Chicago Twitch community meetup

The 9th Chicago Twitch community streaming meetup was held May 18, which gathered hundreds inside of a private hall at Ignite gaming lounge in Skokie, Illinois. I spent the weekend in the area to take in a handful of gaming-related stops, and it culminated with this gathering of everything streaming.

The previous days were spent traveling and taking in the welcome sites of Galloping Ghost Arcade, as well as the Mitsuwa – a mall that houses numerous Japanese food and entertainment vendors. The Twitch meetup took me into Skokie for the very first time, and Ignite features what has to be the finest LAN/gaming site setup I’ve personally seen. There have been attempts to create LAN centers in my area, but they’ve never been executed with the energy of Ignite. I’d heard by word-of-mouth that the brand is looking to expand with multiple locations as an overall chain, but I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing what the center has to offer if I ever get the chance.

I follow the social media for the Twitch meetup event and came across an opportunity to volunteer, so my wife and I arrived early in the day to assist in the setup, and we were part of the crew that assisted with checking attendees into the event. Roughly the first 150 attendees received a special event bag featuring a Twitch brand sweater and other gear, while other grab bags were made available sans the specialty items. The majority of the event featured live music from a DJ while streamers in attendance could network and meet up with friends. While attendees were unable to IRL stream with their own devices, a main Twitch Chicago stream was run with interviews throughout the event and an MSI station provided a few setups for people to briefly stream to their channel.

The event also featured vendors relevant to streaming, including Flocker.tv, Lightstream Studio, Arsenal, Extra Life and Stack-Up. Brewer New Belgium was a sponsor of the event, and prominently featured its Voodoo Ranger IPA mascot, complete with a Toobin’-style mini game housed inside of an arcade cabinet. Ignite also provided setups to run Mortal Kombat 11 while serving food and drinks at the bar.

The meetup ended with a big raffle that provided winners with a variety of computer accessories that could be used during streaming, and the night ended with the announcement the next Chicago Twitch community meetup would be event bigger, hosted by the Metro venue in Chicago on Dec. 14.

This month’s event went smooth, and it was great to see so many gamers gather with a common hobby. December is a tough month for me to travel, but, if I can make the next meetup, I’ll definitely make note of it on Gemubaka and Twitter. Thanks again for the hospitality Chicago-area gamers!