Nerdworld powerhouse Critical Role's 8 cofounders are taking their show on the road for a multi-city international tour
Robyn von Swank
- Critical Role is set to embark on a multi-city tour across the US and Australia in 2025.
- The 10th anniversary live shows will end at Radio City Music Hall on October 7.
- The crew is working on several business ventures, from game publishing to two Amazon-backed series.
In 2015, eight people who played "Dungeons & Dragons" together in their free time decided to start streaming their game live on the broadcasting platform Twitch.
Ten years later, the crew behind "Critical Role" and the nerdworld business of the same name are taking their show on the road — for a multi-city tour.
This tour, which will take the team of eight self-professed "nerdy-ass voice actors" across the US and to Australia — is happening while they work on two Amazon-backed animated series and invest in new audio dramas and in-house game publishing arm. Their latest animated series, "The Legend of Vox Machina," is back for its third season.
CR already played sold-out shows before the COVID-19 pandemic, where they played their "D&D" campaign in front of a live audience. In 2023, they filled London's Wembley Arena and followed up with two other live shows in Los Angeles.
CR's main cast members will hit five cities between April and October — Chicago, Fishers (just outside Indianapolis), Sydney, Melbourne, and New York.
"Embarking on a global journey to bring 'Critical Role' to the stage in brand new cities with our ragtag group of adventurers is nothing short of a dream," said Marisha Ray, cofounder and creative director at Critical Role. "Let alone during our 10th year of telling stories together. I couldn't imagine a better way to celebrate."
Each live show is going to have a slightly different format.
The audience will vote during the April 10 Chicago live show to decide which of the original main campaign characters the CR team will play.
The Australia live shows — on June 19 in Sydney and June 25 in Melbourne — will be live one-shots featuring characters from two CR campaigns, joining forces to fight a common enemy.
The Indianapolis live show on August 2 will feature CR's "Daggerheart," a tabletop roleplaying game the team is rolling out in 2025. This is slated to be CR's second big live show for "Daggerheart" — they're going big with a launch of the official game with a Christmas live show in New Jersey this year. Notably, the CR crew is doing this on Gen Con weekend in Indianapolis — a convention held there for two decades.
The final New York stop will be at the historic Radio City Music Hall on October 7. That show will feature a long-awaited development for the fandom — the wedding between Fjord Stone and Jester Lavorre, two characters from the CR's second "D&D" campaign. This campaign is now turning into "Mighty Nein," the team's next Amazon show.
During the New York show weekend, the eight co-founders will also drop by New York Comic Con for a panel appearance and do autograph signings and photo ops.
Critical Role
Details on how to purchase tickets are up on the CR website now.
This stack of anniversary live shows is also happening while other nerdworld businesses expand beyond their original countries and fill up big arenas in the US. In January, CR's peers at "Dimension 20" will play Madison Square Garden for a show run by their resident game master, Brennan Lee Mulligan.
For their part, "Dimension 20" are going on tour too. They'll be performing on June 1 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, on July 2025 at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, and on November 1 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. "D20" tickets go on sale on October 25.
In the meantime, Critical Role fans who don't see their city on the list this year need not despair, as CEO Travis Willingham and the rest of the cast have an international wish list of places they'd like to visit. CR is keeping a "big list" of potential locations and has added places like South America and Singapore to it, Willingham said.
"We'll have a big old party," Willingham told BI. "Tell us where we're eating and drinking; we'll throw down."
"All of us know how important stories — and other people's stories — have been to us, personally," CR cofounder Liam O'Brien told BI. "So to know that we're in that position where we've created a story together that is now of such worth to people all over the planet is just such a gift, and my brain is blown every day."
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/4ymdI0V
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