Live From New York! It’s… Rooster Teeth

Fans sold out Rooster Teeth’s Let’s Play Live at NYC’s Hammerstein Ballroom in an hour when tickets went on sale Aug. 26. Which isn’t surprising because they sold out Austin City Limits’s 2,750 seat Moody Theater last year, the Academy Award’s 3,300 seat Dolby theater in Los Angeles in June, and packed another 3,300 into the iconic Chicago Theater in August. Yet you’ve probably never heard of it.

Let’s Play Live is the YouTube gaming generation’s equivalent of rock concert and comedy improv show.

Three hours before show time, with the first 400 fans already waiting in the summer heat outside the Chicago Theater, Technical Director Andy Tyler confirms when the strobe lights and cryotechnics will fire between sets: “That will happen when you guys are all dead, right?”

“One will still be alive,” said Jack Pattillo. “It will also say on screen that they win.”

“Who gets to do this? Rock stars do,” said Pattillo, 34, co-founder of Achievement Hunter recalling the thought that inspired Let’s Play Live.

“What do rock stars do that we don’t? They tour. Why don’t we take this on the road?”

Achievement Hunter, a division of Rooster Teeth, makes irreverent and humorous let’s play style videos where their ensemble collectively attempts creatively asinine tasks in video games daily for millions of subscribers and billions of views on YouTube. But their theatrical events called Let’s Play Live have an additional goal alongside comedy.

“Jack and I are old — we’re re-creating for this generation what it felt like for us when we heard Metallica is coming to town,” said Geoff Ramsey, 41, co-founder of Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter.

“This generation has access to the whole world, but look at it through a screen,” said Ramsey. “I love seeing fans come out of their houses and go ‘Oh! I’m surrounded by people who like the same stuff I do,’ and be in a room with 3,000 friends.”

There are more gamers today over the age of 30 than under 18, according to data from the Entertainment Software Association. So like generations before them, gamers with jobs will go out and buy tickets to watch their favorite performers at live events — whether those performers play drums and guitars, or controllers and consoles.

Veronica Smith, 25, describes Let’s Play Live’s two hours of games, music, lights and stage effects as “a rock concert, where games are just their instruments.”

She travelled over 1,000 miles from Boulder, Colorado to see every Let’s Play Live, and was one of those who quickly sold out the NYC show.

Even Rooster Teeth fan’s that aren’t interested in attending Let’s Play Live are still dedicated to them.

Jeff Lukaczyk, 29, loves their work but said “I’d be happy to pay to be able to watch it at home when it’s convenient for me.”

Rooster Teeth heard their cries and partnered with Fathom Events to simulcast the NYC show to over 100 movie theaters across the country.

Dedicated fandom far and wide drives streamed gaming-entertainment.

Dedicated E-Sports fans have sold out stadiums with a 13,000 person crowd at the Staples Center and 40,000 crowd at the Seoul World Cup Stadium for the 2013 and 2014 League of Legends World Championships, so it’s unsurprising that other niches of gaming fandom would gather events as well.

Roosterteeth.com can be calculated making upwards of $400,000 per month on its extra-dedicated 130,000 fans that pay $3–5 per month for special benefits like ad-free watching, and that’s only one of their company’s various revenue streams.

Rooster Teeth wouldn’t disclose how much they or any individual aspect of their company makes, but with consistently packed live events Pattillo said Let’s Play Live is “making enough money and covering costs.”

“Internet gaming celebrities doing live events are going to start happening a lot,” said Ramsey.

“The internet has been riding on our coattails for the past 14 years, they’ll ride on the coattails of this. I’m kidding, but in 2017 I think you’ll see a lot of people doing it.”

To watch Let’s Play Live NYC at your local theater, go to Fathom Events for tickets.