GX Australia is the country’s first convention for queer gamers, geeks, and all of their friends. Coming to Sydney in 2016!
BACK THIS PROJECT – BRING GX TO SIDNEY!!!
Heard of GX/GaymerX?
This awesome convention has been taking place in the San Francisco area
since 2012! It’s great if you live in the United States already, or can
afford the expensive airfare to go overseas, but what about those of us
who are a little more bound by gravity?
GX is coming to Australia!
We’re
thrilled to announce that GX Australia, with the support and blessings
of the talented team in the United States, is taking place in Sydney
next year! It will have everything you’ve come to expect from GX, but
with home-grown spin and tons of Australian style! February 27th and
28th, 2016 will see us host the first GX Australia event at the
Australian Technology Park, minutes away from central Sydney!
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Wait, you mentioned GaymerX — what if I’m [not gay/don’t play video games/don’t have a console/etc]?
Do you like comics? Sci-fi movies? Fantasy novels? A massive fan of Sense8,
or know the Marvel Cinematic Universe inside and out? GX Australia is
for you! We’re a celebration of everything geeky and nerdy, whatever
that means to you! If you want to help us in making a safe and inclusive
space for everyone, you’re welcome regardless of what your interests
are. And you don’t need to be gay to participate — the more diversity,
the better!
How is this different from GX in the US?
More
than simply bringing the convention across the ocean, we want to give
it our own special Australian flair. To that end, we’re excited to offer
a few things for the first time in any GX-branded event:
- We’re 15+! Let’s face it — queer teens need support, and we think
it’s hugely important to make this event available to those who aren’t
out yet to friends or family. That’s why, for the first time at any GX
event, we’re making the convention open to anyone fifteen and older; if
you’re younger than 15, no worries! Just get a parent or guardian to
come with you! - We’re huge! With an expo hall of over 6000sqm, we’ve got the
largest space in any GX event to show off our generous sponsors,
talented developers, and creative artists! This gives us plenty of space
for attendees to see some of their favourite companies and celebrities
up close and live. - Home-grown Australian talent! We’re already overwhelmed by the
support we’ve received from Australian indies, and we’ve got your best
shot to meet the makers of some of your favourite Aussie games in
person. - Watch highly anticipated panels live online, or view all of them soon after! We’re going to have popular panels available for immediate and live streaming as they happen, or just watch all of the awesome discussions in your own convenience soon after the convention concludes!
- Conveniently timed for the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade!
This annual pride festival is one of the largest in the world and draws
thousands of people each year. Whether you live in Sydney already or
are visiting for the convention, we’ve locked our date in a week before
Mardi Gras itself — come for GX Australia, stay for the parade!
With
the awesome support of the Australian indie community, we’ve raised
initial funds that allowed us to secure a venue that fit our criteria —
we wanted somewhere big enough for the amount of attendees we’re
planning for, it needed to have an expo hall large enough for all the
awesome developers, publishers, and other creative types we want to
showcase, and it must be accessible to everyone. That venue is the
amazing Australian Technology Park in Redfern, minutes from the
centre of Sydney and both big and cool enough to contain the queer
awesomeness we want to produce.
However, securing the venue alone isn’t enough and we need support from geeks like you
to raise enough funds to ensure we can produce the sort of event we’ve
dreamed of having here ever since the first announcement of GaymerX back
in 2012.
Your support will help us pay for the venue in full,
ensure we’ve got necessary funds to bring over all of the Bosses of
Honour we’ve got planned, take care of the tech costs involved in
streaming/recording tons of panels to the internet, and cover any other
costs that crop up when you’re running an event of this size.
How can we be sure you won’t spend the money on iPads and Xboxes?!
Your handy organisers, Liam Esler and Joshua Meadows, have tons of experience running reputable events across Australia:
- Liam is an Australian game developer and event manager currently
residing in Melbourne with his partner Sebastian. A producer, writer,
and designer by trade, he has worked with companies such as Beamdog,
Obsidian Entertainment, Surprise Attack, Player Attack and the Game
Developers’ Association of Australia (GDAA). He is currently the event
manager for Game Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP), Australia’s premier game
development conference. He is a strong advocate for the representation
of diversity in games, both in-game and in the workforce, and serves as
the co-chair of the International Game Developers’ Association LGBTQ+
Special Interest Group. - Joshua is the primary organiser of Sydney Gaymers, Australia’s
largest queer gaming group and one of the biggest groups worldwide. With
over 1600 members, Sydney Gaymers regularly meets for monthly events,
has received sponsorship and support from companies like Valve, Ubisoft,
and Electronic Arts, and featured the first video-game themed float
with their 2013 entry in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade.
Joshua is a journalist and writer, with experience both writing about
and for video games since he was a teenager. His work on the
intersection of gaming and politics has appeared in XY Magazine,
GayGamer.net, Kotaku, and Massively, and he’s been an advocate for
improved diversity in gaming for over a decade. He’s also the writer of Iyetra, an episodic sci-fi/fantasy digital novella series.
Plus, The team behind GX in the US has run their event in San Francisco for three years now, along with the release of an awesome RPG under their belts. Trust us, your money is going to a great cause!
If this is a part of GX in the US, why do you need a kickstarter campaign?
We’re
extremely excited to be working with the kickass team in the United
States to bring GX across the ocean, but running these types of events
are incredibly expensive and incredibly time consuming. Midboss &
GaymerX LLC are providing us oodles of moral support, advice, and
expertise, but when it comes to footing the bill we’re achieving that
quest ourselves. This gives us the flexibility to make sure that GX
stays true to the core values of the original convention, but while
addressing the unique expectations and needs of the audience here in
Australia.
What’s the cost breakdown?
Based on attendance
at previous GX events, as well as attendance at similar conventions in
Australia, we’re anticipating ticket sales of 700 – 1500; fortunately,
our venue will allow us to provide an awesome, comfortable experience if
we end up getting more attendance than this!
With the funds
we’ve already received, as well as a successful Kickstarter campaign, we
will have enough to achieve the convention itself at the very minimum
level — additional funds (both between pledges over our goal as well as
further sponsorship from developers, publishers, and companies) will
allow us to dramatically improve the convention itself: we’ll be able to
fly out further guests, add additional parties around the convention
itself, and generally add as much fun and exciting content as possible.
Until all costs for the convention itself are paid for, everyone
involved are donating their time and energy on a volunteer basis.
Here’s
a general idea of where we anticipate our budget going — we’re running
the convention as lean as possible to make sure that as much as possible
goes to the event itself instead of administrative overhead.
If you’re a fan of video gaming and want to support gamers in all
their forms, we hope you’ll join us. If you like comic books, graphic
novels, or sci-fi movies and believe in a world where people can enjoy
these things too, whatever their identity or lifestyle, we hope to get
your help. If you wear geek as a badge of honour and want to join our
mission in making sure nobody ever feels unwelcome in these spaces, we
hope you’ll join us in February.
With your help, we can spread the awesome success of GX to Australia and create a place for everyone to celebrate, together!
Risks and challenges
We’ve locked in our date with the Australian Technology Park for
February 27 and 28th, 2016, and with the support of the indie community
here in Australia have already raised funds for the deposit. The amount
we’re asking for in this campaign will provide the very minimum
necessary to pay all of our costs involved in the two day convention.
Extra funds will allow us to do more exciting things like provide a
general afterparty for attendees, cover the flight and accommodation
expenses for our out-of-town Bosses of Honour, and expand the scope of
our offerings.
By holding the event at the ATP, we’ve got an extremely flexible
space that can comfortably hold as many attendees as we have, whether
that’s in the hundreds or in the thousands. We’re aiming for 700 – 1500
attendees, but if we’re lucky enough to sell more tickets than that
we’ve ensured our space can handle however many people we can throw at
it!
Further, by partnering with other companies for digital rewards,
we’re avoiding the physical swag issue that plagues so many other
Kickstarter projects — by not focusing on physical rewards, we don’t
have to worry about Kickstarter funds being absorbed by manufacturing
and shipping.
I Need Diverse Games 