Gamespace in 2024
Visitors enjoy their visit to the LIGHT CYCLES exhibition (February 17 - August 27, 2023)
2023 was a flex.
Gamespace presented three exhibitions that shared video game history with our largest audience yet, hosted our first game jam, and brought contemporary video game art overseas for our first time. Over 1,600 guests were welcomed throughout the year, including at least 850 exhibition-goers, and more than 750 guests through event rentals. We also rolled out expanded shop offerings that feature video game art prints, books, toys, and apparel.
Lovely accolades and attention from the press were showered on Gamespace including video segments from WGN and Fox 32, deep dive articles and reviews from Block Club Chicago and Newcity, podcasts interviews and more!
From a budget perspective, we’re still in the red as our ambitions continue to outpace our budget. However, Gamespace is here to stay and our revenues are climbing while we pare back our expenses. Being open costs a lot of money, mainly for staffing, but also lost revenue from rentals. We had embarked on an ambitious experiment in 2023 to be open on Saturdays, in addition Sundays. While this resulted in increased foot traffic on those dates, attendance was not high enough to justify continuation of this experiment in 2024 through regular public hours. Instead, we will shift to a limited-run exhibition model where exhibitions will have shorter runs — for example in the range of 4 weeks instead of 4 months — leaving Gamespace available for more private bookings. Most people come at the beginning of new exhibitions, and regular foot traffic on weekends is a bit sleepy so this isn’t expected to have a significant impact on attendance. While Gamespace will eventually return to regular public hours like a proper museum, we first need to start from a firm financial foundation and grow from there. We’re always open to partnership and ideas that help with sustainability so don’t hesitate to reach out to chicagogamespace@gmail.com with yours!
A huge thank you to Gamespace’s audience, artists, lenders, partners and staff especially assistant curator Ethan Johnson, who is most often the friendly face and resident video game historian who greets you on your arrival at the front desk (a role formerly occupied by Amy Chen, Jason Cummings, and Chris Skordas); pop culture historian Tim Lapetino, who regularly co-curates Gamespace exhibitions; Jim Zespy from Logan Arcade, who has generously loaned some wonderful games; Robbie Komen and Skip Hansen keep our games in good working order; and Matt, Christy and Kevin from Open House Contemporary are our amazing co-hosts for rentals.
Here’s to a great 2024 and thank you for believing that Chicago deserves a museum for games.
Jonathan Kinkley
Owner/Curator
Chicago, January 2, 2023
Gamespace 2023 Recap
LIGHT CYCLES: 40 Years of TRON in Games and Film (February 17 - August 27, 2023)
TRON Disney artist and director Bill Kroyer Talk (April 27, 2023)
Thorne Brandt’s Reality (Beta) at Ars Electronica (September 6 - 10, 2023)
@!#?@!: Art, Design and Sound of Q*bert (September 8 - December 17, 2023)
Indie City Game Jam @ Chicago Gamespace (December 3rd, 2023)