MAGFest

The tradition & historical record

MAGFest (Music and Gaming Festival, originally the Mid-Atlantic Gaming Festival) is a non-profit organization and video game, art, music, and culture festival. They hold multiple events throughout the year, with their flagship event being an annual festival held in the Washington metropolitan area or the National Harbor. The events feature concerts by chiptune artists and video game cover bands, educational panels and activities, free-to-play arcade cabinets, a bring your own computer (BYOC) LAN party, community jam spaces, and charity speedruns & auctions. In addition to the primary "Super MAGFest" circuit, MAGWest is held annually in California and the smaller MAGLabs is held biannually in Baltimore, Maryland. All events are primarily run by a large volunteer base, supported and organized by a small, paid office staff. ¹

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 maintenance and technical staff. The arcade hall includes specialty lighting, laser lighting, and music to invoke the feeling of a traditional arcade. 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 that challenge various abilities include driving simulators, shooting simulators, labyrinth games, and others. There are multiple events and tournaments that occur during the event that allow you to challenge dozens of others for prizes. 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. ¹

MAGFest was created by Joseph "Joe" Yamine and Sean Rider in 2002, as a small event in Roanoke, Virginia. Nick Marinelli, director of press and public relations, stated in an interview that Yamine "wanted people to just come together, play games, and rock out to some great video game cover bands". The original event featured three bands, an arcade room, a dealers room, a video room devoted to anime, a dance party area, and auctions of rare video games and art. Brendan Becker took over from Yamine at the following event, and the number of attendees grew from 250 to 3,000 over the course of eight years. Marinelli credited word of mouth for the slow but continued growth of the event, adding "It's not about seeing something no one's ever seen more; it's about getting together and celebrating what you love". Charles Margolis donated an X-Men arcade cabinet to the event for MAGFest VI in 2008, and it was placed in a central area that year. The cabinet was extremely loud, particularly Colossus' special move, and it became an event tradition to mimic the roar in later years. After Margolis passed from brain cancer in 2017, a memorial notice was added to the cabinet. The event was extended in length from MAGFest 8 in 2010, going from a three-day to a four-day schedule. MAGFest 8 was initially billed as the host of a charity speedrunning drive by Mike Uyama and Andrew Schroeder, but internet connectivity issues at the hotel caused the event to be spun off as independently at another venue as Games Done Quick (GDQ). GDQ has since become a recurring event circuit in its own right. ¹

In 2012, MAGFest moved to the Gaylord National Harbor Resort & Convention Center, and MAGFest Inc was created as a nonprofit organization to manage the event. Beginning in 2014, some additional annual conventions began to be held, starting with MAGLabs at the former venue in Virginia, and MAGWest held in California each year. Attendance at the main event reached 20,000 by 2016, and peaked at 24,000 at Super MAGFest 2020, held that January. From 2019 the primary event circuit became known as "Super MAGfest". MAGLabs went on hiatus from 2019. ¹

The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected the event. Super MAGFest 2020 was conducted that January, shortly before social distancing restrictions were introduced, but MAGWest 2020 and 2021 could only be conducted as digital events. A September 2020 announcement cancelled the in-person Super MAGFest 2021, which had been due to take part the coming January. The announcement also indicated that the future of MAGfest in general was uncertain. In addition to the financial challenge the pandemic represented, with the loss of 95% of the organization's revenue for the year, "interpersonal and cultural issues" within the senior management team led to instability. In November 2020, an organization named "friends of MAGFest" expressed concern about the MAGFest board of directors, alleging financial neglect, mismanagement and abuse by the Executive Director, Paul Birtel. After negotiations with Friends of MAGFest, Birtel fired three board members associated with the group, as well as the events director, Debra Lenik, which effectively cancelled the planned virtual event for 2021. Lenik considered the move a retaliatory action, and was told that she could only keep her health insurance if she signed an agreement not to sue the organization. The entire board resigned in January 2021, and Paul Birtel himself resigned 10 days later. Through the following three months the new board worked to stabilize the organization, with Lenik being rehired in her original role in April 2021. The organization announced some structural changes, including the presence of volunteer staff on the board, as well as the return of former staff members and volunteers. ¹

Super MAGFest 2022 was formally announced in August 2021, confirming a return to the in-person event schedule. The event was held successfully, though there was a significant decline in attendees compared to the 24,000 seen at the peak in January 2020. 10,581 people attended in 2022, rising to 18,987 in 2023. Super MAGFest 2024 was announced on May 31, 2023 and was the first event to sell out at the Gaylord National Harbor Convention Centre, with an attendance of around 30,000. MAGLabs returned in 2025, now held at a new venue in Baltimore. The revived MAGLabs focuses on games related arts and crafts, such as tabletop miniatures and scenery. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “MAGFest”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

MAGFest is video game convention in National Harbor, MD, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 11 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²