So MAGfest has come and gone, and we’re all very sad :((( I had a really amazing time this year, and I’m sure everyone else who went will agree. I’m gonna make a PROPER MAGFest reflections post sometime later this week (or early next week, depending on how stuff works out), but for now I just wanted to post about the new and exciting stuff they’re already planning for NEXT YEAR’S MAGFest!
This is the new (as of Jan 2009) Magfest staff blog where we’ll be
posting up news and info, and bouncing ideas off of you guys. I’m Dom,
the new Music Coordinator of Magfest. Expect the same insane music from
years past but more of it and even more badass.
I think I’m
speaking for everyone in saying that Magfest 7 ROCKED and was the best
one so far. We had 3 nights of concerts, jamspace, a chiptunes rave,
tons of impromptu and scheduled bands, insane gaming, insane LAN, and
all around good time. Plus we had excellent game industry presence,
awesome panels. We had 1350+ attendees, almost 30% up from last year.
This year we had the most game music bands ever.
I am starting
up this Magfest staff blog to give everyone on Magfest staff the
opportunity to communicate what our plans and ideas for next year are,
and to let you guys give us feedback and suggestions. Keep in mind, any
of the stuff you see on this blog can change in an instant – Magfest is
incredibly flexible and we’ll change stuff up until the day before if
we feel like it’ll work better.
Here’s a laundry list of our biggest things that we’re looking at for next year:
JAMSPACE:
The biggest changes relate to scheduled events in Jamspace: Next year
Jamspace will return to be ONLY 24/7 unscheduled jamming. There will be
no concerts of any kind in there, just freeform jamming as it was meant
to be. Having scheduled events in there was a hack to get around not
having the support to put them in other rooms and limiting the amount
of jam times. Next year we’re going to have more space for the other
events.
NEW CHIPTUNES RAVE: If you weren’t in Jamspace on Friday
or Saturday night, you missed almost a dozen fantastic chiptunes
artists (including the unbelievable Renard + Virt headline) rock the
hell out of a packed-to-capacity, insane, glowstick-wielding,
breakdancing crowd. It turns out that Magfest DOES like raves
after all. Next year, we’re not only bringing this back, but we’re
moving it into the main concert hall and doing a full-on non-stop
hardcore chiptunes+dj rave – for real. Think same energy as this year
but bigger and more badass. I need you all to pimp this out that next
year’s rave is NOT to be missed.
OPEN MIC CONCERT: One the cool
side-effects of Jamspace was that it gets people together and, once in
a while, spawns bands like Metroid Metal. The Open Mic concert is a
chance for those going the extra step to prepare stuff to be able to
show it off at Magfest. To this effect the Open mic concerts will
probably be moving somewhere that’s not jamspace and getting a bit more
official-ized, maybe even moving to the main concert hall during the
day. They will still be open for any group that wants to sign up. We’re
going to work on some details that also don’t step on bands which need
practice time.
STAFFING: Our staff is brilliant and hardworking,
but we need more! If you’re even remotely interested in helping out,
this is the year we’re going to need you the most because Magfest is
going to explode. Magfest 8 is the year we’ve been waiting for. We’re
looking for talented people to step up and take charge of areas they
are passionate about.
MEDIA OPS: We started up a new department
at Magfest headed by Kroze and Xerol called Media Ops. Media Ops is
currently gathering up over 100 hours of DV video, multitrack audio,
pictures, sites, blogs, and anything for use in future promotion. This
is also and archive for guys like PBC, X-Strike, ScrewAttack, and
anyone else who wants stuff. The idea is that you send us a terabyte
drive, or send e.g. $150 and we’ll buy one for you. We’ll load it up
full of uncompressed DV video clips of interesting things with good
audio, then ship the hard drive back to you for consumption.
On
that note as well, I’ve started up a Wiki page for any news sites or
threads or videos we find from here on out. Thanks to ANYONE who posted
something about Magfest:
http://baltimorebarcams.com/dom/index.php?title=Magfest7Coverage
PROMOTION:
I will also say that our future promotion plans are bigger in scope
than anything we’ve ever done before. I will need everyone’s help on
this getting things posted to sites. Expect really really big things
for next year’s marketing Blitz, which will probably kick in around
August to September.
Magfest is the anti-convention and we
intend to keep it that way – nothing to us is more important than
keeping that grassroots user-driven feel that makes Magfest so unique
amongst all other gaming and music events. HELP US ON OUR ROAD TOWARDS
INEVITABLE WORLD DOMINATION.
-Dom
