Legion Update: 9/30/16

Hello Legion Family;

A ton of great updates from an energized and hard riding Legion M team! Some of this may be old news for those of you in the Facebook group. If you aren't already, get in the Facebook group! It's the best way to keep up to date on the latest Legion M developments and get to know the rest of the Legion M community.

FANTASTIC FEST
We are fresh back from Fantastic Fest in Austin where our partner Alamo Drafthouse hosted an absolutely amazing film festival packed with up-and-coming creators, celebrities, movie premieres, networking opportunities, and a marketplace for independent films. We sponsored the terrifyingly good VR experiences from Dark Corner, and had the chance to catch up with many Legion M peeps enjoying VIP "front of the line" privileges reserved for members of Legion M. The more time we spend with the Alamo team, the more excited we get about the potential of this partnership. We're eager to double down on this relationship and hope to have some exciting announcements to make soon.

While in Austin, we also recorded an quick vlog business update, which you can watch here.

WE ARE HIRING!
One of the most common questions we get is whether Legion M is hiring. Now, for the first time, our answer is YES! We're looking for a rockstar Community Manager/Ringleader to help manage our social media and support/empower our growing community. If you (or someone you know) has a fun/engaging personality, enjoy spending all day on social media, love to set up events/organize volunteers, are passionate about the future of fan-owned entertainment, and want to get in on the ground floor of something AMAZING, please apply now!

INVESTMENT UPDATE
Late last week, we received the first installment of funds from the Title III raise. Wefunder deposited $500k into our account, with the rest coming once the round is fully closed. We're close to wrapping this up, and hope (it's not under our control at this point) to have a final update next week for all of our new investors.

At the same time, preparation for the next investment round is running at full throttle. Our goal is to launch in December in time for the holidays, but the timing will depend heavily on how quickly things proceed with our SEC filings. We'll keep you updated on how this progresses.

FORUMS
At long last, our new forums are ready to launch! We're going to use a staged rollout, so keep your eyes open for an invitation. Once you receive the invite, you'll be able to log in, set up your profile, and join the discussion! This will be a big upgrade from our Facebook group, as we have plenty of room for discussions about Legion M, local meetups, project workgroups, a Pitch Room, and pretty much anything anybody wants to talk about. The forum also has great features that allow you to personalize your experience by selecting which forums, topics and people you'd like to follow.

We're very excited about the new forums, and even more excited about how they were built. This initiative has been one of the finest examples of Legion M collaboration and greatness to date. We put out the call for help and were overwhelmed by more than 150 volunteers willing to contribute with a broad range of expertise. We have been blown away with the quality and quantity of support. The forums have truly been built by the community, for the community, and we couldn't be more pleased.

With that in mind, we'd like to give a huge shout-out to the forum team for all the hard work that's been (and will be) required to bring this forum to life!

Forum Lead
Karen Clifford

Ambassadors
MeriJewel Burr
Aaron Wheeler
Justin McDavitt
Kristina Hemphill
Sarah Spoon-Waffle
Shao Lopez
Terri Pinon
Zandra Bill

Moderators
Chris Leitz
Brad Rosenthal
John Smigle
Jonathan McMahon
Justin McDavitt
Matt Hawkins

Admin/Design
John Colley
Dean Hawkey
John Smigle
Pete Yagmin

BEYOND FEST
Beyond Fest is an LA based film festival that starts today and runs for the next 1.5 weeks. Once again, Legion M is sponsoring the VR experience developed by Dark Corner. If you are in or around the LA area, please be sure to stop by and don’t be shy, go straight to the front of the VR line--no badge required--just tell them you are with Legion M. Also, say hi to Marilyn (who will be parked in front of the Egyptian Theatre starting on Saturday). Paul and Jeff will be in town Tues-Thurs of next week, and David and Terri will around for parts of the festival as well. 

ELEVATOR PITCH
We have an exciting new initiative (codename Elevator Pitch) that we're kicking off at Stan Lee’s LA Comic Con (formerly know as Comikaze) on Oct 28-30 at the LA Convention Center. It's an ambitious project involving a pitch competition, online game, and reality TV show pilot all rolled into one. In true Legion M fashion, we're going to take you behind the scenes on this project, starting with an online video conference next week with renowned visual effects developer Fon Davis (formerly of ILM and Disney, and a Master Builder on ABC's BattleBots TV Series).

To learn more, simply go to the project page at www.thelegionm.com/elevator-pitch.

MERCHANDISE UPDATE
We've had fantastic feedback on our first line of Official Legion M merchandise, with close to $15K worth of sales in the first few weeks. We've got more items coming, but don't miss out on your chance to get limited edition Legion M shirts. All the profits from this store go directly to Legion M, so it's great a way to support your company!


THANK YOU!
In closing, we are grateful for all the support we've had from this amazing community. We couldn't be more excited about the traction and impact we're making on the space. The Legion M name is getting out there, and everyone we meet loves our model and wants to get involved. If you haven't already, join the members-only Facebook group, and let’s keep building toward greatness!

Onward and upward,

Paul Scanlan and Jeff Annison
Cofounders, Legion M