MAGFest 2013

[retrosportsgamer]

Pre-order discount goes away on 10/31 so figured I'd start this.

January 3-6 , 2013

www.magfest.org

I'll be heading down - first time for me.

[Nick The Newbie]

Hi there! My name's Nick and I'm on staff at MAGFest. I saw you guys linked to us, so I figured I'd pop in to say hi. Let me know if you have any questions about the event, and I'll be glad to answer them.

[Majors]

I help out at in the arcade area at MAGFest. In case Nick does not visit RB daily, I can help with any queries also.

The main thing people need to know is; GO TO MAGFEST!

[Nick The Newbie]

Majors is too tall to be trusted. Everything he says is a lie.


Except the part about where everyone should go to MAGFest.

[dsheinem]

As a PAX East veteran, what would I find remarkable about MAGfest?

[Nick The Newbie]

It's an completely fan and community run event, so it's focused entirely on parties, gaming and concerts, and less on industry happenings. The event runs 24 hours a day for four days straight, has 40 bands, 200 free-play arcades, and a ton other consoles, tabletop, and PC games.

PAX is a great event where you can see a lot of cool new things, but MAGFest is very different in that it's more like giant party.

[retrosportsgamer]

How big is the marketplace? That's a big selling point for me.

[meat]

How big is the marketplace? That's a big selling point for me.

A very good size!!I went last year(1st time) had a great time,the about of cosplay(people dressing up)surprise me.I took my soft modded gamecube full of emulator and played against alot of people in the gameroom.Tecmo Bowl was great!!Majors got a SNK arcade cab with windjammers in so i could play it for the first time.

[Nick The Newbie]

We have about 100 different vendors. It's a spread of different categories including video games, tabletop games, apparel, musicians, art, handmade crafts, and a bunch of other types of fan creations.

As I mentioned before, we aren't an industry event, so we don't have any major corporate exhibitors showing off products. It's something we do purposefully do to retain the community feel of the event.

[Majors]

It's an completely fan and community run event, so it's focused entirely on parties, gaming and concerts, and less on industry happenings. The event runs 24 hours a day for four days straight...it's more like giant party.

I've not been to PAX, but I have attended a few E3's late 90's early 2000's and the corp vibe is not apealing to me. Yes, there are some nice company sponsored after parties (I've only been to one Sony party...very nice!) but for the "exhibit hall only" badge carriers, your treated as riff raff. I stopped going because I could all the info plus more via the web. Also PAX size scares me. I stopped going to AX and Otakon due to their size...I'm just lost in the crowd. I like to be a superstar, feed my ego.

MAG for me is all party and cabs. I do not care much about the music -I've never been to a concert while at the 'fest and I still have way too much fun for my age.

How big is the marketplace? That's a big selling point for me.

It's also open 24 hours (note: some vendors do goto sleep and close up shop in the wee hours)