MegaMan cosplayers. Photo by Kirk Zamieroski.

This past weekend, thousands of gamers, cosplayers, and fans gathered at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center at the National Harbor for the 13th annual MAGfest. MAGfest—which originally stood for the “Mid-Atlantic Gaming Festival,” but now stands for the “Music and Gaming Festival”—is a massive gaming festival that takes place each year at the National Harbor.

For four days, gamers of all kind gather for a weekend of every kind of gaming you can think of (arcade games, every console you can imagine, board games, LARPing, etc.). In addition, there’s a host of interesting panels, events, and a music portion, which features chiptune bands and DJs playing video game-inspired music. It’s as massive as it is nerdy.

After bailing on it last year, I was coaxed into going with a big group of friends this year. I was promised “a weekend of nothing but drinking and gaming;” the gaming doesn’t stop for the entire duration. Literally any time of day or night, the video games are there for you to play. You could play Super Smash Brothers for 48 hours straight if you really wanted to. They had me at “weekend.”

So here’s the deal with MAGfest: It’s not quite an “anything goes” festival, but there’s a fair amount of “looking the other way,” as I soon learned. As the Gaylord Hotel is a resort, you’re technically not supposed to bring booze in (they sell it), but we did it anyway. You’re technically not supposed to drink on the gaming floor, but, so long as you’re discreet, no one seems to mind (and a lot of others are doing it too).

In any event, my experience at MAGfest was, well, I kept a running diary of it for your reading pleasure. I’m still recovering from it.

A silent disco. Photo by Matt Cohen.

FRIDAY

6:30 p.m. We depart from our house in Eckington amid a combination of snow and rain. I hop into the back of my friend’s cargo van. In lieu of seats, there’s just a couch back there. It is definitely not legal. I immediately fall asleep.

8 p.m. We arrive at the National Harbor. After driving around for a bit, we decide to park the cargo van in the parking garage across from the Gaylord Hotel. The garage clearance says it’s eight feet. By just eyeballing it, we figure our van—with a rack on the roof—can clear it. We are correct, until we get to the last level and the rack gets caught on the roof of the garage and is ripped off the van. We all scream. It sounds like the world ending.

8:15 p.m. We walk into the Gaylord Hotel with our stuff, which includes about three cases of beer. There’s hundreds of cosplayers everywhere. We wait for the elevator for what seems like forever (10 minutes). One of them is broken and some hotel staff are fixing it.

Finally, one of them notices the beer and says we can’t bring it in here. I ask him if he’s serious. He says yes. We walk outside, wait forever (10 minutes), and come back in. The employee is gone and we go to our hotel room, beer included.

8:30 p.m. We arrive at our hotel room. A few friends who run Milk Cult, a catering business/soon-to-be-restaurant, have turned our hotel room into the kitchen/headquarters for their secret ramen delivery service. The room smells like ramen and is approximately one million degrees (87 degrees). Everyone is sweating.

My hotel room doubled as a secret ramen restaurant.

8:45 p.m. We start drinking.

9 p.m. We go down to pick up our MAGfest badges. The way MAGfest is set up, there’s essentially four massive convention spaces on the bottom floor. Each one specializes in a different type of gaming (one room is a massive arcade, the other room is vendors, the adjacent one is all console gaming. One of the rooms is where you pick up the badges. There are a lot of cosplayers here. I’m cosplaying as Seth Rogen. No one gets it.

9:15 p.m. Walk around a bit, look at the cosplayers. Still, no one recognizes my Seth Rogen cosplaying. We decide to go back to the room and drink.

11 p.m. Inebriated. Walk down to the arcade. Get my ass kicked in Mortal Kombat. Feel bad about it.

11:15 p.m. Sign up for the pinball tournament, which is pretty much the sole reason I came. I have until 5 p.m. on Saturday to play all five tournament machines and record my best scores. Like everything else in my life, I’ll probably put it off until the last minute.

11:30 p.m. Continue drinking/playing (non-tournament) pinball machines. I’ve grown fond of the World Cup ’94 machine. I feel one with it.

12 a.m. Some guy tells me about a Sonic the Hedgehog cosplaying orgy happening tomorrow night. As his friends drag him away, he tells me to “check the Casual Encounters category on Craigslist.” I immediately do that, confirming that there is indeed a Sonic the Hedgehog cosplaying orgy tomorrow night. The ad says to meet up at the gazebo in the lobby at 9 p.m. on Saturday, wearing full Sonic cosplay. I immediately tell all of my friends.

12 a.m. – ? Continue to discreetly drink and play pinball/arcade games.

SATURDAY

11 a.m. Wake up at the crack of 11 a.m. Feel like death.

11:30 a.m. For some reason, we collectively decide to get breakfast at this Irish pub down the street from the hotel. Friends that went last year said they had really good eggs. Turns out, they don’t have a breakfast menu. I get an Irish coffee (6/10) and, for some reason, an $18 plate of bangers & mash. It’s terrible and undercooked. 0/10, would not eat again.

12 p.m. Still feel like death/might have food poisoning.

12:30 p.m. – 2 p.m. Confirm I don’t have food poisoning, and that I’m just hungover. I wander around the convention floor. Most people are dressed in cosplay. They’re all really detailed and great and cool. I don’t recognize about three quarters of them, but they’re still really cool.

I spot at least two people in Sonic the Hedgehog cosplay and think to myself “I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING LATER.” I head to the console room where I proceed to get my ass kicked in a series of Nintendo 64 games, most of which I always considered myself pretty good at. Still, no one recognizes my Seth Rogen cosplay.

Pinball tournament.

2 p.m. I reconvene with some friends and make an ambitious plan for the rest of the day/night. Among them: Play the requisite machines for the pinball tournament, go to a panel (I forget which, but it sounded interesting), play some Mortal Kombat, play some Nintendo 64, drink, go to see a band in the concert hall that performs old-school video game theme songs while someone does a speed-through (beats the entire game really fast) of said game on the big screen.

I decide I’m tired and go upstairs for a nap before our ambitious afternoon/evening/night. In bed, I turn on the TV and I, Robot with Will Smith is on. I find that somewhat appropriate.

4 p.m. Wake up from nap to friends returning with kitchen equipment to turn our bathroom into a ramen kitchen again. I start drinking and then remember I only have an hour to play all the pinball machines for the tournament.

4:10 p.m. – 5 p.m. I frantically and, quite pathetically, play all the tournament machines. I come in 46th place on the Meteor machine.

5 p.m. – 8 p.m. I drink heavily as I play video games. From what I can recall: I did pretty well in non-tournament pinball, I got my ass kicked in more Nintendo 64 games, and I played Mortal Kombat with a nine-year-old for about an hour. He beat me every time. I stopped letting him win after the second game. He didn’t recognize my Seth Rogen cosplay.

8 p.m. My friends and I discreetly convene in the lobby near the gazebo, anxiously awaiting the Sonic cosplayers who will soon be meeting before, um, yeah. Apparently the secret got out and there’s a lot of people there for the same thing. I start to feel bad. Only one guy in Sonic cosplay shows up. People are taking pictures with him. We all feel horrible.

Why should a person’s sexual desires, however strange they may seem to you, be put on display? What kind of person am I to want to stare and gawk at people who’re just looking for love (or, rather, lust)? I don’t like myself, so I go back to the room for a bit.

10 p.m. Go to the concert hall to see Bit Brigade, the aforementioned band that plays video game themes synced up to someone doing a speed run of said game. It’s fucking incredible.

11 p.m. – 12:30 a.m. Play pinball/video games while drinking. I spend quite a bit of time playing Time Crisis 2, which is an arcade game I remember fondly from my youth. As I’m completing the last level, a hint of sadness overwhelms me that we no longer live in an arcade culture. I miss arcades (barcades don’t count).

MAGfest “selfie.”

12:30 a.m. I decide I’m hungry. The secret ramen operation in my room sold out. Most of the restaurants in the hotel are closed. I have to order room service. I watch I, Robot (which is on again, for some reason) with a friend as we await room service.

1 a.m. 4 a.m. Inebriated (but not hungry!) I head back to the gaming room, which proves to be my most prolific hours of gaming. I’m unsure if it’s the booze or the mediocre room service turkey club sandwich, but I’m smoking people left and right in pinball and video games. In this moment, I am happy.

4 a.m. A wall of fatigue hits me. I must go to bed right now. As I’m headed back to the room, I pass my group of friends, who are bewildered when I tell them I’m tired and want to go to bed.

In the lobby, I pass a dude in Sonic cosplay. I give him a nod of respect. He doesn’t recognize my Seth Rogen cosplay.

A gamer and a cosplayer play video games. Photo by Matt Cohen.

SUNDAY

11 a.m. I wake up at the crack of 11 a.m.

11:30 a.m. The plan for the day is to spend it playing board games. However, when I find out there’s less space to get home (thanks to the roof rack, which was ripped off our cargo van and now needs to be stuffed in the back along with the couch-seat), me and two friends make an executive decision to not wait around and take a cab back to D.C.

12 p.m. I play one last round of World Cup ’94 pinball, which is the only machine where I think I really, truly found myself. I think that’s the essence of MAGfest: A place where you can freely be yourself and express yourself, whether it’s through Sonic cosplaying (and potential orgies) or a simple pinball machine.

12:30 p.m. We take a $30 cab ride back home. Goodnight MAGfest, you sweet prince.