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From: Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd,rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: [techcrunch] A DnD Actual Play sells out Madison Square Garden
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2024 18:39:04 +0200
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On 4/13/2024 8:55 AM, Kyonshi wrote:
> 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.


I feel bad about making more threads about this, so I will add this to 
this one as it's related: even in Edmonton there now is an Improvised 
Dungeons and Dragons show. In fact it's a returning show.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/edmonton/article/IMPROVISED-DUNGEONS-AND-DRAGONS-Comes-to-Rapid-Fire-Theatre-This-Week-20240416