Good times were had at Southern-Fried Gaming Expo, located at Cobb Galleria Centre/Renaissance Waverly.
Atlanta's homegrown gaming convention celebrated its 13th year, featuring all types of gaming and over 180k square ft. of exhibit space.
There is so much to do for everyone at Southern-Fried Gaming Expo; that's why I have been attending this yearly event since 2019!
Here are the fun activities to do at Southern-Fried Gaming Expo:
- Over 400 arcade, pinball, and console games on free play
- Numerous vendors on hand ready to fill your game room
- Live music, professional wrestling, and stand-up comedy shows
- Guest speakers and designers, panels, tutorials, and more
- Variety of tournaments available with cash and prizes
- Industry exhibitors demoing the latest games
- D&D, RPGs, war games, and miniature painting
- Vintage Computer Festival Southeast
- Custom game developer showcase
- "Best in Show" trophies and prizes
- Massive tabletop game library
All this for 3 days! Friday, Saturday, and Sunday!
Unfortunately, I didn't do all three days because Lauren had to work the weekend. Still, we managed to attend on opening day, Friday.
I like attending on opening day because there aren't a lot of people, so it's easy to access all the games we wanted to play.
As always, our first stop at the convention is shopping with the vendors. Lauren wanted to get that out of the way so she could score the best merch.
Then we walked around to see all the free-play arcade, pinball, and console games.
We did notice that this year, Lauren's favorite Project Diva game wasn't there. It was probably a good thing because she spends hours on that game, and we did not have time since there were other activities we wanted to do.
We managed to attend a panel called "Game That Tune: Retro Edition". It is a game show where contestants listen closely to 30-second clips of classic video game tunes and must identify the game.
We've been to this panel before at Anime Weekend Atlanta last year. It was a fun time then, and even better this time because we had two surprise guests at the end: Ellen McLain, the iconic voice behind the beloved Portal series, and John Patrick Lowrie (Sniper from Team Fortress 2 and more)!
Ellen McLain sang a song called "Still Alive" while John Patrick Lowrie played his guitar. It was a great moment that had the audience mesmerized and cheering.
Afterward, we went to the Vintage Computer Festival, presented by the Atlanta Historical Computing Society, a user's group for vintage computing, computer history, and computer collecting enthusiasts.
If you love vintage computing, I highly recommend visiting Museum of Technology and Art, formally known as Computer Museum of America.
I love attending this festival and seeing how far computing has evolved.
I always have a new story to tell Lauren about how I had some of these computing devices while growing up.
Before the night ended, Lauren and I played some retro games on arcades and consoles.
Never a dull moment at Southern-Fried Gaming Expo! I can't wait to attend again next year. Hopefully, all the construction from the Galleria will be finished, so there'll be even more space and food options.
Also, to not miss a thing, make sure to download the Southern-Fried Gaming Expo app on Yapp. That's what I used to schedule the events we wanted to attend and know where everything was.
No comments: