Cheers to a streaming success story
Surrey resident hosts online bartending and cooking shows and will compete in new game show
From the outside, the only clue the Surrey townhouse in Clayton Heights isn’t an ordinary home comes from the windows on the second floor, sealed with cardboard and labelled “camera left” and “camera right.”
This is the home of Stacey Roy and Mike Parkerson and their production company Whabam Media. They’ve transformed the kitchen and garage into two studios where they film four live shows a week broadcast on Twitch, a live-streaming video platform where hosts can chat with viewers in real time.
“That’s the part we love the most,” said Roy, known as @thestaceyroy on Twitch and social media. “You get the instant feedback when you’re performing and doing your show, and you can adapt and make changes.”
Twitch, which was bought by Amazon in 2014 for $970 million, is known predominantly for gaming, but has branched out to include art, cooking, music and other creative fields.
Two years ago, Roy was a film school grad pursuing acting while bartending on the side. She decided to take her career into her own hands, and switched her YouTube show called The Nerdy Bartender to Twitch.
With Roy as host and director and Parkerson as producer and cameraman, the duo has produced more than 50 episodes of the show, where Roy interviews a guest as they make pop culture-themed drinks.
Their last episode featured Oscars-themed butter popcorn-infused whiskey and Schnapps cocktail.
They’ve also added Cooking with Stacey, which is streamed three times a week and filmed in the kitchen, where they’ve turned the two windows into green screens.
Now Roy is one of 14 Twitch rising
stars — and the only Canadian — chosen to compete in a game show called Stream On over an 11-week period for a chance to win a $60,000 prize.
She learned about the news last month while she was on air. She had to mute the mic because the email from the company said they couldn’t make the news public yet.
“There was a solid three minutes of going bright red, and jumping up and down and screaming,” Roy said.
Her viewers are from around the world, and interact not just with Roy, but with each other. Roy’s parents, who live in Alberta, are also regulars.
“Our community is super-positive,” Roy said. “That’s something we really pride ourselves on.”
Roy, 30, clearly thrives performing live, filling the air for three to four hours straight while juggling cooking or mixing drinks and interacting with viewers.
“It’s definitely a strong suit of Stacey’s, the multi-tasking she’s able to do,” said Parkerson, 34.
Their Twitch shows earn money from subscriptions, ads and donations from viewers, making up 80 per cent of Whabam’s revenue. The rest are for other work, such as corporate and event videos.
The shows get about 100 to 150 concurrent viewers watching at any given time. At times, when they are “rated” by other hosts, they could see a big bump in the numbers of up to 6,500 viewers.
“The chat moves really fast when that happens,” Roy said. “It’s hard to keep up, but I try to do my best.”
Their viewership numbers and production values earned them the status of “Twitch partner” 10 months ago, an exclusive club of only about 22,000 out of the site’s two million streamers, enabling them to apply to compete in Stream On.
The show premieres March 8. Roy’s shows can be found at Twitch.tv/thestaceyroy.