Extra Life Accomplished Amazing Things at San Diego Comic-Con 2019
Extra Life has had a busy couple of weeks between keeping on top of RTX, VidCon, and most recently San Diego Comic-Con. We were able to set up our booth just outside of the Esports Gaming Lounge in the Marriot Marquis Ballroom. This positioning gave us the opportunity to reach out to the hundreds of visitors visiting the lounge area to participate in open gaming and organized play. The event was sponsored by State Farm, HyperX, Team Liquid, and Mixer with production by Greenlit Content and Rekt Global. The streamed events from the Esports Gaming Lounge averaged about 16,000 viewers per day.
As you might imagine, the team had their hands full keeping on top of everything. Thankfully, we had the assistance of the San Diego Extra Life guild and their local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital, Rady Children’s Hospital. From the start of the event until it wrapped up, their hard work brought in almost 400 new participants for Extra Life 2019! The cast and showrunners of SYFY’s Van Helsing also stopped by to say hello and learn a bit more about what Extra Life does. It was pretty surreal seeing and talking Extra Life with actors like Aleks Paunovic and Jennifer Cheon as well as showrunner Jonathan Walker. It was crazy exciting!
Extra Life had a stream going for the duration of Comic-Con that went from 10am – 5pm each day. In total, with the help of our guild members, Extra Life managed to raise over $10,000 USD in donations from the stream alone. Not only that, but we raised a bit shy of $2,000 USD from Mixer Embers, or chat donations, during the stream. Some of the event’s biggest donors were State Farm, who generously donated $5000 USD and Team ShackNews who gave $1,337 USD all going to help sick and injured kids across the United States and Canada. All told, we managed to raise over $12,000 while streaming at San Diego Comic-Con and we very much consider that a win.
Extra Life’s Senior Manager Lou Adducci and Extra Life Ambassador Comicstorian both went onto the official Dungeons & Dragons San Diego Comic-Con livestream to talk about tabletop gaming and Extra Life. The official Dungeons & Dragons Extra Life team set a goal of $300,000 USD for its members, and they have already raised over $26,000 USD! It’s a great segment that you can watch for yourself. It contains some really interesting stories about Comicstorian playing D&D in the army and how integral the game is to the kids in Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Lou also did a great job talking about what Extra Life does for the kids and what our plans are in the lead up to this year’s Game Day.
A huge thank you to the San Diego Extra Life guild who turned out in force with the support of Rady Children’s Hospital. It was awesome seeing you pull together hundreds of strangers by telling them about how they can play games and help kids through Extra Life. We couldn’t have done San Diego Comic-Con without you all. You’re amazing.
One of the common misconceptions about Extra Life is that someone can only participate if they play video games. Not true! Extra Life supports and encourages all kinds of play. To that end, we have been supporting Tabletop Appreciation Weekend for the past few years. This year, the event takes place August 24-25th and will be a time for players to gather together and play board games for the kids. If that sounds intriguing, learn more about Extra Life Tabletop Appreciation Weekend and be sure to sign up for Extra Life to help sick and injured kids in hospitals around the US and Canada by playing games!