Dawnstar Games and its devoted regulars are no strangers to a good melee or two. Saturday, March 16th “The Star” ups the ante and welcomes the return of its anticipated “Smash the Byrd” charity event to The Byrd Theater.
While Dawnstar Games regularly has various fighting game nights at its newly expanded location in Scott’s Addition, this year sees the third year of their “Smash the Byrd” event, which raises funds for the VCU Children’s Hospital and Extra Life For Kids. During the first year of the event in 2021, they were able to raise around $2000 for the hospital, and hope this year to at least hit that number if not exceed it.
Of all of the currently six iterations of the Super Smash Bros. franchise, Melee was specifically chosen as it is currently more popular than Ultimate, the latest edition, and because they have not done this edition yet at the Byrd.
“We did ‘Ultimate’ last year, which is the newer one, but we’re bringing ‘Melee’ this year, which is the old school one to the Byrd Theater,” said Dakotah. “That game is now more popular, if not as popular as the current one. It’s gotten a big revival which is really cool.”
The event is designed as an invitational with ten of the biggest players across the MDVA (Maryland, DC, and Virginia) visiting to compete, some of who are recognized specifically as the best in Virginia. Of the players visiting, named June Bug, is an RVA resident who managed to break Top 50 across the world with Donkey Kong who has long been recognized as one of the worst of the characters in the franchise.
While the tournament itself is invitational, aside from watching the tournament there will be televisions to play Melee as well, in addition to a bar with food and snacks, including a special collab beer with the folks at Vasen Brewing.
For those unable to visit and watch the tournament, it will be streamed on Dawnstar’s Twitch channel, which they also use for their weekly stream. After Castleburg Brewery closed its doors, Dawnstar was able to absorb a large fighting game tournament that they hosted, and have so far had about 85 people as of last month for that tournament.
“We actually absorbed two tournaments that were at Castleburg,” said Dakotah. “We kind of absorbed them after Castleburg closed, so there is a really big fighting game tournament called ‘The King Returns’. [Which has] Tekken, Street Fighter, and some anime fighters like ‘Guilted Gear’ and ‘Grand Blue Rising’, and things like that. They were doing that at Castleburg all last year, so when they closed we kind of absorbed them. We had 85 people here for that tournament last month, and we’re expecting that much for Tekken 8.”
While naturally the “Smash the Byrd” event will remain local, the Dawnstar team have been able to take their Smash tournaments on the road and look forward to continuing that. When they are not on the road, they have been able to have a fighting game night called “Dawnstar Clash” that they started in 2022 and would like to keep going.
“We went up to New York and then we did one in Ocean City, MD. We went to a few breweries out there,” said Dakotah. “We did go out on the road in 2022 and kind of brought our Smash stuff and kind of went on tour for a little bit and it was fun. But now that we have our own space, we kind of want to keep as much of it in house.”
For a little trade in game shop that could, the Dawnstar team is understandably pretty proud of the growth they have been able to achieve in the five years since they opened. From originally little pop ups at Don’t Look Back to an expanded location in Scott’s Addition that has further plans to keep expanding, there is a lot to be proud of. When I asked what the next five years held, Dakotah was excited to run off a list of future plans with one of the biggest being a possible “Dawnstar Festival” that he and their team hope to open this year or next. Ideas for that revolve around things such as live music, a maker’s market, and harajuku fashion amongst others.
Clearly it’s a pretty good time to be “The Star”.
“Smash the Byrd” will be on Saturday, March 16th, 2024 at The Byrd Theater from 12-6p. Tickets are currently available at Dawnstar Video Games, or are available at the Byrd Theater box office the day of the event. For more information visit www.dawnstarvideogames.com.
