A Note About Future Retronauts Live Shows

We're doing a bit of cleaning up behind the scenes at the Retronauts Patreon, and one change we've made can mostly be chalked up to our good friend COVID-19. Remember that guy? He's been making our lives a living hell in America for the past 18 months! And because of that, throughout 2020 and 2021, we've been unable to travel and put on the three live shows formerly unlocked by our Patreon.

I say "formerly" because, as of now, these goals have been removed. That doesn't mean we won't ever see you again in the future; actually, it's very likely you could be seeing us in person towards the end of the year! (In fact, tomorrow you can watch our remote PAX panel, all about 30 years of the Super NES.) We just can't promise to be anywhere any number of times during the year until the world steadies itself and we calibrate to whatever "normal" ends up being. We'd like to stay safe, and we also don't want to force our beloved listeners into a cloud of viruses just to hear us talk about old video games in person.

But there are also a few other reasons we've eliminated live shows from our Patreon goals:

• These goals have been around since the beginning of our Patreon: way back in 2014, when we were still figuring out the platform. Over time, we realized Patreon goals should be things that directly benefit you. While we do plenty of work on them, trips to events are mostly a perk for us. And while a few hundred of you might get to see us in person, the rest of you get a recording of a live show—which we realize aren't ideal episodes for the majority of people who don't get to see said recording in person.
• When we originally planned on attending three events a year, Retronauts consisted of just me and Jeremy. Now we're much more of a real business, paying artists, editors, writers, hosts, and so on. This means we have to be more mindful of our travel budget, even if the last few years have led us to save more due to some unfortunate circumstances.

That's basically all there is to it! Again, this doesn't mean we're completely ruling out live shows; in fact, when the world opens up, we'll be itching to travel and perform again—likely three times a year as we did in happier times! But for now, we don't want to make any promises in a very unpredictable world.

Until we meet again, please stay safe! We miss you all.

- Bob