Hey all,
Recently I hit up MAGfest 13 in Washington DC. MAGfest (Music and Gaming Festival) is a four day long party dedicated to the appreciation of video game music, gaming of all types, and the gaming community.
This was my 3rd year going to MAGfest and its really one of my favorite shows to go to every year. In fact I enjoy MAGfest more than I do some of the bigger shows like PAXeast, but I digress.
What keeps me going back to MAGfest every year is the sense of community that it has. The show is run by fans for fans. There are no corporate sponsors, no over-crowded showfloors, and no top-secret-behind-closed-doors showings. Its as if you are hosting a big LAN type party and you invited your friend that has a lot of arcade games, a friend with a lot of game consoles, a friend who has a few bands, a friend with board games ect. One of the better things about it is that it runs nonstop 24hrs. If I feel like playing DDR, classic arcade games or pinball at 3am then I can go down to the Arcade room at 3am and play. If I feel like listening to some awesome bands at 4am then I can hit up a concert at 4am. Likewise if I want to play some board games with friends.
Older MAGfest arcade room photo
The concerts this year were also amazing, with bands like the Protomen playing 80's cover songs, Machinae Supremacy coming back for their 2nd MAGfest and Katamari Damacy composer Yuu Miyake making an appearance. Probably one of the most memorable moments during the concerts was VOG Network fan Mega Ran proposing to his girlfriend.
The list of guests that attended were pretty impressive as well. I sadly didn't get to see a lot of them because I was always doing something else when others were going on. But you could check out the guest list here.
http://magfest.org/guestsOne of my favorite parts about MAGfest is the Games On Films segment of the show. This part of the show showcases a lot of independently made fan films and shorts made my indie filmmakers. In a ways its kind of like a Film Festival for Video Game themed movies. For some movies like the documentary "Videos Games: The Movie" the director even showed up for a post movie Q&A with the audience. It was really cool to see a lot of interesting movies. The one I might have enjoyed the most was a short called "IRL 2.0 In Moderation" which is a continuation to directors Anthony Rosner first documentary about using moderation in gaming (specifically in his case MMO's and WoW).
This years MAGfest was probably the biggest in terms of crowds that its ever had. It was so crowded that for once people had to wait on a small line to play certain games at all hours. People that I've chatted with feel mixed about the bigger crowds at MAGfest this year. Some stating that its starting to get "too big". Personally I feel that a lot of good can come from MAGfest getting bigger. The more exposure the bigger the guests and bands that will come. I think that with the bigger crowds the staff will take that into account for future shows and the Arcade/Game room floors will be expanded. I think that as long as the show is kept in the hands of "the fans" that are organizing it (and not the bigger corporation group like Reed Exhibitions) that MAGfest will continue to get better and better.
Now to the a special treat to this post. While I was there I took some video with my GoPro camera. For those who don't know what a GoPro is, its a small powerful camera that is traditionally used as an action camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3PDXmYoF5U .
So I made 2 videos with the GoPro strapped to my head. Both of these videos were shot at 720p 60fps.
The first one is a full on walking tour of the Console and Arcade room. Later in post I made a few a few jump cuts a transitions to smooth it out.
The second video is a video of me playing some arcade games while wearing my GoPro.
Anyways check them out. Hopefully you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed going there.
