*Note That I am unsure if this is the right forum for this, but I considered since this is about my trip and it being a special event, it fit all right here. If there is a better fit for it somewhere, mods please move it to said area then.

On January 3rd, I left to go to Maryland to MAGfest. This was my first convention I have ever gone to, so I was understandably excited. However, two things ended up going wrong in the beginning.

First, I had already asked to have Friday. January 4th off from work and it was approved just fine. When I last spoke to my friends, they were planning on leaving Friday. However, I found out on WEDNESDAY, they were planning to leave the next day, as things had changed and it would be better to leave the extra day early anyway. My friends, Dan and Lisa (they are a couple), each thought the other told me, so this threw a bit of a wrench in plans. I pretty much told my boss as soon as I found out; apologizing about such short notice, but in the end, he just said "See you Monday then." So crisis averted, and thank goodness my boss pretty much loves me.

The second thing to go wrong was mainly my friends running late and me over thinking things. I saw on a Facebook status that Lisa had a job offer across the country, and she mentioned something like, "...I'd leave tomorrow for the interview if I could, but it's a big move... I'm just not sure." This set off a thing in my head on why they could be late, such as Lisa deciding not going in the last minute or whatever. When they arrived at my house, though, I was thankfully proven wrong, and glad I have friends that wouldn't just bail on me like that.

I loaded up my things and brought some snacks for the road trip, as it was going to be a 3 hour drive. Along the way, I played on my Nintendo 3DS and chatted with Dan, Lisa, and another friends of ours, Kevin. I only got to know Kevin over the summer and have had him on facebook since then, but still really did not know him that well. This trip ended up changing that, at least.  As for our conversations, many of them are simply inappropriate for this forum, but a more fun one was of them talking to me about MAGfest. They told me how there is a game room that is 24/7 that does not cost you anything (the ticket cost covered everything for the 4 days. I preregistered for only 45 bucks), a sellers room, and sometimes more rooms open up. There would be little music concerts and random events strewn around the whole convention center at the hotel. This hyped me up even more, just so thrilled to be going.

After a stop for food and more driving, we finally made it to the hotel. Some awesome things to note; when we parked, there were a few custom named cars, specifically two that said "Red Mage" and "Warlock" on them. Dan informed us that they had to wait for another friend of theirs to give us our room key, as this friend reserved our room for us, so before we unpacked, we went to stand on line for our badges. Funny enough, as soon as it was our turn, their computers apparently went down. Lisa mentioned, "Isn't that just our luck!" The worker reassured us the thing had been going down all day. Once things were up and running, we got our badges.

Dan said his friend still was a bit busy, so we could explore the convention a little while we wait. Big moment I was waiting for! They had 4 huge halls for the convention; to the far right was a room for board games and card games (from pinochle to Magic the Gathering), next to that was the official game room with many retro games as well as music games such as Dance Dance revolution and others. Next to the game room was the seller's room split with a LAN area for people to play computer games or online games, such as League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and others I could not possibly name. Finally next to the Seller/Lan room was the Console room which had several game systems, from the little Nintendo Entertainment System to the Wii, Sega Genesis up to Dreamcast, Playstations, and various others. This is where they also held some competitions, which included speed runs of old games to Street Fighter tournaments and others. I didn't participate mainly because not only am I not competition ready, but did not want to be held to some schedule. Some Indie game makers were also in this room to show off some of their games.

After some exploring, Dan informed us all that his friend was ready, so we trudged back to the car, got our stuff, and headed to where are rooms were to be. I had to chip in only 120 dollars for the 4 day stay, so it was not that bad in spending. I had brought 350 dollars with me for my expenses, which ended up being more than enough. We all got our belongings set up. I was a little sad that our room did not include a fridge, as I planned to get some milk and cereal for food, but oh well. I had to share a double bed with Kevin while Lisa and Dan shared the other bed. I did not really mind too much initially, as it was plenty of room but later on that would prove slightly false, but I will get into that later.

So we headed out of our room to convention center... and got lost initially. In fact, getting there we had gotten a bit lost too, as every hallway looked exactly the same! (I have a video of that). We stumbled across the elevators finally and as we got in... a Slenderman cosplayer was inside, standing perfectly still. Lisa freaked out a bit while Kevin and Dan just seemed to pretend he was not there. I was fumbling with my 3DS to get to camera mode quickly for this moment, but sadly, the dang thing took too long. There was even a moment where Slenderman slowly turned toward Lisa (to which she slowly backed behind Dan) The elevator door opened, and we quickly walked away from him. He followed us for a shirt time before someone else screamed and off he went. Was a pretty awesome fake scare moment!

After this, we split up doing different things. I took lots of pictures with my 3DS and video as well, which I'll include at the end of this post, though some may show in inside the posts. After taking some painstaking videos and photos of all the places (with exception to the game room because it was too dark for the 3DS to photograph), I went to the game room and played me several games of Dance Dance Revolution, Pump It Up, Para Para Paradise, and In The Groove (aka ALL music games). This was a big reason for me to come as I LOVE dance games and such. While waiting for my turns, I had to keep clearing my 3DS of tags because I was getting the maximum ten tags as fast as I could  clear them! I also ran into other friends I have on facebook and know of from my local arcade, but did not really spend much time with them as they had their own crowds to be following.

Once I was sufficiently tired and sweaty enough, I took a break from the dance games and found Dan, Lisa, and Kevin trying to figure out some complex game. It looked too annoying to me, so I went off to look at some seller stuff and do other things, but I was getting tired, and told Lisa and Dan (Kevin had left them by now) that I think I will head to bed. I started off, knowing I would have to try and navigate the labyrinth that was the Hotel, but Dan and Lisa caught up with me, saying yeah they were tired to. It was about 4am when we decided to go to sleep, and I still wasn't THAT tired, but I definitely needed to rest a little. After we somehow made it to our room, Dan and Lisa went to bed, Kevin wasn't anywhere to be found, and I went to take a shower and do my nightly things before bed. After said nightly things, went to bed, but just played around on the 3DS as I was not tired enough to sleep. Now, when I go to sleep, I need the television on or something, but Lisa said she was a very light sleeper, and rather not have it on, so getting to sleep was going to be a chore for me. I just played a game, hoping I would eventually just tire out enough to sleep. I took too long, and Kevin came in the room. After he did his nightly things, he climbed into bed too.

Now again, I initially did not have a problem sharing a bed, we had plenty of room and all... but with the silence in the room, Dan snoring, and Kevin moving around trying to get comfortable, I just COULD NOT get to sleep. Then Kevin rolled over in his sleep and my very weird "touch" phobia began to take effect. My "touch" phobia is usually just a "do not surprise me by touching me" as I get very uncomfortable, but being in the bed with Kevin, it somehow gave me the effect of as if someone just surprised touched me despite Kevin not really being near me. As a result, I just ended up on the very edge of the bed, curled up uncomfortably, and just unable to get comfortable. To calm myself, I tried counting sheep in my head. I drifted in and out, luckily, but last number I remember counting was around the 1600s... Eventually I fell asleep. I must have been asleep only for 15 minutes when...

THE FIRE ALARM WENT OFF! The danged hotel had a little speaker in our room (I assume all rooms) that let out a siren and then a voice following it, "May I have your attention please? May I have your attention please? A fire has been detected in [x] area! Please evacuate!" It repeated a few times too. Meanwhile, all four of us wake up. I see Kevin has his coat on I think, ready to go, so I rush over to get my shoes on. Lisa asks if this was real, while Dan tells her it's not a dream. Dan looked over, announcing it was 7am. Then the alarm cuts off. I asked if we should leave or not, but Lisa said the alarms is off, so it must have been handled. Kevin looks outside the room and says nothing seems to be going on so we must be fine. So we all settle in to go back to sleep... AND THE DANG THING GOES OFF AGAIN! This time it's much briefer though, and we all just sigh and fall back asleep. About 15 minutes later...

"May I have your attention please?" Dan shouted out, "NO!" while the rest of us groaned. This time, the message just said, "All clear" and was shut off. By now, my heart is pounding too much from the surprise, so I just pulled out my 3DS and played some games again. Kevin seemed to be of the same mind as he had out his Kindle Fire, reading a story. The good news is my touch phobia thing went away by now, so I could get a little more comfortable on my side of the bed. And then the danged alarm went off again just to say all clear twice. After that, it was done, but it frustrated the hell out of us; I was so tired and I was in tears but could not get back to sleep for quite some time after.

We woke up around 11am or 12 pm... Not sure which. We all got ourselves ready for the day and went to eat breakfast/lunch at a place called, "Nando's Buri Buri." Had good chicken dishes, but the best thing they had was this delicious peanut butter cupcake! Cupcake was chocolate with peanut-butter icing and a little Reese's candy on the icing to top it off. After that, we once again split up and now I will just mention things in general instead of specifically what happened.

During my travels, I was inside the Console Room and found a rather... unique version of Super Smash Brothers Brawl. It had really well done skins of the current fighters and even had added a new character with personalized move sets to the roster. The stages were also redone, including one stage called "Final Frustration" where you play on the Final Destination stage, but the stage itself would keep shifting from side to side until it inevitably would flip. Another was a rather inappropriate one where.. Ahem... you played on top of an enlarged Zero Suit Samus's... chest. The game is was nicknamed "Brawl Funfetti" and I played it a LOT during the weekend.

Throughout the whole weekend, I was eating rather poorly and certainly not enough. Dan and Lisa wanted to spend time together as well as with some of their friends, so they would eat dinner or other times without Kevin or I. Kevin was a bit more independent and was taking advantage of the hotel's swimming pool, sauna, and workout room, as well as eating on his own. I, not knowing this place as well as them, had to scrounge for food, or eating my little reserves of snack food. One night I ended up eating at the hotel's sports bar alone, which felt rather... depressing. I blame myself for being not so socially outgoing to ask people if they wanted to eat with me, though many of my friends were with their significant others or doing everything as a group, so I kind of felt left out. Anyways, while eating by myself, some locals noticed me and asked about the convention (they saw my badge). Told them my limited knowledge of what I had seen so far, and had small conversations with them throughout my meal. Made me feel less lonely, that's for sure. Another night, I ended up eating leftover candy for dinner; which led me to being very grumpy the next morning, and storming off when Lisa, Dan, and Kevin wanted to eat at some food shop that I could have sworn would give me stomach problems. I think some of the grouchiness was the feeling of being left out, even if they did it unintentionally, but I really don't blame them as there is only so much we could do together.

One of the few other times we ate together was at this burger place with a VERY large line. We chatted for the duration, and I showed them some pictures I took, and generally had fun. The... I want to say 30 minute wait made the food taste all the better though; the prices were cheap and the food was good which explained why the line was so big.

A girl that was 18 asked for my number after I played so much Brawl Funfetti with her. Thankfully not for romantic reasons, but so we could let each other know when Funfetti was started and if there was a particularly large crowd or not (I say thankfully because that sort of age gap perturbs me; I'm 26).

Besides food and hotel stay, I only spent money of two things: an Umbreon snow cap, and a shirt of a game my friend is trying to make called Chip Beat Blaster. Everything else did not seem worth buying, or was much too expensive. They had video game quilts of very nice quality that started around 75 dollars minimum (and those were the small, baby blanket types). I am sure the effort put into the quilt could warrant the money, but was just not something I would buy for that much so freely. Though... if they had a Dragon Quest blanket, I might have gritted my teeth and shelled the money out. Unfortunately, there was very little of Dragon Quest merchandise to buy; most being just a painting or a slime cap. Most of the more interesting things that were sold are in photo form or in the videos I uploaded.

As mentioned earlier, we had run into a Slenderman cosplayer. There was, in fact, quite a few cosplayers throughout the convention. I grabbed pictures of ones I found interesting, but missed quite a few due to me being socially awkward or them being in the dark game-room. Makes me wish I had brought my camera instead of relying on the 3DS quite a bit, not to mention would have been better quality pictures. Still, some cosplayers include Mario brothers, Peach, Ness, Link, Homestuck characters, a team rocket gang and a few others. I missed getting a picture of the female Wario and Waluigi girls, a human female representation of Umbreon, and apparently there was a very good cosplay of Rydia that I had missed.

In the console room, there was a table for setting up games with people, such as Pokémon battles, Star Fox fights, Mario Kart racing and more. Makes me wish I had brought my Mario Kart, as I really was considering it, but decided I had enough games with me already (3 plus the many downloads inside the 3DS). Still, I had played a few rounds of Star Fox with a few people (and sucked).

By the end of the convention, my 3DS had more than 700 tags with all my Map pieces filled and Find Mii 2's secret quest gone through twice. I tagged one person from Italy, several from Japan, a couple from Canada (including Proton Jon, a youtube commentator), and almost all of the east coast was tagged (only missing Maine and Rhode Island).

On Friday night, I ended up playing so much Dance Dance Revolution, that the next day, my left ankle was hurting. Put a damper on my plans of more dance games... I could still play, but I was quite sloppy, and it frustrated me. I ended up curling near the Brawl Funfetti machine, or playing the arm moving Para Para Paradise instead, but it really bothered me for the next two days. Not even some Yoga helped it feel better. At least now, it's pretty much fully healed, but it was sore for about a week. Perhaps I should have tried a hot tub to help it, but I get skeeved out by those.

Also worth mentioning, youtube person, Brentalfloss was there to host a panel for someone as well as had a small booth to sell his CD and talked with the fans. I felt too shy to go up and talk to him, despite how friendly and nice he was, That was another missed picture moment.

They also had an event called "Table Flipping for charity," where you would donate money so you could flip a table. The more you donated, the more things put on the table for you to destroy/make a mess out of. Some had just a bare table, some with paper plates and confetti filled in them. One guy had donated enough to have a glass vase filled with flowers and glasses to be broken! I have a video of one person flipping a table, but imagine more may be floating around on youtube; there was plenty of cameras out.

Finally, things had to come to an end. We checked out of our room, played a few more games and checked on a few more events going on, but left around 3-5pm. Along the way, Dan said we'd be driving one additional person home, a guy named Ricardo. That meant the backseat of Dan's car was going to get more cramped (and it very much so did). I'm really glad my touch phobia did not act up during that time, cause I was jammed right next to Ricardo. We all ate at a place called "The Golden Corral," a very large buffet style restaurant. Paid like 12 dollars for an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. I mainly ate some salad, as I had not eaten ANY vegetables (besides lettuce) for the entire trip, and I needed it. Also some banana pudding, because it tasted just so great.

After that, we had a long trip home, filled with random conversations, poor attempts at sleep, and music from music games. I was the first stop, so I got to escape the cramped space first. When we first arrived, I noticed someone in my driveway, and mistaking it for my father called out to him .Then I noticed a different dog on a leash and realized that was my next door neighbor taking his dog for a walk. Oops. He laughed about it though.

And now pictures and videos:
Magfest photo album
Playlist for videos
My youtube channel just in case the playlist link doesn't work.

I had a great time for my first convention, and wish it didn't have to end. Even with the downsides, was one of the most fun times I ever had in quite some time. So glad my boss was understanding for me missing work, so glad to have friends let me tag along with them, and so glad to actually have money for a change for this!

Any questions, comments, or whatever feel free to ask.

ruesen : Sounds like fun!(?) I've never heard of magfest before, where was it? Is it a traveling thing, or localized?

That's awesome that you went to Magfest! I've been wanting to go for a number of Years but I just haven't been able to get around to it for one reason or another. I hope to get there next year though. We will see.

Anyways, I'm glad to see that you had such a great time. With the guys from ScrewAttack, BrentalFloss, Happy Gaming Nerd and like a MILLION others I'm sure it was interesting.

Hopefully you took some pictures, or videos that you can post on here sometime soon!

Thanks again for sharing!

mrfe :
From my understanding, MAGfest is ALWAYS on the east coast, USA in Maryland. They have been doing this for eleven years now, and it is done once a year in the same hotel.Upon checking http://magfest.org/ there will be another one next year in same location from January 2nd to January 5th... BUT they are having a special west coast visit in Texas THIS February 3rd!

Jordanv78 :
If you checked the bottom of my original post, I had included videos and pictures there.