This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
We just wanted to take a moment to check in with y’all. Progress on the fulfillment of physical rewards is ongoing. We still do not have any specific details to share, but we are much, much closer to shipping your rewards out.
As a reminder, once we have shipping expenses tallied for all 40,000+ of you, you’ll each get an email with a link to pay for your shipping cost. This cost will be based on the total weight of your items and the location they’re going to – for example, a snowglobe headed to Berlin is going to be a greater cost than a sticker pack bound for Indianapolis. Please know we are doing our utmost to keep shipping prices as low as possible, although our control on that is fairly limited.
Once you’ve paid for your shipping, then your rewards will get in line to be shipped out to you as soon as possible.
That’s all we’ve got for now. Thank you, again, for your patience. We will send another update the instant we have more information to share.
Your Friends,
Team MST3K
PS - More info on the physical reward delays has been shared in a previous backer update, and we also have some updated FAQs here. Also, if you have specific questions, feel free to email [email protected] directly for assistance.
Some of you may remember that we promised you a live Rifftrax event in the Gizmoplex as one of our bonus rewards – well, the moment has come!
We’ll send more details next week, we just wanted to tell y’all to mark your calendars now.
In the meantime, why not go check out the Kickstarter campaign for Rifftrax’s 2023 Live event? They’ll be tackling the 1986 competitive BMX extravaganza Rad, and we’d love it if you threw some support their way.
That’s all for now, friends! We hope to #SeeYouInTheGizmoplex next Friday.
Your Friends,
Team MST3K
PS - Looking for info about your physical rewards? We mentioned them in a previous backer update, but we’ve also got some updated FAQs here.
We hope your February has been a pleasant one. Read on for details on our next event, as well as what happens to the Gizmoplex after today!
This Friday, March 3, at 8pm ET / 5pm PT, join Tom and Crow for a very special event, as they guide you through a look back at season 13 and year one of the Gizmoplex, with Tom & Crow’s Unsupervised Year-End Review Revue! We’ll revisit our newest episodes and some special moments from the last year, all on the eve of the Gizmoplex’s first anniversary.
Also, this event is FREE to all registered users of the Gizmoplex -- no pass required!
Several of you have expressed concern about what happens to your Gizmoplex access after today, when your passes “expire.”
The answer is: nothing happens! You will retain access to all the episodes and livestream events that came with your pass. Our first year of Gizmoplex programming has come to a close, so we won’t be doing regular livestream events every two weeks for the foreseeable future, but everything else on your pass will remain intact.
That said, we do have a few more events to share with you that we promised as part of the Kickstarter campaign, like the live Rifftrax event (more on this soon) and the Jackbox rematch. We may also summon some additional surprises in the coming months, and we will keep you updated as things evolve.
But we wanted to reassure you all that the expiration date on your pass does not mean you are losing access to anything you currently have access to. You will eventually need a new pass for our next season, but we are still in the very early planning stages for that. When there is more to share, you will be the first to know. Pinky swear.
That’s all for now! Thanks for reading, and we hope we will #SeeYouInTheGizmoplex on Friday night for Tom & Crow’s Unsupervised Year-End Review Revue. We hear they worked very hard on it.
Your Friends,
Team MST3K
PS - Still wondering about physical rewards? We mentioned them in a previous backer update, but we’ve also got some updated FAQs here.
We have some exciting news to share!
Now that our inaugural year of Gizmoplex-exclusive content is complete, it’s time to put our newest episodes out into the world and share them with a wider audience of folks who haven’t seen them yet. There are a lot of people watching MST3K on Pluto TV who have not seen any of season 13, and some who aren’t even aware that new MST3K exists.
In fact, one of the biggest challenges we’ve faced over the past year is breaking through the immense volume of new content that’s available to folks every day. For seasons 11 and 12, we had help, because Netflix was a high-profile streaming service with a huge audience already. So a lot of people – a lot of you, the very people who backed this season – discovered MST3K for the first time that way, by stumbling across it on Netflix, or because Netflix recommended it to you.
With the Gizmoplex, we have a lot more independence and freedom. But we are also without the massive built-in pool of potential viewers that Netflix provided. Plus, we are competing with an enormous number of other shows. According to Nerdist, as of April 2022 there were 817,000 different shows available to watch on various content platforms. And the proliferation of streaming services has meant more and more new shows are being made every year.
This is great news, insofar as it means there are more opportunities for a wider diversity of media! But it also means that rising above the collective din of so many options to build a loyal audience can be a real challenge. By now, lots of you have had the experience of meeting someone who doesn’t even know there’s a new season of MST3K. Sharing these episodes on other platforms spreads the word.
We are enormously grateful to you, our most devoted backers, because your support has empowered us to make season 13 and build the Gizmoplex. But we don’t want to lean only on you for our ability to continue making new seasons. Many hands make light work, as the saying goes.
We know many of you are eager for news of season 14, and building our audience is part of our plan to make that happen. Sharing our newest episodes on Pluto TV is one way of doing that. Many of you are already frequent viewers of the MST3K channel on PlutoTV, so you know how popular it is – in fact, it’s the most popular place to watch MST3K outside of the Gizmoplex.
Now, some of you might be thinking, Hey wait, why is season 13 going to be viewable outside the Gizmoplex? I thought the Gizmoplex was the only place I could watch new episodes!
A valid question! The Gizmoplex is the first place you can see new MST3K – and the only place you can see all the other exclusive Gizmoplex content, like bonus segments and live events. Pluto TV will be showing season 13’s episodes in their most basic form. Your Gizmoplex membership has given you access to a whole year of premieres and tributes and livestreams and Vault Picks and extras and special programming (oh my!).
If we want to engage a growing audience of supporters going forward, we need to share new episodes with people outside of our friendly backer community.
Part of what makes MST3K so special to many of you is that sometimes, it feels like an exclusive club. If you know, you know – or as MST3K’s creator, Joel Hodgson, famously observed in 1992, “We never say, ‘Who’s gonna get this?’ We always say ‘The right people will get this.’” This simple idea has inspired many MSTies to follow their own drumbeat, even when others don’t seem to understand.
We don’t want to lose that energy; we want to share it with more people. We know there are lots of the right people out there, and we want to connect with them too. We want them to know that MST3K is alive and well, and it all starts in the Gizmoplex.
So, we hope you’ll also be excited for this development – and maybe let your friends know – because it’s a step toward a long, bright future for MST3K. If you have questions, you’re welcome to email us at [email protected].
Your Friends,
Team MST3K
PS: For those of you wondering, Hey, this is great and all, but where are my physical rewards? We mentioned this in the last backer update, but we’ve also got some updated FAQs here.
PPS: We will be sending another update next week explaining what happens to your Gizmoplex access after the end of the month, but the TL;DR is: Don’t worry! The Gizmoplex isn't going away.