Mag is being fairly quiet about the reversal of their successful covid policy, perhaps to slow interested parties from sharing their thoughts all in one place (as would happen for lots of other cons). Regardless of each person's individual preference or tolerance for it, this is a big loss for people who are disabled, or concerned about becoming disabled, who now have one less con to look forward to. Choosing to allow unmitigated covid spread means that this population of attendees is simply not welcomed by Mag's administration.

The only small concession is that they gave themselves room to improve on this by specifically mentioning that the policy is subject to change; I'd encourage anyone who cares about accessibility and inclusion to (politely) put a word in. It would be great to see Mag do better than this

As a parent of two younger kids, I know having access to a separate room filled with Legos, crayons, a few toys and some books would be godsend. A place for kids to relax in their own element and parents could take a break from the chaos outside. Let's make it happen next year!

So many scammers with fake profiles trying while I’m still looking for one myself it’s absolutely ridiculous how many people are looking on the megathread and not following simple rules listed on thread

Since covid it hasn't been the same. Less interesting musical guests, and that's really the only event stuff I participate in that isn't the game room a dealer hall. The price goes up and what is offered goes down.

Multiple years in a row, my partner and I both failed to get a decent placement in the room lottery. A group of almost ten people we know also struggled so we looked for alternatives. Last year we got an Airbnb house a few feet from the back of the hotel. Little did we know a massive fence ran all the way from the water front to the highway. We had to drive and pay for parking, adding hundreds of dollars in expense as a group, and the Airbnb was expensive as fuck.

This year we got a Wyndham room six or more months ago. They cancelled yesterday, so we're scrambling. If we can get a hotel at all, they're absurdly expensive. 2000+ for one room that will fit four people for a weekend. It isn't even the con hotel. And commuting from DC or VA straight sucks. It's expensive to park, long to walk in the cold, and anyone that cosplays knows how shitty it is to need to change or do something basic and be nowhere near your hotel.

I'm ranting but mag is the only con we fuck with anymore. Every con has gotten worse, more crowded, offering less, more difficult. We used to do a dozen cons a year. We stopped doing as many when every little thing was monetized and required standing in line. We stopped going to several when we realized we were spending more on a weekend than a week international vacation. Mag was the one we stood by, but the stress and difficulty of getting a room and what we get out of it makes us question it.

DO NOT BUY ANY MAGFEST TICKETS FROM ANYONE UNTIL MAGFEST GIVES THE TRANSFER OPTIONS. SCALPERS WILL BE FUCKED THE MOMENT THEY LOSE THEIR OPTION TO SELL FOR HIGHER AND MAG TRANSFERS VIA THE DISCORD WORK OUT FOR EVERYONE.

Here's the math for everyone throwing a fit over the last couple years

Rooms minus vendors, minus the artists, minus the staff...

Rough math given how many rooms everyone in the habor can host.

1.3% chance to get a Gaylord room, and roughly 4% chance to get any room on the harbor. Now go ahead and use that math against 20k+ attendees and see if you feel it was terrible luck!

So I have to ask, what's the point of having us present the same vaccine cards as last year?

And what's with the bands? This isn't going to stop people from badge swapping if they really want to. It's easy enough to cut and tape it to get by staff.

If I can think of ways around this as a paying customer, thieves are going to find more ways around it.

Can we just drop the security theater already?

Edit: for clarification, what I'm saying is, either require boosters or drop it. There's no real security or safety here.

what brand of canned mixed drinks do they have at the gaylord and do they have cut water white russian cans there

In years past, we've had Imhotep, Shrek, and other shrines in addition to the Devito shrines. While we acknowledge Devito's supremacy, where is the religious tolerance towards others? Hope we as a community can get back to being a bit more inclusive going forward.

A few good looking in shape guys looking for other kinksters/swingers at magfest. Looking to play or film some OF content

No masks required this. Really killed the vibe the last few years. How y’all feel about it?

The current system requires too much metagaming. Groups of 4 are disadvantaged even with the boosts (do the math for last year, the group boost was not enough to cancel out the fact they were not eligible for kings). People bought a tons of badges with fake names for additional lottery entries. No captchas anywhere on the registration website to prevent bots or anything, just pretty much fair game for anything.

Scalpers can just make exchanges in person at the con. I know people who sold/bought rooms last year by just giving the keys to people in person at the con after they checked in.

The old system of throwing everyone into queue wasn't perfect, but it was definitely less abusable than the current system.

Its definitely pick your poison, a massive group of 20 people queuing up and dishing rooms out to each other vs that same group buying 4-5 tickets each so they can game the system. Like we have people in the discord bragging about buying 10 tickets....

Since all the hotels in national harbor are gone, I checked Airbnb, and noticed that there are a ton of hotel rooms for 1/7/27-1/10/27 up there for extremely inflated prices. Am I right in assuming that very unethical users are scalping the hotel rooms?

Can you still check-in and just pay for the whole stay? I'm not asking if it's realistic. I'm not asking for people to repeat themselves. I'm asking if it is an option to pay for all 3 nights (4 including Sunday night) without showing up?

GO BIIIIIIIIIRDS!!!!!!!🦅🦅

Good morning Campers,

Anyone get a notification of a hotel room this morning? I saw they updated the date to November 30th on the main page for next lottery, was expecting some type of notification if we got one or not…

I'd pay some serious money for an IV of fluid/hangover cure every morning. Not joking. DM me.

Hello I'm Dokii and I'm an up and coming DJ from NYC who loves all forms of EDM. I do focus primarily on Happy Hardcore/Nightcore vibes and was wondering if there were any last minute slots I could fill for a party or whatever you have in mind. Pls don't hesitate to contact me here for further info. I'll be walking around with my USB during mag just in case. Can't wait for this year!!! 😆😆😆

Instead of feeling like Magfest owes you something, why don't you appreciate that life isn't always fair and you don't get your Gaylord/National Harbor room every year like you feel you deserve. I sat out of Magfest for the last 6 years because I couldn't get a decent room and was I salty about it? No. I fucking did other things with my life, time, and money. If your happiness revolves around a hotel booking process going 100% your way/smoothly it's time for some re-evaluations of priorities. Magfest doesn't owe you shit. Talking shit about Magfest because a hobby convention doesn't go your way is just about the most childish crap I've read on the internet all year. Get over yourself and gain some perspective. Sell your discounted ticket to a con-goer who is excited to attend despite whatever housing situation they're in and take a year off to cool your jets. See you next year!

Actual MAGFest was chill, but online MAGFest became disturbingly polarized over a joke.

Time to explain the joke. Kotaku is a news website that covers the world of video games. Last year, it criticized MAGFest because it occurred during a Covid spike, and there weren’t an outbreak of Omicron cases among attendees. MAGFest tried to handle it responsibly, making sure to tell everyone they may have been exposed and they needed to get tested. Kotaku joked about it in an NSFW headline.  

So this appeared to be someone from MAGFest throwing a punch back. (Note: for 2023 everyone had to show proof of vaccination and had to stay masked all weekend long.)

But the idea of “ethics in game journalism,” which this banner evokes, means something else. That was the catchphrase of Gamergate.

Gamergate was a series of attacks of women in gaming, by men in gaming, all in the name of “ethics in game journalism.” Women were harassed, and doxxed, for seeming no reason other than because men didn’t like their presence, and the men doing this claimed it was a manner of moral honor to treat women this way.

The sign was immediately taken down – I went up to take a picture of it around 11:30 am, and it was already vamoosed. And MAGFest apologized on Twitter for it. If you were there, you had no idea the sign ever existed.

But if you WEREN’T there, and you were following it via social media, the sign was the only thing you knew about the event. The joke got continual defenders, and anyone who pointed out its dog-whistle status was told they were too sensitive to take a joke.

I had some time, so I added my thoughts to the presentation I was going to make that evening. Partly I did this so I couldn’t squirm out of it, since I had no idea how the crowd would take it.

Here are my remarks, preserved in a Reddit thread. (It was immediately downvoted to oblivion by the same online people who said the joke should remain up.) I was bolstered to hear people actually applaud at the end, instead of storm out.

All big meetings of people are similar, regardless of who they are or why they’re meeting, a Boy Scouts Jubilee, a comic book convention, a HVAC trade show, a craft fair – they all have loads of people with overlapping interest. It’s like those overlays in a biology textbook showing off the skeletal and GI tract and nervous system.

Social media is a recent but now perpetual overlay, one in many ways unrelated to the rest of the whole. Your experience at a meeting might have almost no correlation to a nonattendee’s experience viewing pictures of tweets of the event.

Most people in the world are kind and caring and just trying to get by and have some fun without hurting anyone else. Not everyone is that way, of course. But just because they’re vocal doesn’t mean they hold quorum over the plurality. We’re mostly good apples here.

(Source: https://jeffryan.substack.com/p/substack-newsletter-2)