MAGFest

MAGFest (Music and Gaming Festival, originally the Mid-Atlantic Gaming Festival) is an annual festival held in the Washington metropolitan area that celebrates video games and video game music, as well as their surrounding culture. MAGFest's primary features are a large open video gaming room, a hall of arcade cabinets, concerts by chiptune artists and video game cover bands, and a Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) LAN Party.
Attractions.
MAGFest's arcade hall is open 24 hours a day. The exhibition hall contains hundreds of full-size arcade cabinets, and even pinball machines that are donated for the event from local collectors and vending companies. All arcades are set to play for free on admission price, and are monitored 24 hours a day by a maintenance and technical staff. The arcade hall is decked out with specialty lighting, laser lighting, and music to bring back the golden age of arcades. The game selection ranges from 1970's vintage black and white games, vector monitors games, Cathode Ray Tube games, modern/Indie arcades; as well as contemporary Japanese candy cabinets and Japanese dance/music games like Dance Dance Revolution and Taiko No Tatsujin. Arcades range from various manufacturers like Atari, Nintendo, Taito, Midway, Williams, Capcom, Sega, ICE, Rock Ola, and Exidy. Games challenge various abilities including driving simulators, shooting simulators, labyrinth games, and just plain fun games. There are multiple events and tournaments that occur during the event that allow you to challenge dozens of others for prizes and fame. They also host a ten-game tournament that spans the entire event which allows players to openly compete on 10 classic arcade games to work on getting the highest scores possible with the ultimate prize being given to the player who scores the most points total on all games.
There is also a console hall open 24 hours a day that houses over a hundred televisions and attached game consoles, where guests are invited to play at will and each station's game is periodically swapped with a different one from a game library. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own controllers or fighting game pads to compete with. Consoles range from vintage Atari 2600, Intellivision style games all the way through the years to the most current and up to date Xbox/PS/Nintendo systems and games. Even steam titles are playable and indie game developers have been known to introduce or beta test new games at the events. Tournaments are performed frequently throughout the event on several platforms and game types for prizes.
In 2013 the MAGFest Indie Videogame Showcase, "MIVS" was started. It features between 40 and 60 booths of indie game developers each year. Since 2016 there has been an "Indie Arcade" section, housing new arcade games created by indie developers and artists from around the world. The bulk of these cabinets are curated through Death By Audio Arcade in NY. In 2017 the "Indie Homebrew" sub-section was started, which has featured new indie games that can be played on classic consoles from the 1980s and 1990s such as the Atari 2600, NES, etc...
The concert areas host nightly performances in multiple rooms simultaneously of famous and up and coming bands. Music is themed, but not limited to; Chip Tunes, video game music, and related works. Many luminaries of video game music fan culture have performed at MAGFest. Previous bands include Machinae Supremacy, Earthbound Papas, Minibosses, Powerglove, the NESkimos, the Advantage and Chromelodeon.
Other major attractions include guest panels from the video game industry such as Sid Meier, Jon St. John and Nobuo Uematsu, celebrated composer for many of the games in the Final Fantasy series. In addition, the fan remixing community is well represented with sites such as OverClocked ReMix. Filmmakers such as X-Strike Studios, Main Moon Productions, PBC Productions, and There Will Be Brawl have also appeared at the event. MAGFest has also included intellectually driven panels such as "Game Studies 101" where attendees were given a basic introduction to the manner in which scholars study video games.
Additionally, MAGFest features DJ battles, a jam space, an open mic stage, a large LAN party environment, a film screening room, a tabletop gaming room, vendors, contests like "name-that-tune," and a video game "challenge booth" where players can "try to tackle insanely difficult gaming feats for prizes of all sorts."
History.
Super MAGFest 2021 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Maryland.