Here’s the early afternoon view from the Nophi table at MAGFest 9. By some amazing stroke of luck, we managed to get a corner booth facing both the escalators and the elevators — on the outside row! This would prove to be an incredibly advantageous spot for us to not only sell our wares, but to watch and meet the seemingly endless procession of interesting folks that passed through the festival. Also, worthy of mention were our booth neighbors, Ink & Toggery and Demi Designz, who were extremely friendly, generous and…CUTE! (there, we said it.)

The first hour of Friday was spent figuring out how to set up the table, including 100-odd feet of faulty electrical cable that would periodically shut down if one were to think even the slightest jarring thought…NICE. Once we got it all worked out and cranked up the ‘choons,’ it was time to get our vend on. Our “Eightest Bits” comp was immediately a hot item, being that there were only 50 copies available, that it was all video game music, and that it was made specifically for MAGFest… no big surprise there! What was truly surprising was that there were so many people interested in purchasing new, unknown sounds from a freshman vendor! We took it as a high compliment and felt truly honored to be manning that booth!

While manning said booth, we did our best to take shifts over the course of the day — in order to take in as many of the MAGFest offerings as possible. A good number of the other vendors had absolutely amazing stuff for sale! Take, for instance, these meticulously spot-on “pixel paintings” by Adam Shub, which are square-by-square reproductions of classic screenshots from 8 and 16-bit video games. Freaking ace, mate!

Vending aside, there were also many people in costumes, video games of all type, competitions, parties, panels and music 24 hours a day. MAGFest can be best described as an absolute Utopia for nerds like us, and we decided that we would be “returning next year” within a matter of hours. That statement would be continually bolstered by the fun and trouble we got into when we shut down the booth for the night.

Friday’s late-night apex came shortly after a couple of stiff vodka mixers, during a mind-blowing performance by Metroid Metal. Seriously, this dude was playing Metroid with his feet (on a dance pad) over a big screen, while an extremely tight band churned out the game music. We highly recommend supporting these guys buy picking up one of their albums, because they totally kick ass.

Other highlights for Friday included the console arcade, which was a giant ballroom filled with every video game console imaginable, and an impromptu hallway jam session between R_Garcia and a violinist named “Jen” playing Celtic folk songs. Oh boy, look at the time! We finally made it back to the hotel sometime around 4am and dropped dead. Saturday, our best and most debaucherous day, lay ahead.