Evo is as much a mainstay for the fighting game community (FGC) as it is for us at Gamers Outreach. It doesn’t necessarily kick off our efforts at in-person video game community events during the year (that distinction belongs to Gamers for Giving), but it always feels like the first of a long string of events we’re part of, meeting new and old supporters alike.
It was our third consecutive year at Evo, which has become more than just the world’s biggest fighting game tournament. Evo is a grand spectacle, an exhibitor’s hall, a convention, and a meeting place all in one event. It was our pleasure to join in on the fun at the Las Vegas Convention Center again. Held a couple of months earlier in June instead of the usual early August, this year also marked the first time Evo happened alongside one of our own events, with VTuber Summer Slam. Luckily, our marketing team is used to having their Super Meters filled to max level for events like these!
Raising Awareness With Help From Our Friends
This year, the Gamers Outreach booth was situated in front of the space occupied by our friends at Arc System Works. With Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls launching next month, it was the perfect venue for fans to try their hand at the latest characters and enjoy the game before it comes out. For us, it provided a nice way to entertain ourselves between conversations with our booth’s visitors.
Sydney the Service Dog proving that the FGC, video games, and GO Karts are for everyone.
As we do at every Evo, it’s all about spreading the good word about what we do. Convention attendees don’t often seek out charities like ours, and oftentimes don’t even know we exist. That’s why our presence at events like Evo is essential. That’s the real entertainment!
Over the past couple of years, the event has raised enough funding for three GO Karts in local Nevada healthcare centers. Whenever we talk about our mission to bring video games to kids in hospitals, it never gets old seeing people’s eyes light up. It also makes every donation we receive that much more meaningful.
The Booth
We love trying new and innovative ideas for our informational booth. It was actually two years ago that we debuted the booth’s current design, showcasing both actual patients and hospital staff. This year, we added a leaderboard to foster competitive pride whenever supporters made donations. In addition to seeing the amounts people donated, it was fun to see the unique names people came up with as they filled out their information.
Who wouldn’t want any of this cool stuff?
Of course, when it comes to in-person donations, we like to offer our community incentives. Like last year, we did an “instant win” raffle for everyone who donated at least $5. There were six possible instant win prizes, including a fight stick and microphone from Nacon, a fight stick from Victrix, Switch 2 carrying cases and a controller from Hori, and some leverless controllers from Brook Gaming. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank our awesome partners at Nacon, Victrix by Turtle Beach, Hori, Brook, and Gaming Generations for the prizes that helped entice donations at our booth.
Our booth also made for a great spot to talk and play fighting games with friends, or even the GO crew members on-site. From Tekken 8 to Guilty Gear – Strive –, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 to Power Stone, we had a slew of fighting games available at our booth. Prefer to play with a stick? No problem! One GO Kart was equipped with two fight sticks in front of our couch, while our standing GO Kart had gamepads attached. It was free play for everyone! We even had a couple of people from the booth next to us play Street Fighter VI on our couch with their own fight sticks!
Bring Your Own Contributors (B.Y.O.C.)
While perusing the Gamers Outreach socials, we were surprised to see a fundraiser in our honor take place on-site at Evo.
Over at the Bring Your Own Console (BYOC) tournaments, LAGr Gaming was streaming a KI tournament, and they performed more than admirably. The team’s players accounted for the majority of the tournament’s finalists, with a team member winning the finals.
Congratulations to LAGr Gaming for raising $1,000 in their effort! We hope to see them do it again next year. You gotta love it when the community takes initiative!
Join Monthly Giving
With the conclusion of VTuber Summer Slam coinciding with Evo, all avenues to support Gamers Outreach were open. Still, if you didn’t get to contribute to VSS or Evo, Monthly Giving is always an option. Your contributions to our monthly giving program, The GRID, support our ongoing programs and everything in between while maintaining a closer connection to both the foundation and mission.
Your monthly contribution allows us to continue to bring more smiles to more kids every day.
Those enrolled and contributing at least $10 a month will enjoy early access to tickets for Gamers for Giving, which will see stricter parameters in 2027. Other perks include a monthly newsletter with a chance to win amazing physical giveaways thanks to our industry partners, as well as an invite to a quarterly call where we update you on everything Gamers Outreach is doing before everybody else knows!
Enroll in Monthly Giving today!
See you later!
Evo 2026 was just the first of a long circuit of events starting in the summer. If you didn’t get to visit us in Vegas this year, don’t worry. You can catch us in San Jose on the weekend of July 24-26 for Offkai Expo, North America’s first and largest VTuber convention. We’ll be part of a panel called VTubing for Good: Charity Streaming for Beginners, taking place on Sunday, July 26, at 12:30 PM PT! We won’t have our booth at Offkai, but we’ll be around to say hello to anybody looking for us!
Live in the San Francisco Bay Area, Pacific Northwest, or Southern California? We’ll be headed your way soon!
After that, we’ll be headed to Seattle for PAX West, taking place on September 4-7. For the first time since we began exhibiting at PAX, we’ll be a proud part of Pinny Arcade! You’ll definitely want the scoop on our LEGENDARY pin, so stay tuned!
Hope to see you at the next event!
Support Gamers Outreach
There are many ways to support our mission of providing the power of play to hospitalized families around the world. Follow our social pages on Facebook, X, Instagram, Bluesky, YouTube, or join our Discord server!