With the wrap of our supergreat 1 Year Anniversary Party last month, we’ve acknowledged and celebrated our first year together. But our work here is still far from done. As anyone who’s ever spoken to me about the lounge knows, I view its buildout and completion as a 3 year project that we are still very much only in the beginning stages of.

One of the things that makes Gamma Ray Games so unique as an experience is not just its location at the corner of gender and sexuality on the edge of hipster town but that we bring those elements, along with art, philosophy and discussion right into the space. It’s always been my goal that if you come into Gamma Ray Games, you’ll walk into an interesting conversation, or at least the opportunity for one. Games are an amazing crossover point where people from different backgrounds, aesthetics and ideas can come together through shared interest and activity to create entirely new social interactions and dynamics.

This year, we’re focusing on bringing this cultural blending into the Raygun Lounge through diversified event programming. Because while the lounge is indeed a tabletop gaming space and will continue to be so for most of its operating hours, it is also a bar. On Capitol Hill. A tabletop gaming focused bar on Capitol Hill that understands and is excited about hosting pop culture related events in a way that no other venue in the area is. And we are actively supporting our community to take advantage of and benefit from having access to such a unique space.

Recently we’ve begun actively reaching out to organizers to discover and create new events that reflect different parts of the Gamma Ray/Raygun/Capitol Hill community. Last week’s was the first concrete result of these efforts and it was an astounding success by every measure.

If you missed it last week, we’re doing it again and then switching to every other throughout the holiday season. I highly recommend that you come check it out. If you’re at all excited by games, scifi, fantasy, geekery and the like and want to give your knowledge a go, it’s definitely a good time.

And trivia night’s literally just the beginning. Within the next few months we’ll have pop up markets, national author readings and even a couple of concerts – with groups like the Double Clicks – coming up.

Even more important than announcing everything that’s coming up, though, this post is a shout out to you, personally, to let you know we’d like to host your event too! Let us know what kind of event you’d like to participate in, organize and host and we’ll start looking into how we could make it happen together.

We’re not done here. The lounge is not finished or fully defined. We’re just getting started. We’d love to get you and your community in the conversation. Our greater community and our greater conversation will all be the better for it.

We’re looking forward to working with you.

-Eric