Nope. Sorry.
During the first ever Twitchcon EU I had the opportunity to attend a PUBG partner party. I was always curious how these sorts of events played out, so I thought i'd share my experience with you all. Pull back the curtain.
Just being totally straight up here, these partner parties are pretty much like any other party you’ve probably ever been to. There’s alcohol, food, music... BUT some of them have some insanely cool twists.
The adventure started at Twitchcon, where we were all packed into some busses and driven about 40 minutes outside of the center city to the party venue. Staff dressed in ghillie suits, handed out merch, very high energy.
It was all very hush hush, nobody knew where we were going or what we'd be doing. The venue ended up being at this place called ___ which was an indoor skydiving venue which was actually really freaking cool. It tied in well with PUBG theme, provided a fantastic ice breaker for those less socially inclined and, well it was free so hooray.
Off the bus at the venue we were greeted by a small film crew capturing some (read via Pewdiepie) epic b-roll. There were PUBG banners all over the entrance where we were officially greeted and given a pretty excellent swag bag, it had a drink bottle, t-shirt, pubg cap, stickers and a few other bits and bobs.
The party itself, as I said before was like any other party. Free food, drinks, live music and all the rest. I knew nobody there so had to do my best to make friends and I met some really awesome people. Opalith, ___ and ____ shoutout to you guys. Was a pleasure meeting you!
The stereotype of gamers isn't one that reflects positively on sociability, I had no idea what to expect from the attendees but funnily enough, they ended up being the best part of the entire weekend.
Turns out when you cram 100 people in a room, all making a living in an incredibly niche and competitive market, they have a lot to talk about.
Not being a professional streamer, I had the opportunity to ask many of these individuals about their lives and experiences streaming. I summed up these learnings in another article.
There aren't many opportunities to do this, especially when you all work online in various corners of the globe.
Apart from my abysmal attempt at skydiving ( really fun and way WAY harder than I thought it would be), the whole night played out like any other party. People drank, ate, networked, there were a few speeches from the PUBG team which really made you feel a bit special.
The entire night was really fun, it’s a standard party but the people who go to these types of things are really cool. It was just great chatting and talking video games and streaming. Everybody there checked their egos and the door, no dramas, super friendly.
Honestly that’s pretty much it. The best bits about going to a party like this is meeting other streamers / creators that you can chat to, network and collaborate with. The other thing which I know shouldn’t make a big difference but it kinda does, is feeling validated. Getting an invite to something like this just kinda reinforces that you’re on the right track or heading in the right direction. That being said! Getting an invite to one of these things is just a small benefit to doing content creation. Create the content you enjoy, commit to your audience and the recognition and benefits will pay off eventually.
