign would be like any Kickstarter that I had seen in the past where it would be small-dollar heavy with some larger donations thrown in. Turns out that for our 29 donors, our average donation was $59, which is huge. I can’t express my gratitude towards our donors enough and I’m totally proud of that number; however, I think that we should be aiming for a large number of small donations to get closer to a larger goal.
Nice! Edmond is Super Sumo-wrestler was MVP according to many of my friends and family.
The Consouls themselves! Last picture of Andre’s TV I swear.
The question is, how is that achieved? I don’t know the answer right now. Is utilizing a different crowdfunding site important? For Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns, the minimum donation is $1 instead of $5, and the donation amounts are clearly labeled on their campaign sites. I steered away from them because I didn’t think that backer awards tied in well with the charitable aspect of the event, but I might have to take a closer look.
I also need to figure out how to get more of the artists hype about sharing the event and trying to raise money! Clearly everything turned out great in the end, but next year I think that it’s important to set a minimum goal for our charity first and then pay the artists after that charity goal is met. Maybe employing that type of approach will give some more incentive for everyone to be more heavily involved in the fundraising aspect of the event.
One thing that I considered was trying to get some sort of sponsorship, mainly in terms of venues. I think that it’s important that event is primarily an online one, and I think that interacting with those that chat in is important to the vibe. However, it did feel odd not to get any audible feedback after tunes were finished—the event really made me appreciate applause! It could be great to get venues and live audiences involved for the bands, and it could also be great from a fundraising aspect. It would take a lot more work on my end – and undoubtedly on the participants’ end – though.
All in all, if Free Play 2020 was nearly the exact same event next year, I would be very pleased. I will, however, certainly be making improvements, even if they are behind-the-scenes adjustments. Can’t wait to share more great music with you all then.
Do you have any ideas for improving the event? I’d love to hear them! Please share in the comments or through our contact page.
With my eternal gratitude,
Greg
Us!
