 So we heard about it for years, but we never actually went to Magfest because they were stupid They had it on New Year's Eve It's like who the hell is gonna give up their New Year's Eve to go to almost any convention What what convention could possibly be on New Year's Eve? Do you still go I would go to PAX I don't think I would go to New Year's I would go to one New Year's PAX it depends on where the PAX was Seattle I don't know if I'd go to Seattle go to Seattle for PAX on New Year's Eve imagine the craziness No, I don't know be a close call So Magfest we ignored every year just because well before I didn't even know it existed like I vaguely heard Oh, there's something called I knew there was a convention called Magfest I knew it had you know, it was a gaming con It was mostly video game oriented and that it also had the video game music, but I didn't you know It wasn't large in my brain. It was just a convention. I knew existed sort of like, you know It's like a hundred conventions. I know they exist Yeah, I think what it really came to light was the whole they did the they had John St. John in their ad Well, that was that was one or two years ago, right? They had John St. John in the ad They made that awesome YouTube video to promote it and I was like, oh Well, but it was is that it wasn't that the that you know, so I thought the convention was somehow better It's that that ad let me know that the people at that convention running it were very culturally similar to us They were our people what really got me though was when I was explained to me that there's an official yell of Magfest the colossus That was only invented last year. Yeah, but I heard about it last year and suddenly like that seemed like the kind of thing that we Would dig and that was correct. They definitely, you know It became very apparent in the past year or two that Magfest was our style So this year they actually came to us and said hey You guys want to come to Magfest be guests do a panel do your usual thing the stuff you do at all the other cons and we said yes Because it wasn't because it wasn't yeah, I mean if it was on New Year's again, I would have said no But we said yes now many of you might be new listeners. You're trying to check out like all right We're doing this review of Magfest. I was at Magfest. I want to see what you have to say We're very harsh on conventions we often complain about all the things that go wrong with them because a lot of conventions Do that's the only interesting thing to talk about a lot of the time is what went wrong now You know if you talk about what I write it's like well, this was fun and this is fun. Of course, it's a new con I mean how many Otakans did we cover how many times can you say the artist alley is this big and is this many people in it So what we're gonna do is start with all the bad parts of Magfest get all the complaining out of the way So we can talk about the good stuff because there was a bad there was a quite a bit there was there was a portents It was it was indeed a quite smelly orange. We're excited. We don't know about the culture of this con We're ready to go we get on the bolt bus. I had good ex high expectations for Magfest way high way higher than I knew it relatively it was only a few thousand people which it was I knew it was four days and we were going you know in afternoon on the first the Thursday so we're gonna get a lot out of it and I knew that it was culturally similar to us so I was like all right This is gonna be this is gonna be good also a hotel con very rarely 24-7 you know back before we did geek nights or anything We would go to a lot of hotel cons we're 24-7 gaming You know they're kind of small everything's crazy and now we only go to like pexes and Otakans all the really big ones So it would be it was interesting to go back to a hotel style con Being this much older and weirder and you know doing panels and everything yep So we get on the volt bus and there is immediately Bo yeah, like wicked gamer There was no way to a hundred percent. No who had this Bo it was probably that guy sitting right behind It was probably that guy sitting right behind us And I think it was a it was a case of no hair washing that is what it seemed like he was wearing the kind of brown like Gamer shirt with a gamer thing That had probably been worn a couple of times because he asked us at the end of the bus ride Hey, you guys going to magfest you want to you know ride over there together or whatever because he was taking the metro I think the bus was like half magfest people we took an expensive not yellow cab Yeah, basically the guys if the guy you out there if you're watching this you probably know who you are We're sorry, but you had some bad Bo so when you said hey you want to share a cab I said yeah, we'll see we booked out of that We didn't know that that we didn't know for sure that was the Bo guy But I was pretty sure that was my if I had to if I had to bet on which guy on the bus had the Bo That's the guy would have bet on my money on so magfest number two was the old lady who's sitting in front of me Yeah, she could have had a Bo she could have been dead She wasn't dead though magfest overall had a Bo problem. We cannot pretend that that was not Yeah, Bo problem. Do I have a Bo problem? We got back to Manhattan I remember stepping off the bus and it was a breath of fresh air Jesus magfest take a goddamn shower Yeah Even saw some magfest staff who would wear the same shirt on one day and then I saw the next day and they had the same shirt Yeah, not set in a good example. Now you're the same shirt more than two days in a row. That's hobo territory That is deed hobo territory now. I understand cons like a lot of con staff only have one staff shirt You got to fix that. I saw staff wearing non-staff shirts multiple. I didn't wear my kilt three days But you can go a long time with pants as different and non bifurcated male garments Yes, can't do that so much with a t-shirt. No, not at all. I don't know what to do about the VO problem I think it's because it was 24 7 con and because the hotel sold out there were like seven or eight people in every room Yeah, and I don't think people were taking showers. No, I think they're also the elevator problem This is a this wasn't a problem for us or for see we were in a hotel that was across It was just like one street away from the actual hotels the old far to walk in the cold It was the official overflow hotel But they had a shuttle bus which is basically a big van take us over there every half hour back and forth And actually I was expecting to lose a lot of time with that shuttle bus Yeah, we really like that going into this we're like that's probably gonna ruin our con and we have nothing But no shuttle bus totally worked what was not good is that the main hotel was actually two hotels It was a big tall tower style and it was also a separate retreat style So there were two hotels in the main hotel that were connected physically to magfest the big, you know The wide-out retreat one was totally cool That's where our friends are staying and they could just go to their room anytime And if I had to go back and it was in the same location, I would want to be in that retreat hotel Yep, definitely But it's to avoid the shuttle bus But the tower hotel was a incredibly tall tower with not so many rooms on each floor with a lot of floors and Poorly programmed elevators. Yeah, even if those elevators are well programmed. There was no way to deal with that load There were not enough of them They were not designed to handle that much traffic going up and down constantly, but a saving grace for us the few times I tried to go up there and I failed many times cold guy had an awesome party on the 8th floor that I tried to go to like four times Yeah, and I just couldn't make it no one there knew about the go down to go up or go up to go down trick Oh, no one was doing that our bag of tricks. This has got a running theme with us I need the comments our bag of tricks was brand new here like Otacon all those big cons Everyone's figured that stuff out by now magfest No one there really goes to other cons most of the people we talked to were like this is not it's not like This is my first magfest. They were like this is the first convention I have ever been to I'd like someday to go to packs Yeah, I haven't I didn't do a survey obviously but of the people I talked to right the vast majority of the people either I'd never been to another convention or never been to a convention before ever and there were a few people obviously who are big Convention goers like us, but most of the people I talked to were not convention type people You know, I think there was maybe that was that one girl who knew tax Yeah, and there was a girl like a Paxies scarf That was weird small circles running into people who helped staff conventions We used to staff through a third person randomly in Virginia. Yeah, it happens But the back to the BO like the elevator thing I think as a result people just weren't taking showers because you know eight people in a room They want to go play some games They take the elevator down figure I'll shower later and everyone's done can't go back up There's no way to get back up to line at the elevator at all times no matter when you pass by those elevators There were always people there waiting to get it on and off and also on YouTube I didn't see this during the convention because you know It was like a whole areas of this convention that I missed out on because I just didn't get over there I even though it was a small con they were just areas that didn't go to and moat You know part of that experience. I saw on YouTube was the elevator party Elevator right apparently if you go on YouTube and search for magfest elevator party There were people who got a boombox gotten those elevators and we're just like elevate and you could hear the elevator party coming up in the The trouble with that though, that's not helping guys No, but it was a you know It was a cultural thing at the con that we missed out Well remember back at our it the elevator party when I was a freshman just that one day randomly all the elevators had a party in Yeah, that was good. I missed stuff like that but I We got to do something about the Bo because it's not like packs like every con There's that one guy with Bo like you he walks through the room and everyone's like oh my god that guy or you know Small gaming cons there's like the cluster of the fat Warhammer guys with their Bo When that happens right if there's a Warhammer room with Bo or if there's a DDR machine with Bo just don't go near it Yeah, or go over there once you'll be like that's about DDI No, you just keep your eye on it wait for it to clear out at a quiet moment because a 24 hour con It's gonna be cleared out at some point go over there and do it while it's cleared out and get out And a lot of cons like on Sunday I'll have the Bo because people just don't shower this want to travel and you expect that it but This was like constant and everywhere like low level no matter where you went There was a tiny bit of Bo everywhere except in a few places like the hotel restaurant and Or outside yeah, right where they were smoking by the entrance the first time I walked outside It was like whoa whoa like suddenly I realized that I had become accustomed to Bo of course And then there were obviously you know every few minutes or so if you were walking around or you know There would be a person with really bad there'd be a peak like there was a constant low level and peaks So the average was pretty high so it's sort of like a bad guy in a video game Who leaves like smoke behind them and there were a few of them and they were traveling around and eventually was smoke everywhere And since it's four days forget it and you might think we're being harsh complaining about Bo at a con no you have no you don't understand This was bad. Alright, so wash everything. So that's what we talked a lot about Bo It's been a lot of time so there's only one other thing that went wrong with Magfest big all big thing that went wrong Yeah, Magfest 9 had the worst Registration I have ever seen in a decade of going to conventions. I know we we have ripped other conventions for their bad Regilons. Oh my god. I anime Boston. I had to wait in line for two hours How bad was that we ripped Otacon for not mailing the badges and those those ripings were deserve it ripings However, those ripings pale in comparison to the ripping that Magfest needs You might think like anime Boston the year before we went was like famous for its bad Regilon Like it was just a disaster Right even cuts there was a katsukon that we did not attend that apparently the badges did not show up until like Friday Saturday or even not as bad Hengwakan back in the day the badges didn't show up until late Friday night Hengwakan do wasn't a bad, right? You walked up to the coat check and it took to a minute and you got a bag once they had the badges to sell Yeah, the thing is they didn't check the badges until they could sell them So they they fixed it. Yeah, Magfest had not only a badge disaster absolute disaster No staff did anything about it. Yeah, they didn't even try to fix this problem whatsoever Right basically what they had is they had a little booth that was the same booth They were selling the merch at and it had maybe three or four laptops at it to which they were what they would do is you would go up They would look for you in the database because it was sold out was all pre-reg Then they would find your badge with your number like 4197 Here you are here is your number 4197 and they'd make you sign this also I was watching their computers and the computers are very slow very shitty software whatever they were using They were also checking every single convention attendees ID To see how old they were and giving wristbands depending on your age. Yeah, all these factors meant about five minutes per person Minimum five minutes per person had a huge pile of like Lanyards and stuff you had to rip one out of there and so five minutes per person times 4,000 people is even with only a few thousand people, right? They only had like two or three laptops there and one of them was just for staff and guests and those sorts of Vendors right so we waited in a very short staff vendor guest line There were maybe ten people in front of us in line It took us like over an hour and a half to get through that it was about an hour and 45 minutes But meanwhile the normal registrant line was gigantic right not moving much faster Wrapped around the hotel and it took like two hours to move like a hundred feet in that line It was apparently there was the line was stacked up from when the convention opened on Thursday To when it closed on Thursday, and I didn't really see that line being non-disastrous until Friday some point Friday When there was a huge line in the morning kind of slowly petered out But it's like they didn't try to add more stations grab more laptops There was no sense at Otacon when they had a problem I mean wall I don't like the way Otacon does their badges when there was a reg problem They're like ten staffers like all right. How do we fix this? What do we do? Let's open up more reg Over there. Let's do something even if it's something that you try doesn't work and you fail At least you tried magfest didn't even seem like it was a problem. They were just like yeah regin We're regin. We got three regs things. We're going yeah It was like they didn't even think there was something wrong with that hello That was disastrous if I had to wait in that line I might have just left and I showed up on Thursday. I would have charged back my credit card I would have charged my credit card just left. I wouldn't have left I would because they didn't check badges anywhere except the video game room in the concert That's true I would have gone to magfest anyway And there were some people who are at magfest to quite a few of them without badges and because they didn't go to Concerts or they didn't go to the main video game console room. They didn't have a problem They just went without a badge. I mean I would not have I really it's I would not have dealt with it Had I been an attendee, but even as a guest I had to wait an hour and 40 minutes to get 10 spaces through a line And they didn't even have us in there in their computer So we do a lot of conventions and cons often screw stuff up like we'll get to like I saw I saw it coming A mile away. Yeah, well like one canada con we went to way back like they didn't have our schedule for us Or tell us what panels we were doing so we literally like get there get our badges get a con book open it up find names of panels That we're pretty sure we submitted and then we just showed up to them expecting to have to do them And we were right that was the worst I'd ever dealt with until magfest where they just we weren't on the list Yeah, and the staff didn't we had to get the panels guy to come up and say yes These guys are real but even then the panel's guys like these guys are for real and then he left And then they still didn't know what to do and in the end they never even gave us our guest badges They give us normal badges. Yeah, they just picked up normal badges. Now. Here's how they could fix this right number one You need more red stations. Yeah a lot more no wait wait wait all the badges and it won't matter wait now What bothers me is that last year apparently there's this huge open area right next to the reg area They could have had like 30 people doing reg That area was empty and the area they had for reg was smaller than the room we're recording the show in Yeah, apparently they had it right last year and they got it wrong this year But anyway, there was I heard of internal drama among the staff, but that's no excuse Whatever mail the badges if you even if you don't mail them or even if you do mail them There are still some people who got to pick them up at the con