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From: Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd,rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: [techcrunch] A DnD Actual Play sells out Madison Square Garden
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2024 08:55:28 +0200
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Source: 
https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/12/a-dungeons-dragons-actual-play-show-is-going-to-sell-out-madison-square-garden/?guccounter=1


A Dungeons & Dragons actual play show is going to sell out Madison 
Square Garden
Amanda Silberling@asilbwrites / 7:30 PM GMT+2•April 12, 2024

What does Taylor Swift have in common with a group of improv comedians 
pretending to be wizards? They can both sell out Madison Square Garden 
(… and also, their fans kind of hate Ticketmaster now).

Dropout’s Dungeons & Dragons actual play show, Dimension 20, is getting 
pretty close to selling out a 19,000-seat venue just hours after ticket 
sales opened to the general public. To the uninitiated, it may seem 
absurd to go to a massive sports arena and watch people play D&D. As one 
Redditor commented, “This boggles my mind. When I was playing D&D in the 
early eighties, I would have never believed that there was a future 
where people would watch live D&D at Madison Square Garden. It’s 
incomprehensible to me.”

It is indeed bizarre, albeit fun. But in this monumental moment for the 
actual play genre, the triumph is eclipsed by the biggest frustration 
that links sports, music and now D&D fans: Ticketmaster. As Federal 
Trade Commission chair Lina Khan said amid the Taylor Swift-Ticketmaster 
scandal, the company’s failures “ended up converting more Gen Zers into 
anti-monopolists overnight than anything [she] could have done.”

In the case of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, fans were upset because demand 
was so high that Ticketmaster’s system couldn’t handle the traffic. For 
Dimension 20, the culprit is Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing. As more 
people try to buy tickets, the price of the tickets increase. About an 
hour after the Madison Square Garden tickets went on sale, the few dozen 
upper bowl tickets left were $800. Three hours after, these tickets are 
around $330, which is still very inflated.

“Went onto the presale, tickets were $500+ for the worst ones, we 
assumed they were scalpers and that the actual sale today would have 
normal priced tickets… $2000 for the lower bowl!? I know it’s not 
dropout setting the price but wow is that a LOT of cash,” a Redditor 
posted. And as a commenter astutely pointed out, thanks to dynamic 
pricing, Ticketmaster itself is actually the scalper. Of course, 
Dimension 20 fans are frustrated, especially since the show’s content is 
overtly anti-capitalist.

Despite the pricing debacle, the demand for the show is a great sign for 
both actual play shows and the creator economy at large.

Shows like Dimension 20 and Critical Role, which recently played a sold 
out show at the 12,500-seat Wembley arena, are not the reality of every 
creator. But 10 years ago, these sorts of pop star-sized productions for 
online creators would be unthinkable. In 2013, it was a big deal — 
worthy of a New York Times writeup — that YouTubers John and Hank Green 
played and sold out Carnegie Hall, which seats about 3,000 people. Now, 
the lines between internet people and “real” celebrities are less 
present than ever.

Even the story behind Dropout, the production company behind Dimension 
20, exemplifies these changing tides. When the comedy site CollegeHumor 
folded, one of the company’s executives, Sam Reich, acquired the 
company, which has since evolved into Dropout. Now, Dropout produces a 
variety of comedy shows (in addition to Dimension 20) that capture the 
lightning in a bottle that has eluded more traditional shows like 
Saturday Night Live. Like SNL in its best moments, Dropout’s cast 
members are as compelling as the actual shows — if you think Lou Wilson 
is funny on Dimension 20, then you’ll probably want to watch his 
episodes of Game Changer, and so on. The beast of Dropout feeds itself. 
Meanwhile, four of Dimension 20’s cast members started the creator-owned 
actual play podcast Worlds Beyond Number last year, which now has over 
30,000 paid subscribers on Patreon, who pledge $5 a month to the project.

This milestone for Dimension 20 is all the more evidence that the 
relationship between Silicon Valley and the creator economy hype cycle 
is completely irrelevant to the actual careers of creators. Sure, 
venture funding for creator companies has fallen from its peak, but who 
cares? Creators can sell out Madison Square Garden.