MAGFest has several child events in other locations but Super MAGFest is the flagship in National Harbour, MD, right across the way from Washington DC. The event takes place in the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, but has shuttles to the convention centre from other hotel locations. It is a 24-hour con, so events run all day.
This is the first year I’ve been to it, and also my second flying con. The badges entirely sold out this year, so it was a closed event and no more badges could be bought. We flew in and DCA is only a 20-25ish minute ride to the con so the rideshare price wasn’t too bad. I was kind of worried when I found out the con was 24 hours, because what happens when we leave the exhibition hall and attendees can freely roam about? In the end it wasn’t bad at all. You just put a tablecloth over your booth like normal, maybe put one in back and leave and people are respectful of that. I don’t think I had any of my stuff stolen, at least any of the big stuff.
The host hotel, the Gaylord, is really pretty and has a lovely atrium to hang out in. There’s a marketplace for 24-hour food options (it’s really mediocre expensive food, but that’s to be expected), several bars, a confectionery, and several vending machines scattered around. There are also several restaurants within walking distance of the Gaylord to go to as well. My friend was cosplaying, so one thing we made repeated use of was the cosplay repair station which had an entire table of supplies to restore any part of your cosplay that might’ve broken.
It was ALSO the first time I’ve ever seen a venue have an ATM that lets you exchange bills!!! Every vendor has run into the issue of not having enough 5s or 1s, but you don’t have to live like that here! Right at the entrance of the Gaylord is an ATM that breaks bills. 20s become 5s and 5s become 1s. A true lifesaver!!!
One thing I also noticed about the artist alley is that it openly connected to the two adjacent exhibit halls. You could walk from the arcade room to the artist alley to the other connecting room (idk what it was lol), so the foot traffic was pretty free-flowing since you didn’t have to go out of a room to go to a different room, it was all in the same “set” of halls.
As for the number of tables, I counted about 285 spaces on the map, but several of those were also vendors taking up 2-3 spots, so it was less in reality. This is a relatively small artist alley in comparison to the attendance (stares at a certain Midwest con with 400 tables and 5k attendance). That means less competition between other artists. For the table placement, the tables are exactly next to each other and leave no room on either side unless you are next to an island exit (where vendors can leave). Therefore unless you are at a corner booth or an island exit you will have no reason to display merch on the sides of your booth (e.g. prints facing the attendees walking by) because it will immediately be next to another booth.
Con Stats
- Table cost: $250, comes with 1 badge
- Table size: 6′ x 2′
- Extra Helper Badges: $110 each
- Attendance: ~22,000
Pros
- The vibes were immaculate – since it’s 24 hours, it felt like letting weebs graze in the pasture lol, you could go anywhere at any time and see people out and about, even as late as 2-3am.
- The schedule was packed full of stuff to do for attendees and had a great guest lineup, thus is an attractive con to go to. No one wants to spend money to go to a con where there’s nothing to do or see.
- The 24 hour schedule allows you, the vendor, to make your own hours. So you’re allowed to cover up your booth and go eat, go to panels you want to see, and you don’t get penalized for not being there.
- There is a free power strip for vendors to use! This is the first time I’ve ever seen a con not make you pay for electricity!! So make sure you bring an extension cord!
- Variety of vendors in the hall. Sometimes I feel like cons prioritize people who fit into the “big print wall anime artist” category and the entire hall feels like a mass of anime artists all drawing the same stuff. But here I saw many different artists showcasing various mediums: sculptures, soap, bath bombs, balms, crotchet/knit, candles, jewelry, etc. I appreciate MAGFest including craftsmen in their lineup because sometimes I feel like they get shafted for not fitting into the “digital anime artist” category, or even some cons forcing craftsmen to be in an entirely different hall than digital/traditional artists.
Cons
- You don’t know your placement until you arrive. Let me be clear, it’s not FCFS seating, they just for whatever reason do not tell you where your booth is until you check in. This makes stamp rallies inconvenient to maintain. Some people put a QR code on their card that led to a map they updated when they got to the con. We opted to just write out the booth numbers on every card.
- The host and surrounding hotels are lottery based. How this works is that you register your group into the lottery and if you get picked, you are given a room at either the Gaylord or a hotel in close proximity. For me this is kind of frustrating because I felt like vendors should get priority in being at the host hotel – I mean it’s a 24 hour con so being able to quickly go to your room to do something and come back down to sell again felt like a necessity. Especially on my part as I have chronic health issues, I don’t know how I’d fare if I couldn’t just immediately go up to my room to lay in bed when I wasn’t feeling well or when I started getting overstimulated. I was lucky enough to have a friend win the lottery and let me room with them, but I’m not looking forward to any future times of not being in the host hotel.
- The hall could get very crowded during peak hours and it took forever to move to and from the bathroom because there were so many people in the way, especially on the aisles closest to the wall, those were rather small. Idk if it’s even possible to do anything about the crowding since they are already using all the space in the hall, but it’s something to keep in mind if you need to go somewhere during prime time hours.
- The corner booths really got shafted with space behind them. Each island has 8 corner booths. I was lucky enough to have a middle section, because the people next to me were on a corner, and there was absolutely no room behind them other than to scoot back their chairs because the corner booth next to them was taking up most of the space with huge boxes. I had seen another artist warn about this. I generally use a tripod for my photo stand, but after seeing the warning, I brought my photostand with feet to be clamped to the table instead. I’m glad I did because there was already not a lot of space with all the stuff we had.
- Internet was truly wretched. During peak times our wireless hotspot would COMPLETELY DIE and we could only process credit card payments via manually inputting the card number. We use a Square Terminal which needs an internet connection so this was really bad (I was foolish for not bringing my backup reader that connects to the phone via Bluetooth. I have since learned my lesson). This actually ties into #2 about the host hotel being lottery — we were provided with vendor-only wireless, but the connection was SO BAD AND SLOW that I never used it and instead just used the Gaylord’s internet when the hotspot died, which we were lucky to have it thanks to having a room. I sincerely do not think we could have processed payments without being on the Gaylord’s wireless.
Overall I had an amazing time there – so many Soulsborne fans!!! I felt like I was among my people. I saw so many amazing cosplays and there was even a Souls meetup organized there and it was a blast. I would definitely love to go again!
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5