French gaming event raises record €10million for Action Against Hunger

This year’s Z Event gaming marathon has raised more than €10million for Action Against Hunger (Action contre la faim), a record for the project.

Z Event is a charity event created by YouTubers Adrien Nougaret and Alexandre Dachary, which aims to bring together content creators who specialise in streaming video games for a weekend-long gaming marathon.

For more than 50 hours, the participants play together and stream their games live onto their YouTube or Twitch channels, encouraging viewers to donate to charity as they watch.

This year, 52 streamers took part, raising funds for international humanitarian organisation Action Against Hunger.

The €10,064,480 raised during the sixth edition of the event nearly doubled the €5,700,000 collected last year for Amnesty International and has set the new world record for money raised during a charity stream.

Z Event’s 2021 total was also nearly ten times the amount raised during its first gaming marathon in 2016, which gathered together €170,000 for Save the Children.

Z Event began on Friday (October, 29), after a charity concert on Thursday at Palais des Congrès de la Grande-Motte outside Montpellier.

The 52 gamers attracted record numbers of viewers to their Twitch platforms this time round, with audiences peaking at more than 707,000 on Sunday night (October 31).

To encourage donations, the event’s organisers had organised a range of different challenges and games to be completed as each fundraising milestone was reached. These joined the various quizzes, table tennis tournaments and pumpkin-carving contests which punctuated the weekend’s uninterrupted gaming.

“This is historic. You are historic!” Z Event’s organisers tweeted after the event finished.

President Emmanuel Macron also posted: “By mobilising together we can move mountains [...] A huge bravo.”

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