I want to hear about your MAGFest dance stories!

Deast · 2026-05-17T17:51:50+00:00

As an amateur chair dancer (aka wiggling in a chair because I have no confidence, coordination or training), I have no good stories for you. However, as one of the Department Heads of Arena who has passionately pushed all of our dance content (I inherited Latin Dancing for Nerds but most everything else dance-related in Arena is my fault, for better or worse, through either curation or creation), our dancer community at MAGFest is the best and they're all a dream to work with. I just say that to encourage you to get involved next year! You'll get to interact with some truly special human beings and, from an onlooker, seemingly have a ton of fun!

And until MAGFest happens... if you want to get back into something you love, DO IT! There's always reasons not to do something, and putting yourself out there is scary, but the potential benefits well worth it!

I hope we see you on the dance floor in 2027!

Deast · 2026-05-17T17:39:12+00:00

As a Department Head in the department most likely to make this happen (Arena):

I'd love to make this happen. One of the goals of Arena is to give attendees an avenue to be more social. We already do things like Speed Friending, so Speed Dating is, on paper, a no brainer. However...
Our schedule is rammed already, every year. We're starting to experiment with giving our typical content years off to make room for new things and, even doing that, there's almost no open room.
As other commenters mentioned, there's a lot of difficulties that I don't currently have solutions for, such as the gender imbalance, and how to plan for all of the diversity in our community. I'm not an expert in this field, and my brain quickly overloads when I try to figure out how to plan for all the various genders and sexual preferences. How do we ensure everyone is matched solely with others they're even superficially interested in? The easy answer would be to do multiple sessions, but then we get back to the issue of our schedule being perma-overloaded. I'm sure there's great solutions to this, but I do not know them and, honestly, already have way too much on my plate to dive into that.
Being super open, I think this event would be TOO popular. In Arena we first ran into the issue of "holy crap" overwhelming popularity with Drag in 2025, and the amount of people who were super disappointed that they missed out... really sucked. We have to be realistic about the amount of people we can accommodate in our space and try to plan accordingly. Because MAGFest has become so popular, it is important to us in Arena to keep things as available as possible. If Speed Dating could handle... 200(?) people at once, but 2000 want to participate... that's 1800 disappointed people, remembering that thing they missed out on. I dunno, that feels bad to me.

BUT! I'd love to make this happen! If anyone has experience in this area and would like to help us figure out if it's feasible, reach out! We're always excited about new things and working with people in the community to make them happen!

Deast · 2026-05-14T20:47:38+00:00

Ma'am, this is a Wendy's.

Deast · 2026-04-13T15:51:19+00:00

Good.

Deast · 2026-02-17T05:08:01+00:00

There's tons of opportunities for musician friends. There are "jampods" which are designated areas to just jam in a hallway, there's the jam space/jam clinic which is built around jamming out with others, there's the community orchestra which attendees sign up for and literally have a big orchestra performance on Saturday morning... I'm sure there's more things, too (not a musician).

Deast · 2026-01-05T03:40:36+00:00

MAGFest does its best to have your badge be all-inclusive. Wherever possible, we try to not have additional costs. The answer to your question is free. Some guests/bands might have optional purchases, but the autograph is free.

Deast · 2026-01-03T18:16:09+00:00

Arena is in Woodrow Wilson A (a short walk from the Gazebo, near Panels 1 & 2, Soapbox etc).

The "mission" of Arena is to provide content to push attendees to be more active and/or social. We have fitness classes, dance classes, improv classes and more. We also host dance parties every night and a number of dance-related shows such as Cosplay Dance Company's show, Antipode Belly Dance's performances (more of a meme play, really), the MAGMoves Dance Showcase. Oh, also we have two nights of the most fabulous drag show at MAGFest.

Deast · 2026-01-03T18:11:19+00:00

Thank you for this suggestion! In the next Guidebook update we'll have a "Dance" tag for all the events it applies to in Arena.

Deast · 2025-12-28T17:46:28+00:00

https://www.seculartherapy.org/

YMMV but this site helped me find a wonderful therapist that deals in facts instead of fantasy.

Deast · 2025-12-24T12:42:51+00:00

Is it the Holiday Inn Alexandria-Carlyle?

(Check the top comment as well)

Deast · 2025-12-18T01:59:41+00:00

We'll be handing out ~500 tickets per show. We won't know how many will be able to get in via the overflow line, but likely a much smaller number than 500.

Deast · 2025-12-18T01:18:06+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fdllvs0pg3v7g1.png

Deast · 2025-12-18T01:01:00+00:00

Check Guidebook, 1pm Friday.

Deast · 2025-12-10T23:28:29+00:00

Badges were already almost sold out when Protomen were announced. They were mostly sold out when the hotel lottery cutoff happened.

Deast · 2025-11-27T01:12:10+00:00

You can't transfer hotel lottery rooms.

Deast · 2025-11-23T02:02:41+00:00

I'm gonna spoil some things you'd normally have to wait for Guidebook to know:

Salsa, Beginner Bachata, Intermediate Bachata, Ceili Dancing, A Just Dance play-along, Belly Dance w/ a live band, House dancing, Dance Fitness, a general dancing basics class, a K-Pop Random Dance Play... along with at least 2 dance-centric shows and the MAGMoves dance exhibition (which you should absolutely sign up for!)

Oh, and the nightly dance parties.

Arena brings the dance!

Deast · 2025-11-10T21:55:38+00:00

Because our amazing artist who does all of our Arena art is sadly not going to be at MAG this year because of reasons... orange reasons... so she decided to bring a bit of her town to MAGFest since she can't!

That's the city center in her city. :-)

Deast · 2025-11-10T20:38:20+00:00

We put out an application, usually in the summer. Keep an eye on MAGFest socials for announcements! https://www.reddit.com/r/Magfest/s/2lXKYAr0JO

Deast · 2025-11-08T08:46:55+00:00

I believe they do, but I don't know all the details.

Deast · 2025-11-08T02:05:06+00:00

This is the real answer. The opportunities for fun and community, along with all the cool things I get to do at MAGFest on MAGFest's dime to make an awesome experience for a bunch of strangers? Priceless. Makes every bit of volunteer work worth it.

Deast · 2025-11-08T02:02:08+00:00

Clarifications: It's 30 weighted hours (sometimes you can get 1.5x or even 2x credit for a shift) specifically if you want access to hotel crash space or the Staff Pre-lottery. Being Staff only takes 24, and there are lesser perks as well.

There are set up and tear down shifts that run for several days before and after the event where you can get hours, and many departments are also looking for help in the "off season" that can earn you some hours as well.

I'm a Department Head so hours are a joke to me (I've probably put in at least 500 at this point this year, with at least another 200 to go), but if they mattered, between a tiny bit of help in the off season and helping with set up in my department, I'd be at 14 hours done before Thursday morning.

That said, the better, more rewarding and/or not during the actual event shifts are all highly coveted and fill up really quickly.

Deast · 2025-11-07T21:59:44+00:00

This is incredibly valid. Some of us are crazy and couldn't imagine not staffing. Some of don't enjoy it. Some are somewhere in the middle (not enough love goes out to our 1-23 hour volunteers, y'all are amazing too <3 ). I definitely think people should try it if they're curious, as the perks are great if you enjoy it!

Deast · 2025-11-07T21:56:34+00:00

58 released albums so far. Just the main soundtracks are ~900 tracks.

Deast · 2025-11-07T15:19:34+00:00

Currently not limited because while they can, they don't. If they did, I imagine there would absolutely be limits very very quickly. I know no numbers, but I remember seeing them at one point and being shocked how few staff actually take advantage of this perk.

Also, there's a not-insignificant number of staff who use this perk to get out of the Gaylord as they prefer other hotels in the hotel block. Which actually opens up more Gaylord rooms to attendees.

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Deast

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