Crowdfunding

> "*Drag Queens Die of Exposure!*"
> ― Butylene O'Kipple
>
>

The podcast has used a number of **Crowdfunding** campaigns to help support the show. Season One was initially started with funding from a Kickstarter campaign, and has continued to receive support from an ongoing Patreon campaign.

All Bonus Episodes of Queens of adventure are made available to Kickstarter and Patreon backers.

## Kickstarter

On March 2nd, 2018, DMs Matt and James launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to produce twenty-five episodes of Season One. The initial goal was to reach $3000 in support. The goal was reached on March 7th. By the end of the campaign on March 31st over 400 backers had raised $10,381.

After the initial goal was reached, stretch goals and rewards were revealed, and all of them were unlocked. These included three live streams (two of which have aired as of August 2019), an original theme song, and a fully playable, illustrated adventure.

The campaign was featured by Kickstarter itself on March 21st, and featured artwork from Cody Shipman and Chad Sell. Rewards for backers included a postcard of Chad Sell artwork, access to choose your own adventure polls to help steer future adventures, custom character sketches, naming of characters, or sponsoring of episodes or seasons. Russel Blumedale was the sole backer at the Season Sponsor level.

## Patreon

While the Kickstarter campaign had been an immense success, it was clear more ongoing funding would be needed to keep the show going. To continue funding the show past the first year, Matt and James opened up a Patreon account in June 2018 with the launch of the podcast. Backers at the $4 a month level earned access to the Bonus Episodes, and backers at the $7 level gain access to the Choose Your Own Adventure channel in the show's Discord server, joining with Kickstarter backers in making decisions that affect the story.

Matt and James set several different goals initially as they reached certain numbers of backers. As of August 2019 they have over 100 backers, allowing them to pay for one recording session a month. Higher goals would permit more recordings a month and expanding the podcast to more live shows, or even increasing the release schedule if they could afford additional producing and editing help.

To support Queens of Adventure, you can go to: https://www.patreon.com/queensofadventure

As of November 2020, the Patreon was put on hold as the show went on hiatus due to covid-19.

### Patreon Preview Weekend

At the end of June 2019, all bonus episodes were released on Youtube for one weekend to allow non-backers a chance to enjoy them and try to grow the backer base. The campaign helped the show reach 100 backers. The videos were made private after the close of the promotion.

The video of each episode during the preview included a variety of fan art, photos from live shows, and short, pre-recorded clips of fans of the show doing activities as they listened to the podcast. These fans included bonus adventure cast members Rock M. Sakura and Anthony Oliviera.

## Second Kickstarter - Queen's of Adventure Legendary Journey

On August 18th, 2019, at the end of the second live stream, Matt and the queens announced a new Kickstarter Campaign. This one is meant to bring the cast to Chicago in October for two live shows, one with a new cast from Chicago, and one with Arson, Butylene, and Fraya. They will also be recording additional table play episodes and joining with other D&D live play shows.

   The funding goal was $2500, and within five minutes of announcing on stream, they had reached a 5th of their goal. By the end of the stream they had over $1000. Twenty four hours later, they passed their initial goal, with twenty seven days to continue to raise funds.

By the end of the campaign on September 15th, 2019, $8887 were raised by 173 backers. This amount not only would provide the funding for the show to do two live shows in Chicago, a live show at Gaylaxicon, another at Lush in Minnesota, special episodes recorded with other RPG Live Play podcasts, and also to fund an entire additional year of the regular show.