It’s that time of year to finally formally announce our Train Jam 2020 plans! Yay!
Event Information
Train Jam 2020 will be taking place from Thursday March 12, 2020 until Saturday March 14, 2020.
As always, we will be departing from Chicago’s Union Station and arriving in Emeryville, CA, which is just outside of San Francisco, California. Amtrak will provide shuttle buses for Train Jam attendees to complete the rest of the journey into downtown San Francisco.
We will be be renting a space in Chicago on Wednesday March 11, 2020 for attendees of Train Jam 2020 to pick up their information packet, hang out, and meet each other – we will announce more information about the location to registered attendees closer to the date. Note: This is not a mandatory part of Train Jam, but is a great place to meet your fellow jammers, so we highly recommend coming, if you are able to arrive in Chicago early.
Thanks to the folks over at GDC, we have been provided with a booth in the expo hall of GDC to show off all of the Train Jam 2020 creations.
The Train
For the third year in a row, we have rented out the entire California Zephyr train! This means that our capacity is holding steady at 340 people, and we couldn’t be more excited about that!
Unfortunately, due to pricing changes, we were unable to rent a second observation car as we had done in years past. We’ll still have the standard one observation car that comes on the California Zephyr, but it will definitely be a bit more cramped than years past. This means that our train will consist of three coach class cars, three sleeper cars, one restaurant car, and one observation car! Wow!
The room and seat types that we will have available for Train Jam 2020 are as follows: coach class seats, superliner roomettes, family style bedrooms, accessible bedrooms, and deluxe bedrooms. Please refer to our FAQ to find out more information about what these different rooms and seats include.
Diversity
We have a number of Train Jam tickets, travel stipends, and GDC passes available for developers from under-represented groups within the games industry. Applications for the Train Jam 2020 diversity initiatives are open now and will remain open until 11:59pm Tuesday November 19, 2019 PT. Recipients of travel assistance and/or a Train Jam 2020 ticket will receive notice by 11:59pm Wednesday November 27, 2019 PT.
The application to Train Jam 2020’s diversity initiatives can be found here.
We want to give a special thanks to our sponsors who make our diversity initiatives possible. We’re very happy to announce that half of all of Train Jam’s sponsorships go towards our diversity initiatives. Thank you to our sponsors who are all helping us continue to achieve our goals of creating a truly diverse and unique experience!
Students
Returning again, for a sixth year, is our Student Ambassador program! Train Jam co-organizer John Lindvay has been hard at work ensuring that Train Jam 2020 will, once again, be full of amazing students from around the world. If you are a student or professor and are interested in hearing more about how your school can be a part of our Student ambassador program, please reach out to students@trainjam.com.
We are also excited to announce that, for the second year, we will have an extensive mentorship program on board the train. We will be working closely with our more experienced attendees, to ensure that students and new developers have access to a wide range of knowledge, assistance, and advice throughout the jam.
Public Ticket Sale
The public sale of Train Jam 2019’s tickets will start at 7:00am Tuesday December 3, 2019 Pacific Time. Here is a handy reference of what that means around the world! You will be able to find a link to purchase tickets on the front page of trainjam.com once sales go live, or you can access our eventbrite page directly at trainjam2020.eventbrite.com.
Tickets will sell out fast, so be ready! We limit all ticket purchases to 2 per order, and all ticket purchases are non-refundable.
You are now also able to support Train Jam directly through eventbrite! In addition to the regular ticket types, you’ll see that there is now an option on eventbrite to simply support Train Jam. Half of all money received through this option will go directly towards our diversity initiatives (please email info@trainjam.com if you would like the full amount to go towards our diversity initiatives), and the other half will go towards supporting Train Jam organizers and covering unexpected costs. Supporting Train Jam through this will not result in a ticket to attend Train Jam 2020. If you are looking to attend, please purchase a ticket!
Sponsors
As always, we have an amazing lineup of sponsors who are helping us continue to make Train Jam the best it can be year after year. Without our sponsors, Train Jam would simply not be able to exist. Please check out our list of sponsors below, and give them a big thanks! Words cannot describe how much our sponsors mean to us – Thank you, sponsors – we love you!