One of the biggest charitable streaming events of the year, Z Event, organized by French streaming star ZeratoR, took place last week from the 8th to the 11th of September. It’s an annual charity streaming event that has been held for seven years in a row now.
In this year's event, 57 popular French content creators came together in Montpellier for four days, with the sole purpose of raising money for four environmentalist institutions. These institutions were Sea Shepherd, LPO, The Sea Cleaners, and WWF.
Creators shared the same space during the four days the event took place. There they streamed multiple games, interacted with each other, had a lot of fun while streaming, and entertained thousands of viewers. When one of the streamers would end their broadcast, they would raid another streamer present in the event.
Unfortunately, this year we had the absence of some of the biggest stars of the French streaming scene. Streamers such as Kamet0, aminematue, and Gotaga didn't attend the event, and the fans weren't happy about that.
Last year the event was a huge success raising €10 million, and this time it was no different. Many viewers donated to the streamers that were participating in the Z Event, and the new height was reached, with Z Event 2022 raising €10.181K million, setting a new record for the event.
Even French president Emmanuel Macron sent a message via Twitter, praising the event for its amazing success. He thanked the event for raising awareness of the environmental issues we face in today's day and age, and for supporting institutions that combat these same problems.
However, some streamers weren't happy with the message sent by the president. This is not the first time Emmanuel Macron showed his support for the Z Event, but this time many streamers took the opportunity to distance themselves from the president, since many perceived this message as being used for political purposes.
Streamers such as AngleDroit, HortyUnderscore, and Ponce, made very clear they don't agree with the politics of the French president, and don't like to be used by Emmanuel Macron, which according to them is just taking advantage of the situation.
This wasn't the only controversy the event faced. The viewers weren't happy with the selection of the GoodPlanet foundation, as one of the beneficiaries of this charity stream. The foundation was accused by many of “greenwashing”, because of its founders the BNP Paribas, its partners in the energy and banking industry, and also because of the support founder Yann Arthus-Bertrand gave in the past to the realization of the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar. In the end, GoodPlanet decided to withdraw from the event, and the viewers got to select the foundation that would replace it.
Viewership stats of Z Event 2022
Compared to the 2021 edition of Z Event, this year's event had a huge decline in viewership. That can be attributed to the absence of streaming stars such as Kamet0, aminemature, and Gotaga. These streamers were essential for the massive success the event had in 2021, and not having them in this year's edition clearly hurt the viewership numbers of the event.
While Z Event 2021 had 22 million Hours Watched, the 2022 edition had 14 million HW. In Peak Viewership the decline was even bigger, the event went from a record-breaking 1.3 million Peak Viewers last year, to less than half that number this year, with 573K simultaneous viewers. However, overall audience reach of the event was still impressive, as it attracted over 2 million Unique Viewers.
However, the chat engagement rate of the event was still amazing. With a 21% chat engagement rate, and 369K Active Chatters, you can clearly see that viewers were interacting a lot with the streamers that were broadcasting the event. Viewers sent a total of 7.5 million messages in all the 59 streams combined.
The most popular streamer of the event was ZeratoR, who had 269K Peak Viewers, and viewers also sent 346K messages on his stream. Etoiles was the second most popular streamer of this year's edition of the event with 207K simultaneous viewers. Domingo placed third in the list of most popular channels by peak viewers, with 188K simultaneous viewers, but was number one in messages sent, with viewers sending the streamer 496K messages during the time he broadcasted the event.
While last year Z Event had twelve streamers peaking at over 250K simultaneous viewers, in this year’s edition only Z Event creator ZeratoR, and Etoiles managed to get over 200K Peak Viewers.
The average viewership of the event also went down this year, going from 379K Average Viewers in 2021, to 245K Average Viewers in 2022. In 2021, the event had more than twelve streamers averaging more than 20K AV, but this year only four streamers were able to average that. The streamers who managed to get more than 20K concurrent viewers were ZeratoR, Etoiles, AntoineDaniel, and Domingo.
The Z Event 2022 might not have a record-breaking viewership like its predecessor, but it was still capable of entertaining thousands of viewers and creating unforgettable moments. Not only streamers attended the event, but there were also other renowned guests. Famous actor Alain Chabat was at the event to present his famous game show “Burguer Quiz”, but adapted to the event, with the game being called “Questions for a Streamer”. French rapper Bigflo also attended the event to show his support.
Z Event will be back next year, and ZeratoR has confirmed that this was probably the last edition of Z Event in its current format. The organizers want to work on a new model for the streaming marathon, and so far we still don't know much about it. But one thing is for certain, no matter the format of the event, Z Event will be back next year to entertain public and raise even more money for charity.
