PJ here, James wrote an awesome article about all the deets for Desert Bus Express. I’m gonna get out of his way.
Hey Friends! Let's dig into the details of Desert Bus Express!
During 2020, 2021, and 2022, Desert Bus was run either entirely (or partially-remotely) using a ton of tech and systems we built to do just that. Once we were in a position to come back entirely in person, we did so. But we still had all this tech we developed that was going mostly unused. Naturally, some of it was integrated into the engineering we use for our November event, but we also discovered we could run these types of events from the comfort of our homes. Fast forward to last year, and we finally decided 2025 would be the year we'd try out a single day, remote event in an effort to raise some money for a great cause.
So let's talk a little bit about what Desert Bus Express is, and what it's not. And a quick note here. Going forward I will be referring to Desert Bus Express as DBE and Desert Bus for Hope as DBfH.
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Starting at 4:00 PM Pacific on Friday, May 23rd, we will go live at twitch.tv/desertbus for 24 hours. The event will be split into three 8 hour shifts. Each shift will have a group of entertainment volunteers, and a couple folks behind the scenes taking care of tech and socials. So, just like Desert Bus for Hope, there will be all manner of entertainment for you to enjoy through the run. However, there are some differences, and I'll go over some of the big ones below.
The biggest change is the very structure of this event compared to DBfH. Unlike the big show in November, we have set a cap on how long this event will be, and that cap is 24 hours. Obviously, what that means is your donations don't extend the amount of time we'll be driving for. But we also have something else lined up that we think will help us push the amount we raise, and we'll have more information on that when we open up donations on May 16th.
The other really big change is the charity of choice we'll be raising money for! We've been looking for ways to branch out in an effort to support other charities over the years, and this event gave us the best opportunity to do just that! We ended up choosing BC Cancer Foundation for a couple of reasons. Everyone on the Desert Bus team (and we're guessing almost all of you as well) has gone through the awful experience of either dealing with a cancer diagnosis yourself or with someone you love. It was also a chance to support a charity that is local to so many of us here in Victoria and British Columbia.
We will still have prizes, 15 to be exact. Each shift will receive 4 giveaways and 1 silent auction item. These will operate exactly as they do for DBfH. You may notice we don't have any live auctions; that is something we're keeping specific for DBfH in November. We are aiming to have the prizes listed on the website when donations go live on May 16th.
Another difference from DBfH is that we will be running this event with the challenge system closed. Due to the remote nature of the event, and a much shorter amount of total time each shift gets (8 hours compared to almost 40 in November) we've decided to just let the entertainment volunteers figure out how they wish to fill their shifts. That's not to say you can’t throw out ideas and suggestions in chat, but we wanted to keep things nice and easy, operating with fewer things the entertainers need to monitor this time around. Another change in a similar vein is that there is no RDP button for this event. It's important that we keep some things specifically for DBfH in November :)
Finally, let's talk about our drivers. We have a 16-person staff of drivers from the DBfH team who will be handling driving the Cloud Bus remotely. We have so many wonderful volunteers here at Desert Bus HQ, and we wanted to get as many folks involved in this show as possible. So while you won’t see them directly, they’ll be there, behind the scenes, keeping the bus on the road! Be sure to head over to the team page to see who our wonderful drivers are (and sneak peeks at some entertainment volunteers)!
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As you would expect, there are a ton of other small changes here and there, and ultimately we won't really know exactly how this thing is going to go until we get started :D End of the day, this is our first go at this, and there will be a learning curve. What the actual identity of DBE is won't really be known until we've done the dang thing, so we hope you're all as excited as we are, and we'll see you all on May 23rd at 4:00 PM Pacific!
We will continue to share information with you for this event in the coming weeks, including who you’ll see on each shift and a few prize reveals! Keep an eye out here and on our various social media for that information.