WHAT

On July 24th, newgrounders met up in Manhattan NY, with a turnout close to 20 people.

WHO?

These are the lovely folks that showed up to the meetup!

• @BrandyBuizel
• @Imprez
• @d0munit
• @FletcherEPS
• @GirZiggler
• @Kiyo
• @KingCrowned
• @Tiny
• @Slowsolid
• @Flowingcheech
• @EpithetSoup
• @russ7k
• @TheKahnMan
• @NeatoNG
• @Luis
• @Scootakip
• WattIOI (doesn't have an NG)

The day began with me (@MigMoog) and @Tiny arriving at 14th street park, being greeted by @GirZiggler, @d0munit, and @russ7k, who were all there before us. I busted out all the meetup stuff I had gotten the night prior, started trading sketchbooks and leaving drawings and signatures, post its to draw on and stick around, and nametags. We also whipped out this bomb-ass poster that Tiny drew, and made sure everyone who came signed it.

The park section started at 1:00pm and little by little more people came in, the group slowly filled up. We all chatted and traded sketches as I was handing out nametags, and talked about fun stuff happening here on the site, and the stuff we do as we waited for the stragglers to show up. Once everyone made some drawings and signed the poster, @BrandyBuizel took the photo and we headed into Chelsea market. Place was a little crowded, but @NeatoNG came decked out with sheets of NG logo stickers and sticker bombed tons of shit (props dude that was awesome). Eventually everybody settled on eating at a milkshake and burger place, and everyone bought some food and drink and started drawing sketches in each others books. We hung there for a solid while and then moved downstairs for some Boba, later coming up after we were fed up with the congestion of the market.

We headed back up to the park for some fresh air, and we relaxed, did a few more sketches, had all our own discussions, and the group began to go home. The remaining group was just GirZiggler, Brandy, Tiny, Me, Neato, and a few others, as I followed them on a frantic path to obtain the delicious Kirby Drink. Our paths soon diverged once me and Tiny realized that we had to catch our train, so we departed and the rest is to the accounts of those who were there.

Thoughts?

I had a great time. I met really cool people and most of them were new to me, all very approachable and talented at their crafts. It was great to see the extents people came from and the chill mentality of the entire event, and also fun hearing some of the longer time members of the group telling stories about stuff they saw on the site as well as Luis' stories of previous NG meets.

I didn't really expect anything grand to come out of this, truthfully it was just about me wanting to meet newgrounders after feeling envy for the people who were kicking it off in Toronto, so I just said "screw it" and started planning it myself with help from @MarvelousToastbrand. If there was a message to any of this, I just want other newgrounders to know that it's possible to all this yourself. You just need a solid location in an open space to meet everyone, and then just have a cool venue nearby. I believe someone who lives in the middle of nowhere can plan a cool meetup, so all you need to do is believe. You can have a meetup ANYWHERE, FROM ANYONE.

Thanks to everyone that came and hung out, this will be a memory I will always treasure.