There are tons of stories i think lots that intersect with lolcows, i think momokun fat lady was harrasing people one year. They had a chrischan panel and the mfer showed up to his own panel. There was a sonic orgy craiglist post as a joke to meet at the big gazebo and some guy in sonic furry suit showed up and everyone laughed etc.
It's absolutely attracted many a lolcow, starting around I'd say 2014 is when the infestation began at large, but was a slow trickle before that. Some notable cows include:
Had to finally register to add my two pennies worth of information about MAGfest, which is going to be really difficult to do without powerleveling and revealing too much personal information, but I'll try my best.
Debra, is most certainly at the center of a lot of the sperging/controversy concerning MAGfest, because of her involvement with Nick.
View attachment 2782215
Before Paul Birtel, there was Nick Marinelli, the former Executive Director. Nick had a history of violent outbursts when things in the organization didn't go his way. Examples include: Shattering the glass top of his desk at the office when someone gave him bad news, throwing a table down the hallway at MAGFest when someone informed him that he needed to deal with an attendee who was having a diabetic attack, screaming at the top of his lungs at what he deemed "incompetent staff" right to their face, etc. Nick took over the Executive Director position, after Dom Cerquetti resigned from burn-out in the position. In the office, Nick regularly set people up to fail at tasks, so he would then have justification to fire them from their paid position. Oh, and he loved using his position of "power" to belittle the very people attending "his" event, just because people hated the idea of a "DoomGirl"
Be it politics or personal feelings, Nick would often involve Debra in his dealings.
View attachment 2782272
Debra Lenik is currently the "temporary" Executive Director of MAGFest while they look to hire someone else full-time into the position. Debra herself, seemed to come out of nowhere in the organization, having been placed in various positions with no prior experience, leaving other volunteer staff wondering just where in the hell she came from. She was eventually hired as paid office staff, and would regularly get attendee-run functions at various MAG events that she simply did not like, or whatever bullshit reasoning she came up with at the time, closed down. She was constantly fighting against decisions by the BoD, doing everything in her power to undermine their authority/decisions at ever chance she could get. When Paul Birtel started "cleaning house" of what he saw as dead weight, or a detriment to a properly run 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Debra was the one who lead the charge with the "Friends of MAGFest" protest. I've attached PDF's of Debra's reaction to her firing by Paul Birtel, along with her responses, and her initial Disciplinary Notice.
She is the one who constantly pushes for troon rights and special privileges, such as gender neutral bathrooms, special pronoun ribbons for people to attach to their attendance badges, changing the AFK Room (A place for staff to catch their breath and get away from the crowds) into the now "Rainbow Room", a.k.a. Troon Safe Space complete with rainbow-colored padded floors, and is also a humongous hypocrite. The above image is of her at MAGCon, the planning meeting for MAGFest, refusing to wear a mask while discussing the org's COVID-19 policies, while everyone else in attendance complied with wearing a mask.
For an organization run by geeks/spergs, their data security policies are laughable, at best. They rely heavily on the model of "security through obscurity", posting important announcement through their Slack channels, or by dumping documents into a Google Docs folder, half the time forgetting to password protect said documents. If anyone would like to archive it, here is MAGfest's Notion site, with all of their internal policies, unlisted YouTube "Fireside Chat" broadcasts/meetings, organizational charts, etc.
The shithole goes really deep, and I'm still trying to collect thoughts/hard information on everything that's happened in the past. I have quite a few internal documents already collected through many years with the organization, most of which are from 2016 on, and it's a mess.
I will say, MAGfest started out with ONE goal in mind, and that is to celebrate video games, and video game music. Now, musical acts with absolute nothing to do with video games are being invited, along with anime guests, or guests that have absolutely nothing to do with their current mission statement, not to mention all of the troon/LGBTQ panels that have nothing to do with video games: View attachment 2782337
@buttvomit There has been one confirmed death at MAGFest, by alcohol poisoning. I'll be damned if I can remember exactly which year it was, (happened sometime after 2016) or even find the closing ceremonies video that staff confirmed it publicly. I've been digging through all of my archived resources for mention of it. Just like the sexual harassment/assault incidents, upper management buried the death deep. MAGfest loves to memory hole stuff, like the MAGfest 9 promo video featuring Ashley/Anthony Burch describing events to happen, with Ashley constantly saying "You're gonna get raped!", and the video ending with a still image of Ashley "raping" Jon St. John, the voice of Duke Nukem
Starting around MAGfest 12 (2014), the divide amongst "old" staff, and "new" staff started to grow exponentially, and it centered around MAG's own dumb meme of accidental creation: The Colossus Roar.
At MAGfest 6, one member of the community donated his 6-player X-Men Arcade cabinet, in exchange for a lifetime badge to MAGfest. The cabinet was positioned in a hallway junction, and "accidentally" had it's volume turned up full blast. Being that Colossus' Roar is the loudest sound in the game, people started quickly imitating it. Largely, it was used as a signal of "this is awesome!" by people, and would quickly grow into whole crowds of people doing the roar. Upper MAG management quickly grew to despise the Roar, and have tried their best to force an alternative to it.
When the donator of the X-Men Arcade game passed away, MAGfest offered no official eulogy or memorial, instead they just slapped this printout on the side of the cabinet:
After his death, upper management started pushing their own new mascot, which in and of itself, was a stupid inside joke. (Is MAGfest a donut?) This only further split staff down the middle, lots of people complaining about the forced meme, others in favor of it as a quiet and friendly alternative to the Colossus Roar
Honestly, I've got so many stories, documented upheavals, and idiotic drama archived through my time with MAG, I don't even know where to begin. I've scraped so many Google Docs, PDFs, photos, and video, and it's taking a lot of effort to go through it all. Suggestions on direction, or specific time periods to cover/elaborate on would be a big help.
@buttvomit There has been one confirmed death at MAGFest, by alcohol poisoning. I'll be damned if I can remember exactly which year it was, (happened sometime after 2016) or even find the closing ceremonies video that staff confirmed it publicly. I've been digging through all of my archived resources for mention of it. Just like the sexual harassment/assault incidents, upper management buried the death deep. MAGfest loves to memory hole stuff, like the MAGfest 9 promo video featuring Ashley/Anthony Burch describing events to happen, with Ashley constantly saying "You're gonna get raped!", and the video ending with a still image of Ashley "raping" Jon St. John, the voice of Duke Nukem View attachment 2785125 Starting around MAGfest 12 (2014), the divide amongst "old" staff, and "new" staff started to grow exponentially, and it centered around MAG's own dumb meme of accidental creation: The Colossus Roar.
At MAGfest 6, one member of the community donated his 6-player X-Men Arcade cabinet, in exchange for a lifetime badge to MAGfest. The cabinet was positioned in a hallway junction, and "accidentally" had it's volume turned up full blast. Being that Colossus' Roar is the loudest sound in the game, people started quickly imitating it. Largely, it was used as a signal of "this is awesome!" by people, and would quickly grow into whole crowds of people doing the roar. Upper MAG management quickly grew to despise the Roar, and have tried their best to force an alternative to it.
When the donator of the X-Men Arcade game passed away, MAGfest offered no official eulogy or memorial, instead they just slapped this printout on the side of the cabinet: View attachment 2785173
After his death, upper management started pushing their own new mascot, which in and of itself, was a stupid inside joke. (Is MAGfest a donut?) This only further split staff down the middle, lots of people complaining about the forced meme, others in favor of it as a quiet and friendly alternative to the Colossus Roar
Honestly, I've got so many stories, documented upheavals, and idiotic drama archived through my time with MAG, I don't even know where to begin. I've scraped so many Google Docs, PDFs, photos, and video, and it's taking a lot of effort to go through it all. Suggestions on direction, or specific time periods to cover/elaborate on would be a big help.
What was the deal with all the good jap arcade games not showing up on year, Tokyo attack or something, I know alot of machines were donated or brought in by owners. I went mostly for the arcade and that was another aspect of mag that got worse Everytime I attended. Seems like no one thought to improve on the arcade
What was the deal with all the good jap arcade games not showing up on year, Tokyo attack or something, I know alot of machines were donated or brought in by owners. I went mostly for the arcade and that was another aspect of mag that got worse Everytime I attended. Seems like no one thought to improve on the arcade
Publicly, and amongst staff, the reason was a "financial beef" between the owner of Tokyo Attack, and MAGFest. If anyone probed further into the issue, they were told it was a "matter being handled internally". Tokyo Attack came back for MAGfest 2020, but it looks like the owner, Anthony Capobianco, has dissolved the company after that.
Then again... MAG most likely caught Anthony doing some pedo shit at the 2016 event, and memory holed them for a bit, hoping the allegations would just blow over...
Sex pest accusations are common at cons and magfest is no different, how much of the accusations are true, mud throwing, realpolitik, etc.?
Also as a side note. I did got to magfest a few years back cuz I promised my friends. Panels were pozzed, the panel about the folklore history of monster in SMT turned into a slide show about the presenters time in Japan and how everything was a metaphor for being gay. The Battlefield 1 panel was just like a day 1 course on WW1 with sucking of muh Harlem Hell fighters and muh diversity, by people that didn't care for WW1 history or Battlefield.
Good luck trying to find the hard evidence, the higher ups have a habit of burying/obfuscating any kind of evidence against one of their own.
Let me put it this way: MAGFest has what's called the "SAFE Committee", which is "a diverse group of ~a dozen people from multiple levels of MAGFest". These are the people who handle all of the reports of sexual assault and such. And this department, reports only to itself. They handle everything internally, and I suspect they have banned complainers about certain staff in the past. Why yes, Debra is part of the SAFE Committee. Debra, who covered for Shir who has come up before in the past for covering for a pedo at other conventions (See page 1 of this thread)
SAFE Committee would not publicly acknowledge the removal/banning of Albert Pisanelli, former Arcade dept. I know for a fact, that motherfucker did some scummy shit at MAG, such as chasing after/pestering quite young attendees. I know reports of molestation and such have been made about Paul Goode, but SAFE has largely ignored the claim, despite some hard evidence... which was purged from MAGfest's Slack channels.
MAG also partnered with Uplift, which in itself seems like a giant non-profit grift for funds. Their latest "Elephant in the Room" report on 2020 MAG is here.
Edit Bonus: Here is quite possibly the worst "documentary" about MAGFest 3. More like guy wandering around with camera. MAG staff doesn't like to acknowledge this event ever happened. Somehow, MAG got 80% of the attendees drunk, the wedding party that was also happening in the same hotel drunk, and even the hotel staff drunk.
Speaking of virtue signalling, MAGFest LAN announced their tournaments, with the mention of no Blizzard/Activision titles to be fielded, due to the "company’s recent allegations as well as their official and unofficial responses to those allegations in the months following the initial wave"
Speaking of virtue signalling, MAGFest LAN announced their tournaments, with the mention of no Blizzard/Activision titles to be fielded, due to the "company’s recent allegations as well as their official and unofficial responses to those allegations in the months following the initial wave"
She is the one who constantly pushes for troon rights and special privileges, such as gender neutral bathrooms, special pronoun ribbons for people to attach to their attendance badges, changing the AFK Room (A place for staff to catch their breath and get away from the crowds) into the now "Rainbow Room", a.k.a. Troon Safe Space complete with rainbow-colored padded floors, and is also a humongous hypocrite. The above image is of her at MAGCon, the planning meeting for MAGFest, refusing to wear a mask while discussing the org's COVID-19 policies, while everyone else in attendance complied with wearing a mask.
Don't even get me started on the "after-hours" sex parties. I went to visit a friend down in one of the "big" suites and saw at least two higher-up staff wearing leather canine masks, one with a bondage harness, and the other actively pissing on a puppy "piddle pad". The kind you use to house train dogs. A butch "lesbian" was railing someone strapped down to a bondage horse, and someone was wearing their fursuit head while lounging in the outdoor hot tub. There was a paint can shaker with a wide selection of dildo attachments, a full-on St. Andrews bondage cross, and the air absolutely reeked of shitty weed, poppers, and various bodily fluids. I noped right the fuck out of their in record time.
"It's not a convention, it's a festival!" / "That's not a man, it's a trans woman!" MAGfest is clearly being taken over by the trannies.
MAGfest finally pissed off and alienated the one guy who practically saved the event after it's first year, Brendan Becker. Brendan, a.k.a. Inverse Phase a.k.a. "Mr. MAGFest", purchased the rights and name to MAGfest from Joe Yamine, the original founder of MAGfest, because Joe didn't want to run the event anymore. Brendan ran MAGfest years 2 through 9, before having to stop due to medical issues.
tl;dr for the below image dump: Josiah "Outlaw" Tillet, resident corpo-speak worm for MAGFest, decides to run damage control on Brendan's FB post where he announced he was no longer going to MAGFest 2022. Brendan puts him on full blast, laying out that the "new crew" has continuously fucked him over for 10+ years concerning hotel arrangements for him.
MAGfest finally pissed off and alienated the one guy who practically saved the event after it's first year, Brendan Becker. Brendan, a.k.a. Inverse Phase a.k.a. "Mr. MAGFest", purchased the rights and name to MAGfest from Joe Yamine, the original founder of MAGfest, because Joe didn't want to run the event anymore. Brendan ran MAGfest years 2 through 9, before having to stop due to medical issues.
To put it really lightly, what this does is confirms what's been obvious for a long time: Debra is a snake, surrounded by snakes. If the New Board wanted to tell him to fuck off, they would be within their rights to, but everyone would rightly call them dicks for doing so. I don't get why MAGFest pays for so many hotel rooms, but that they can't find loadin-to-loadout housing for their founder *and* guest performer is bullshit.
Of course, MAG is going to bleed money out the wazoo this year because they've fucked it up and because another wave of COVID has hit - Though I doubt they'd have survived another year without doing an event the way they're already imploding.
If you want to keep the spirit of MAGFest alive - At least, the appreciation of historical computing, and the music and art involved - donate to Brendan's new venture, The Bloop Museum.
To put it really lightly, what this does is confirms what's been obvious for a long time: Debra is a snake, surrounded by snakes. If the New Board wanted to tell him to fuck off, they would be within their rights to, but everyone would rightly call them dicks for doing so.
And this, is why they do their "slow erosion" of nerves, to quietly drive away people they don't want anymore. Brendan just put up with it for over 10 years, before finally breaking. So many quality, experienced staff over the years, driven away by inane policies, willful ignorance of higher-ups, and constant damage control to save face. #FuckMAGFest
Edit: And once again, MAGfest will get away with being snakes, by flagrantly making a show of "Look how much we care about accessibility!" or some other nonsense on social media. Yeah, I got dealt dirty by them in the past, and I'm relatively a nobody in the grand scheme of mag things, but to completely shit all over the guy who kept the event going for 10 years... that's just low.
I... can't even with this... those last two line items make me MATI something fierce. Having a staffer stand there, and literally police with a sound meter what is supposed to be a completely organic thing, now under full magfest control. Can't just do the decent thing of "Hey, turn it down a little..." Not to mention, the spots where JamPods are located, have notorious echo acoustics. There have been so many different attendee-organized side events that have been consumed by the MAG overlords, all because they can't stand not being the ones in charge. (MAG Underground, anyone?) I can guarantee nepotistic shenanigans with all of this.
Jam Space, is supposed to be a place where musicians can go, and literally just do pickup performances with other musicians. Now it has become just another scheduled concert space, packed to the brim with performers who couldn't make it to Main Concerts hall, or the Belvedere Bar. Jam Clinic, (for now) is a space where musicians can give advice on performing.
"A very small handful of guests have cancelled..." - Translation: Over half the guests we've announced have cancelled, along with tons of panelists and other functions.
Closing the Expo Halls from 4 AM to 8 AM for cleaning, and to give staff a much needed break... More like tons of volunteer staff for Arcade/Consoles/MIVS have dropped out, and we can't risk more burn-out for the staff who stuck around. Arcade, Consoles, MIVS (Indie Games), AND Museum, are now headed up/ran by a SINGLE PERSON, due to lack of volunteer staff. The biggest draw of MAGfest, the 24-hour arcade/console room, is now no longer a thing, under the guise of "COVID cleaning". What horseshit spin...
"A very small handful of guests have cancelled..." - Translation: Over half the guests we've announced have cancelled, along with tons of panelists and other functions.
lol at them implying all the cancellations are due to weather. Inverse Phase sent out an email explicitly calling them out and I wonder if it's in response to this. The link in the email is here.
lol at them implying all the cancellations are due to weather. Inverse Phase sent out an email explicitly calling them out and I wonder if it's in response to this. The link in the email is here.
Oh, absolutely 100% in response. He's heard the stories of how a lot of us old staff got fucked over, and it largely buried. And it's finally happening to him. He's not gonna let 'em quash it all with "talk", but he is at least trying to be professional about it.
On the very risk of powerleveling a bit, I've known Brendan for quite a while, and he really did sacrifice a lot, just to keep MAG going in the early years, and I'll even personally vouch for the hardships he went through. (See previous post). Seeing the "new" people in charge starting to fuck him over, admittedly pisses me off to no end.
It's now getting out, that the Gaylord is making people sign a "no-party" agreement upon check-in, stating that if more than the number of people listed on the room reservation are found in the room, you will be "fined" $500. MAGFest neglected to tell everyone about this, and it's only a matter of time, before the shit hits the fan, and the drunks/parties spill out into the hallways. Combined with the lack of any 24-hour events/game room, this is a recipe for disaster, since MAGFest is known as a party con. No Fun Allowed! Corrective Edit: It's only "some" room reservations that are getting this no-party agreement. Pure speculation, but it's most likely the rowdy-looking ones at check-in.
Also, the first band to cancel:
And, the first ever at-event T-shirt shitpost calling out MAGfest
I'll try my best not to constantly sperg out during the events this weekend, and keep things good and meaty per post, but it's going to be quite difficult with this calamity unfolding.
Hunh. So all of the bellowing about Covid Social Distancing by MAGfest was hot air? Nooo...
Not surprised one bit, that the org has taken over/stolen the idea of yet another spontaneous attendee function, and this one, is just stupid. Previous two Super MAGfest events, an idiotic meme shrine was born, to Danny DeVito's "Trashman" character from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", where people literally left actual trash piled up in a corner. This year, MAG has even put official directional signage to it. Because when you think of video games, and video game music, you immediately think of Danny DeVito.
Let's talk financial numbers, shall we? Last Super MAGfest event held in 2020, had 24,000+ confirmed attendees/registrations, with over 90% of that being pre-registrations; with badge prices averaging $85, that's a little over $2 million. This year, in 2022, it's been confirmed already that pre-reg numbers are only at a little over the 10,000 mark. At a solid $110 each attendee this year, that's $1.1 million, not accounting for any extra kick-in swag packages that people decided to spring for.
For an event in it's past 5 incarnations that regularly topped the 20k attendee count, but had to cancel their 2021 Super event due to Covid, AND held a telethon to pay the office staff, this is not good. Especially since they simply cannot afford to cancel, even with the current State of Emergency declared in Maryland for Covid infections. It's no wonder people are starting to worry about getting refunds, especially with not hearing a response from MAG to their inquiries.
Ever since MAGWest was started and pursued many years back, MAGfest has gained it's current lunacy cancer management, and has been absolutely pissing money away. A kegerator fridge for the MAGWarehouse, absolutely shitty contract negotiations for hotel space for MAGWest, and the following years being at a loss with lower than expected attendance numbers, having to put MAGLabs on hiatus, because the new "maker space/experimental festival" in the original Mark Center hotel, was slowly bleeding attendance numbers each year. When all people really wanted, was just more MAGFest 8.5/MAGClassic type events in the same hotel.
Super MAGFest, is what largely pays for all of the organization's finances. They're applying for every single artistic/preservation monetary grant they can with their 501(c)(3) tax status. It's all or nothing with this event this weekend.
Day 1 Begins, and it's nice to see some things haven't changed one bit.
Random fire alarm on first day? Check.
Random person wearing a trans flag as a cape? Check.
MAGFest Newbie assmad about established customs/traditions (Read: MAGFest Colossus Roar), AND a two-faced furry degenerate in their hotel room? Check.
Cognitive Dissonance concerning crowds, now with bonus Covid worries? Check.
Time to do an update on cancellations... Poor George Ledoux, the only voice actor that did not cancel. Best known for his voice work in Neverwinter Nights, and as "Duncan Fisher", the Solaris-VII arena announcer in Mechwarrior 4.
Panelists now starting to self-cancel
And the rumbling about refunds continues...
The current count of registrations, is now up to 13,000+. MAGFest is really hoping that people will just defer this year's badge/registration, onto their planned 2023 event.
Oh, and the DeVito Shrine has more crap laid upon it...
Normally each year, MAGFest prepares one random arcade cabinet with a blank white outer shell, and encourages people to sign their names, or draw on it. This year, they simply couldn't be assed to do it, and instead provided the "Vandalism Banner". Not even into Day 1 fully, and this is the kind of crap attendees have filled it with.
