Participants gather to watch and play pinball games at MAGFest 9 in Alexandria on Jan. 16. Photo by KJ mushung

In 2001, MAGFest was billed as primarily a music-centric convention intended to promote smalltime bands and, hopefully, breakouts. In recent years, the focus has changed in encompass entertainment in general, with a variety of panels and topics ranging from music genres to collecting and trading comics to the history of video games.

Held in Alexandria  at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center right up the road from the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College, which provided overflow parking for the event, this year’s MAGFest 9 was a four-day event, running from Jan. 13 through 16.

Taking over a sizable portion of the hotel’s convention center, MAGFest was divided across two floors. The lower floor comprised of several arcade rooms, the dealer’s room, a live jam space for people to simply pick up an instrument and start playing, and the panel rooms. The upper floor included meet-and-greet panels, gaming rooms and the network-ready gaming center.

Merchandise awaits buyers at MAGFest 9, a music and gaming festival held in Alexandria. Photo by: KJ Mushung

The arcade rooms, on the lower floor, were a somewhat misty-eyed look back at the days of arcade game parlors, as collectors brought in dozens of old-style arcade video game systems with titles ranging from the classics of Super Mario Brothers and Rampage World Tour, to titles less heard of, such as Olympia DX.

Gamers try out video and electronic games, both classic and modern, at MAGFest 9 in Alexandria on Jan. 16. Photo by: KJ Mushung

For the price of a fist full of quarters a convention attendee could take a step back in time to the mid-1980s, when many a teenager spent Saturday nights at the arcade seeking to beat JGC’s high score on Donkey Kong.

The panel rooms were packed to room capacity for many of the discussion panels that were offered. There was a variety of topics addressed over the four days of the festival.

One such panel discussion was Video Games as Modern Folklore. Far from the cliché image of nerdy 20-somethings with thick-rimmed glasses comparing the feats of Mario to the abilities of Sonic, the panel made a vivid comparison of video games to tribal stories and even mythologies of Ancient Rome.

The dealer’s room was a veritable zoo of various dealers selling their wares. Ranging from college kids who specialize in crafting garments from duct tape, to aspiring artists, to long time collectors, the tables were full with merchandise and the aisles crammed full of potential buyers.

The largest room in the lower level was given over to a massive complex of TVs and projectors connected to dozens of video gaming consoles. Ranging from the ever-venerable Nintendo Entertainment System, to the ill-fated and often forgotten Sega Dreamcast, individuals could enter and take part in their choice of video games.

It was somewhat bizarre to look at the classic Super Mario Bros., being played next to Super Mario Galaxy, but a welcome experience nonetheless.

Matt Simpson of Nophi Handmade Music Company plays video-game music on a stereo while waiting for buyers at MAGFest. Photo by: KJ Mushung

On the upper floor, there were a series of rooms given over to gaming in general, with one room titled The Gaming Center, dedicated solely to computer gaming. Resembling a scene out of a 1980s science fiction film, the room was strewn with cables as participants brought in high-end gaming computers to compete in head-to-head matches in StarCraft II, World of Warcraft and a variety of other titles.

For the price of a $50 pass, attendants were treated to a host of concerts and game-playing over a four-day period. Not bad considering many attending could easily have spent that much in quarters at an arcade or for a single concert ticket.

Some of you might remember this gaming system from yesteryear. Some of the very first video and arcade games made were featured at MAGFest 9, a music and gaming festival held in Alexandria in January. Photo by: KJ Mushung

By: Michael Cividanes

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