WGN Around Town at Life Bar Arcade
I had meant to get to bed early the night before.
That did not come close to happening.
Instead, I traded sleep for overthinking all night and woke up early to an already running list going through my head. Was everything ready?
WGN’s Ana Belaval and the Around Town crew were spending the morning with us, filming a series of live segments from the arcade, and I wanted to make sure everything was ready before they arrived. Naturally, that meant I was calm, relaxed, and completely normal about it…
In some other universe.
The good news was that the second Ana and her team walked through the door, a lot of that anxiety started to disappear. They were immediately the perfect mix of kind, understanding, and professional. Everyone introduced themselves, explained what they did, and within minutes they were setting up shop in Vault 1626 and getting ready for the morning. We had pastries, bagels, and coffee waiting, but the Around Town crew did not waste much time getting down to business.
There had been a plan going into the morning. Of course there had been. And then we started filming. The plan changed almost immediately. Segments moved around. Ideas evolved. Things that seemed important on paper suddenly mattered less once the cameras were rolling. I had written a lot of material ahead of time, thinking through everything I wanted to say about Life Bar Arcade, but television moves fast. Once you account for intros, outros, questions, reactions, and actual conversation, even a two-and-a-half-minute segment disappears incredibly quickly.
That was probably the biggest lesson of the morning: you can prepare all you want, but at some point you have to stop thinking about the script and just have the conversation. Fortunately, Ana was incredible at making that happen. She knew how to guide each segment without making it feel forced, how to keep things moving, and how to pull the story out naturally. Meanwhile, I was doing my best not to obsess over every detail of where we were standing, where we were walking, what was happening next, and whether I was somehow about to wander directly out of frame. At one point I was told — or perhaps strongly encouraged — to breathe.
What made the whole experience especially strange, in the best possible way, was the live aspect of it. We would finish a segment, look up at the TVs inside Life Bar Arcade, and there we were on WGN — something we had filmed only seconds earlier already being broadcast out into Chicago. That was the moment that kept landing for me, because for years, Life Bar Arcade existed as an idea. Then it became a project. Then a construction site. Then a collection of machines, lights, cables, menus, problems to solve, and countless little decisions that eventually became a real place people could walk into. Now I was standing inside that place, watching it appear on television.
That was pretty surreal.
I sent the crew home with cyber glasses, our metal free-entry tokens, original Mario Kart artwork, mechanical arcade switches that make surprisingly excellent fidget toys, and Japanese Mario Kart Arcade GP save cards. Because apparently when I get nervous, I give people arcade stuff. There are worse coping mechanisms.
After the final hit, the crew packed everything up and moved on with their day. Ana and her producer Natalie were finished, while the camera and lighting crew headed off to whatever the next news segment had waiting for them. And just like that, the arcade was quiet again.
The whole morning had gone by incredibly fast. I had spent so much time worrying about being prepared that I had not really thought about how I would feel when it was over. Mostly, I just felt grateful — grateful that Ana and the Around Town crew came out, grateful for how easy they made the experience, and grateful that we got the chance to show people what we have been building here.
And, yes, pretty relieved that nothing flooded.
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