Update

Looking back on 2024, and a taste of what's to come!

Matt Gray

Matt Gray

— 4 min read
Looking back on 2024, and a taste of what's to come!
Me with Adam Savage in his cave.

OK, I'm a little later than most people to this, but I'm not doing it just for the trend. I actually find these round-up posts a great way of seeing how much I've achieved over the year, despite what my brain might be telling me :D

Some Video Stats

I've been in 29 YouTube videos this year, including:

If for some strange reason you want to watch them all, I've got a Videos with Matt Gray in playlist which I regularly forget to add to. But it's correct for the last year and a bit at least lol.

Patreon

Thanks to over 200 of you who are signed up as paid members, I've been able to work fewer days in my day job, and put more time into making videos!

If it wasn't for you, I would not have continued past the 4th episode of Matt Gray is Trying, and I certainly wouldn't have had the brainspace available for my making videos, such as the Tempad and Grim Raver!

As I've said before: while you're all welcome to support my videos financially, I don't want to paywall anything or discriminate based on how much money people have. For this reason both my free and paid members get access to the same stuff on here.

Members' extras included:

Events

I went to several events this year and it's always lovely to spend time hanging around with other like-minded people, and meeting people who have watched the things I've made over the years!

During Open Sauce, we were invited to visit Adam Savage’s Cave too which was definitely a highlight!

I bloody love live music, and got to see all of these bands live:

  • Bring Me The Horizon + Bad Omens, O2 Arena
  • Polaris + Silent Planet + Thornhill, Kentish Town Forum
  • Vukovi, Electric Ballroom
  • Placebo, Shepherds Bush Empire
  • Apocalyptica + The Raven Age, Royal Albert Hall
  • Hainbach & Look Mum No Computer, Rich Mix
  • Dream Theater, O2 Arena
  • Ben Howard, Hammersmith Apollo
  • Scooter, Wembley Arena
  • Yellowcard + Story of the Year, Trix Antwerpen
  • Sleep Token + Bilmuri, O2 Arena
  • Future Palace + Our Promise, The Garage
  • While She Sleeps + Currents, Kentish Town Forum
  • Slipknot + Bleed From Withi:n, Leeds Arena

Non-Music events

  • An Evening of Unnecessary Detail by Festival of the Spoken Nerd, The Cockpit
  • Bill Bailey, O2 Arena
  • Ross Noble, London Palladium
  • Randall Monroe's What If?, Barbican Hall
  • Student Radio Awards, IndigO2 (I was a judge)
  • An Evening of Unnecessary Detail by Festival of the Spoken Nerd, Cambridge Theatre
  • Nine Lessons and Carols, King's Place

Electromagnetic Field Festival

Electromagnetic Field is a volunteer-run, non-profit camping festival for those with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, artists, geeks, crafters, scientists, and engineers.

I had two installations at 2024's event

  • MastoDot - the Mastodon Dot Matrix Printer
  • Matt Gray's Free Play Gameboys

I've been involved with organising EMF for over a decade, doing different things as part of the team over the years. This year I helped out with some of the telephony infrastructure, and helped organise the event photographers.

I didn't speak, but pretty much all the talks from EMF are available to watch on YouTube.

Broadcast Engineering

I plan to write up a separate 2024 summary of my engineering work but highlights included:

  • Installing and commissioning video equipment in 11 new radio studios at Bauer Media's new London broadcast centre
  • Working at CBS News' London bureau, developing new integrations for their monitoring and ingest systems
  • Judging the Best Technical Achievement category at the Student Radio Awards
  • Attending several SMPTE UK events including one at the top of BT Tower
  • Attending Radio TechCon

More info about my engineering work at Unnamed Media

What's to come in 2025?

Last weekend, the team from Penny4 and I just filmed the next episode of Matt Gray is Trying which was the most exciting one to date! I really can't wait to see the edit of this and share it with you all! I hope to have a little clip or a couple of BTS photos up soon.

I'm currently writing this post while procrastinating from editing my next video, which should hopefully be up by the end of this week!

Thank you for making it to the end!

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