There are few cities in the world more culturally relevant to the FGC right now than Chicago. Not only does the city house some of the best talent in the world in just about every fighting game currently on the market, but the region hosts two massive major events a year. January’s anime-centric Frosty Faustings and May’s more generalist COMBO BREAKER. You can ask anyone from the area—myself included—about the first thing that comes to mind when asked to describe “the Chicago FGC” and, nine times out of ten, they’d wax poetic about Friday nights at Ignite Gaming Lounge, pushing past ten-year-olds playing Fall Guys at a birthday party to head to a backroom full of drinks, friends, rivals, and, of course, fighting games. FGC Meetups in Skokie, Illinois is Chicagoland’s Friday night local, run by Seph and Unrivaled Tournaments - and one of the largest fighting game locals in the world. On a personal level, FGC Meetups was the event that introduced me to the FGC in 2021, helping me seamlessly make the transition from Strive netplay to joining the community. I know firsthand how much organization, dedication, and sheer love it takes to organize an event as consistent as FGC Meetups. I spoke with Unrivaled Tournaments and FGC Meetups TO Seph Mitchell about what makes the event special.

As it turns out, the core of FGC Meetups truly is the “C”. To Seph, FGC Meetups is “ideally whatever [attendees] need it to be; it’s not just a tournament, it’s not even just for the games. Casuals obviously can come by and enjoy, competitors get as close to the same hardware experience as possible [as] at premiere events, and…the people who don't even play the games have the space and ability to do whatever they like.” At th heart of the event’s design thesis is to create a welcoming space for everyone. The event is, in Seph’s words, “a local, sure, but as long as [attendees] feel like they’re taken care of and want to come back, then I’m truly happy.”

Seph’s favorite story from FGC Meetups highlights the community as well, specifically Chicago Street Fighter's pride and joy. - JAK. One weekend, they held perhaps the most Chicago FGC event of all time: a Mystery Game Exhibition sponsored by none other than Jeppsen’s Malort. Seph was MCing for the stream, calling out the names of the invited competitors.

“When I got to JAK’s name, he grabbed the nearby chair, leapt off of it like Rashid, and did a flip...[but] he landed so hard that he hurt his knee," Seph recalls. "I missed the entire thing because I was looking at the camera still, but I turned around to see him on the ground in pain—but stone faced through the whole thing—so I didn’t believe him at first when he said the bone was poking out under his jeans. JAK was a Real G that day, and it was sick to see in person.”

“The actual story is that he did a little jumping jack and popped the knee. It was the first and hopefully only time we had to call an ambulance. He got carried off, but we had a great event otherwise and the Malort guy felt it was very on-brand for it to happen at a Malort event. JAK was in a wheelchair for a month or so, and I have a guilty conscience to this day.”

FGC Meetups is a place where you can see one of the best players in the world, and an Evo finalist, injure himself America's Funniest Home Videos-style. It’s the intersection of locked-in, top-level competition, and silly community antics.

This most recent iteration of FGC Meetups spawned after 2020's lockdown, but the event has its roots deep in the Chicago FGC. Seph is adamant that it’s been around for a while.

“[FGC Meetups] predates modern fighting games by a bit,” Seph said “The thing that’s wonderful about it is that it’s been grassroots the entire time, evolving as much as its venue and hosts have. The original runners of FGCM are still around as Midwest TOs, but have mostly retired to become family men. As Ignite grew and adapted, so did FGC Meetups. It’s as essential to them as their main avenue of business, which is what allowed it to grow so steadily.”

FGC Meetups represents, in this discrete period of time, the present of the FGC. As the community evolves, so too will FGC Meetups, and Seph has a clearcut vision on what needs to stay central to the event as it grows into the future:

“When I first started running FGC Meetups, I would never have expected it to reach the scale it has, but ultimately it's just a bigger version of what it's always been. The Midwest FGC has seen many locals rise and fall, but in an era where sustainable growth is every organizer's largest obstacle, FGCM is able to remain a steadfast pillar.

I guess my biggest dream for FGCM is that wherever we take it from here, whoever takes charge after us, it always stays community-first. I will always want the FGC Meetups attendees to know they're taken care of—that every generation of players will cherish their local and understand its importance in an ever-evolving FGC: Where online tournaments hold incredible weight and value, where hosting offline locals can be highly taxing and growing them is even more so, and where the audience and demand continues to expand due to the accessibility and increasing popularity of fighting games.

My utopian FGCM is one where my grandkids can tell me about how they did at FGC Meetups in their 100-person 4XKO bracket. And I can stop in for a drink, see some familiar faces, toast to some old ones, and watch the scene continue on forever.”

Running FGC Meetups seems to have also imprinted on Seph. Just as he’s worked to create a space that’s supported the other people in the community, it’s helped him develop as well.

“This community, this hobby, and—without diminishing what I do—this job, have changed my life for the better,” Seph said. “It's not going to have that impact on everyone, but it does for most people I like to think. I like to see people enjoying themselves around others. I like seeing the introvert step out of their shell sometimes (advice that I should definitely take myself, more often than not). I like seeing people discover a talent they want to cultivate. I like seeing people try hard and succeed. I like to see people win and learn lessons to fight harder next time. I like seeing people inspire other people. I like people being kind to others. I like people feeling seen, taken care of, but also taking responsibility and being humble.

It's my way of thinking I'm doing some good in a world that's desperate to see more of it.”

You can watch FGC Meetups every other Friday at twitch.tv/unrivaledtournaments. You can find more information about attending the event biweekly at start.gg/fgcmeetups.