Hi Everyone – hope you’ve all been well since Train Jam 2018! We’re super excited to make our Train Jam 2019 announcements, so let’s get straight to it!
Event Information
Train Jam 2019 will be taking place from Thursday March 14, 2019 until Saturday March 16, 2019.
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 March 13, 2019 for attendees of Train Jam 2019 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 2019 creations.
The Train
For Train Jam 2019, we have reserved the same size of train as the last year, which means that this is the very first time that we’re not growing in size (we’ve finally hit maximum train)! Out train consists of three coach class cars, three sleeper cars, one restaurant car, and two observation cars, and our maximum capacity is 340 people.
The room and seat types that we will have available for Train Jam 2019 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
As always, we have a number of Train Jam tickets, travel stipends, and GDC passes available for developers from under-represented groups within the games industry. We’ve restructured our diversity initiatives to be more inclusive and have consolidated all diversity initiative applications into one centralized application. Applications for the Train Jam 2019 diversity initiatives are open now and will remain open until 11:59pm Thursday November 15, 2018 PT. Recipients of travel assistance and/or a Train Jam 2019 ticket will receive notice by 11:59pm Wednesday November 21, 2018 PT.
The application to Train Jam 2019’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 Raw Fury, Young Horses, AbleGamers, Brace Yourself Games, SomaSim, No More Robots, and our numerous anonymous sponsors who are all helping us continue to achieve our goals of creating a truly diverse and unique experience!
Students
Returning again, for a fifth year, is our Student Ambassador program! Train Jam co-organizer John Lindvay has been hard at work ensuring that Train Jam 2019 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. Bekah and Adam Saltsman, of Finji, will be heading up the official mentorship program for Train Jam 2019, and 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 November 27, 2018 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 trainjam2019.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.
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!