Gamers of all kinds returned to the Gaylord National Harbor Resort for another jam-packed weekend full of music, gaming and more at MAGFest 2017. The show, held from January 5-8, featured a number of popular musical guests, voice actors, and more to entertain the thousands of attendees who packed the place for all four days. As MAGFest stands for “Music and Gaming Festival,” the show certainly lived up to that name once again.

Guests this year included voice actors Wes Johnson (Fallout 4, Skyrim), Jan Johns (Fallout 3, Murdered: Soul Suspect), Matt Mercer (Overwatch, Persona 5), Marisha Ray (Star Wars: Battlefront, Persona 4), John Patrick Lowrie (Team Fortress 2, DOTA2), and Ellen McClain (Portal, Lego Dimensions), among many others.

Musical guests included Saori Kobayashi and Yumiko Takashi, who were responsible for music from the Panzer Dragoon series, as well as Austin Wintory, who was nominated for a Grammy for his work on Journey (notably the first time a video game score was nominated for a Grammy Award). Bands that performed included The Protomen, Triforce Quartet, Bit Brigade, Armcannon, and many others.

For me, MAGFest remains one of my favorite conventions and is something I always look forward to attending. The atmosphere is always friendly and welcoming and it makes for a really positive environment to have for an entire weekend. It’s a great place to try something new – if you haven’t played in a LAN environment before, there’s a chance to do that. If you haven’t played certain tabletop games before, they have a huge tabletop library. And of course, the two massive video game rooms provide ample opportunity to play a game you’ve never seen before.

Besides the gaming – of which there was plenty – I made it a point to go see a few bands. One of my favorites has always been Bit Brigade, a band that plays the soundtrack to a game as it is being speed-run live for an audience. They played through three games: Castlevania, which I had seen before, and then Batman and DuckTales, both of which were new. Have you ever been in a room with 2,000 other people all screaming the words to the DuckTales theme all at once? Because it’s awesome and I would totally recommend it.

I had the pleasure of being on a panel on Saturday night: “LGBT+ Gaming: Where we are, where we can go, and how we can get there,” in which I contributed to an academic discussion on LGBT+ representation in video gaming. We had a fantastic turnout for a panel that was stacked up against some of the headlining primetime Saturday night events, and I was kept for nearly an hour afterwards by attendees who wanted to talk additionally. I sincerely hope it’s a panel we get to showcase at future MAG events.

Speaking of panels, I attended quite a few myself. One of my favorites was “MAGFest Versus,” a gameshow-style event modeled after the classic Nick Arcade television show. Despite some technical glitches it managed to capture the campy vibe of the original TV series and was a fun watch. The fact that they were able to showcase a bunch of indie games was also super cool.

I honestly can’t say enough good things about MAGFest. It remains one of my favorite conventions for so many reasons – good games, good music, and overall good vibes all around. It is at its core a celebration of all things gaming and is just super fun from start to finish. Fortunately, the good times continue throughout the year with various other MAG-sponsored events like Bit Gen Gamer Fest, MAGLabs, and MAGWest. If you have a MAG event near you, I strongly suggest you try to attend.

-Carrie Wood