Like many kids from my generation, I grew up riding my bike from arcade to arcade and playing video games on my NES at home (or whatever console my friends had). Because of the countless hours I spent playing games, I could not help but fall in love with their soundtracks. Video game music has always been an integral part of the experience and something that is treasured by many gamers like me.

In late 2017, I discovered what has become one of my favorite live bands: Bit Brigade, which is a band that plays NES soundtracks live as one of their members plays a game from beginning to end. After discovering them and falling in love with their act, I turned to YouTube to find more about them. To my surprise, this search led me to finding out that there is an entire festival dedicated to these acts.

What is MAGFest?

MAGFest (aka Super MAGFest, and short for Music and Gaming Festival) is a festival dedicated to gaming, gaming music, and any music that celebrates that culture. The event is loaded with different acts of many genres (rap, metal, punk, ska, chiptune, techno DJs, acapella, orchestras, etc.), and you never know when you’ll see a guy making chiptunes with a Gameboy, a known video game music composer, or a loud metal act playing a cover of the Tetris theme. Not only does the festival have a giant-sized festival-style concert stage, but it also provides multiple spaces for anyone to jam their own tunes. One of these spaces even provides a stage with instruments, ready for any band or solo artist to jump in at any time to perform.

But it’s not all music. MAGFest also has entire rooms for guest panels, classic and modern consoles, virtual reality, tabletop games, and even an entire arcade with hundreds of video games and pinball machines that’s open 24 hrs. Since its inception in the early 2000s, MAGFest has grown from only a few hundred in attendance to over 22,000 in 2019. This is an impressive number for a festival that gets it all done with no sponsors. The entire thing seems to just be growing by simple, good old word of mouth (or YouTube discoveries as in my case).

No “Colossus Roar” beyond this point

After so many years, you can easily tell that the festival has developed its own culture. You’ll spend the entire weekend hearing people propagating a loud “roar” through the entire site. I was taken by surprise the first time I heard it, but once I found out about its origin, it all made sense.

The legend of its origin dates to the early days of the festival and is attributed to the character of Colossus from the 1992 X-Men arcade game. The story goes that in those days, the arcade game was so loud that the Colossus roar was heard throughout the then-small festival, and eventually attendees began to imitate it. As the years went by, the Colossus roar became synonymous with MAGFest. It may sound silly, but it’s one of those things that makes MAGFest its own unique universe. Right after you arrive for the first time, you’ll be roaring along with the crowd in no time.

My Experience

MAGFest is so large that it’s hard to mention everything there is to see and do. I have attended the last three years and have great highlights from each. In 2018, I got to see the renown Sega composer Jun Senoue perform the Sonic Adventure Music Experience live; and I met Hideo Yoshizawa, the creator of the original Ninja Gaiden for the NES, as well as that games music composer, Keiji Yamagishi. The latter also happens to be one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me.

I have some video game tattoos, and one of those happens to be from the original Ninja Gaiden. When I met Mr. Yoshizawa, I was somewhat star struck and just wanted a photo, and as I was preparing to do so my friend told me to show him my tattoo, and so I did. His face lit up, and after he tapped Mr. Yamagishi for him to also see, he pulled out a point-and-shoot camera and took a picture of it. Luckily, my friend was able to capture the moment with her phone and I have a memory that will last a lifetime (along with a signed copy of the NES cartridge).

Meeting Hideo Yoshizawa and Keiji Yamagishi

In 2019, I got to see Bit Brigade perform Mega Man II in front of its original music composer, Takashi Tateishi, and Frank Klepacki & The Tiberian Suns tore down the house with an amazing performance of his compositions from the Command & Conquer series.

In 2020, I decided to indulge in the culture a bit more, so I invited a couple of friends, we wore our rad ’80s cosplay, and we brought some instruments to have our own jams. The result of that, along with some more MAGFest magic can be seen in this video:

MAGFest has something for everyone. If you are into gaming, music, or cosplay; if you want to jam out to some tunes in front of a like-minded crowd; or if you’re just looking to explore a new culture, this is something you should experience.

Super MAGFest takes place over four days in early January, and it’s currently held right outside of Washington, DC, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, in National Harbor, MD.