About the Meetup
Every year, a group of LGBTQ+ people and their allies make their way to Saugatuck, Michigan for five days that are, for many of them, the best five days of the year. They swim, they laugh, they play games, they sit around a fire until nobody can keep their eyes open. And then, when it is time to go home, nobody is ever quite ready.
That is not a bad thing. That is the whole point.
The Queercraft meetup began as something simple: a group of friends who had found each other online and decided they wanted to meet in person. What happened that first weekend was harder to explain than anyone expected. It has been happening every year since.
You do not need to be a Queercraft regular to come. You do not need to be a gamer. You just need to be someone who could use five days of not having to explain yourself. First-timers are welcomed without reservation, and if the numbers are any indication, most of them come back. Nearly two out of three attendees return the following year. Some have come back every single year since the beginning.
The world is a lot right now. For many of our attendees, these five days are the most love and support they will feel all year. Over time, for a lot of us, this has become something more than a trip. It has become chosen family.
Now in its tenth year, the meetup has a decade of experience making strangers feel like they belong. If you have been looking for your people, we think you just found them.
Every year, a group of LGBTQ+ people and their allies make their way to Saugatuck, Michigan for five days that are, for many of them, the best five days of the year. They swim, they laugh, they play games, they sit around a fire until nobody can keep their eyes open. And then, when it is time to go home, nobody is ever quite ready.
That is not a bad thing. That is the whole point.
The Queercraft meetup began as something simple: a group of friends who had found each other online and decided they wanted to meet in person. What happened that first weekend was harder to explain than anyone expected. It has been happening every year since.
You do not need to be a Queercraft regular to come. You do not need to be a gamer. You just need to be someone who could use five days of not having to explain yourself. First-timers are welcomed without reservation, and if the numbers are any indication, most of them come back. Nearly two out of three attendees return the following year. Some have come back every single year since the beginning.
The world is a lot right now. For many of our attendees, these five days are the most love and support they will feel all year. Over time, for a lot of us, this has become something more than a trip. It has become chosen family.
Now in its tenth year, the meetup has a decade of experience making strangers feel like they belong. If you have been looking for your people, we think you just found them.
About Queercraft and Prism
Queercraft started in 2012 as an online Minecraft server with a straightforward philosophy: no whitelists, no paid ranks, no VIP tiers. Just a safe, moderated space where LGBTQ+ people and their allies could play together and belong. Over the years it grew into a weekly live radio show, an active Discord community, and eventually an annual gathering that got bigger and more meaningful with each passing September.
The Queercraft Meetup is a program of Prism, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, whose mission is building safe and affirming community for LGBTQ+ people and their allies. Queercraft’s motto, borrowed from the Heather Small song “Proud,” is a question we take seriously: “What have you done today to make you feel proud?” The meetup is one of our answers.
Queercraft started in 2012 as an online Minecraft server with a straightforward philosophy: no whitelists, no paid ranks, no VIP tiers. Just a safe, moderated space where LGBTQ+ people and their allies could play together and belong. Over the years it grew into a weekly live radio show, an active Discord community, and eventually an annual gathering that got bigger and more meaningful with each passing September.
The Queercraft Meetup is a program of Prism, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, whose mission is building safe and affirming community for LGBTQ+ people and their allies. Queercraft’s motto, borrowed from the Heather Small song “Proud,” is a question we take seriously: “What have you done today to make you feel proud?” The meetup is one of our answers.
