The Seattle Retro Gaming Expo 2013 is done and over!

Held at the Seattle Center’s Northwest Rooms (Just a block from SIFF Uptown in Queen Anne), SRGE 2013 went from Saturday, July 13th, through Sunday, July 14th.  Our staff was all-hands throughout the entire event, as over 1,000 attendees, vendors, special guests, and staff made their way into the hallowed halls of our 3rd annual retro-gaming celebration!

The show was the culmination of a year’s effort by dedicated volunteers who put in their time and resources to make SRGE work.  Gerald and I started the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo in 2011 as a way to get some friends together and build a community of gamers in Seattle.  We survived the first show, and brought on a few more people to help out with 2012.  Our second year went better than the first, but it was clear we needed to expand our staff if we wanted the show to grow.

And this year we did just that!  We brought on some amazing people who are dedicated to making the show as fun as it can be, and their hard work really showed at this year’s expo!  The staff and volunteers this year allowed us to keep all the great aspects of the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo from previous years, while adding new elements to our show so we could maximize our space at the Seattle Center, and deliver the best possible experience for our attendees!

Panels

Our biggest addition this year was our panel room!  SRGE brought in Industry experts, videogame developers, musicians, movie stars, tournament champions, collecting legends, and some trivia to entertain, educate, and connect with SRGE attendees and community members!  Our panelists included the awesome chiptunes artists from Arcade Armageddon (pictured above), Ryan Payton, creative director for Metal Gear Solid 4 AND Halo, the return of The Retronauts(!!!), and Chris Kohler, plus more!

If you couldn’t make it, or missed one of our awesome panels, never fear!  The Seattle Retro Gaming Podcast will be releasing all of these panels over the coming year.  Speaking of SRGP, be sure to subscribe to our podcast!  I will be hosting with Rob and others from the SRGE staff, and we plan on bringing you new fresh content in addition to the Panels from our 2013 show!

Freeplay and System Link Rooms

If you came to our show to play games, SRGE did not disappoint!  As some of you know, we have been providing games and systems for both Sakura-Con and PAX Prime for years, but we always save the good stuff for our fans!

Our Freeplay room featured every SNES and N64 game ever released in the US, plus literally hundreds of NES games, Genesis games, even games for the 3DO, TurboGrafx-16, Dreamcast, Sega CD, Saturn, and more!  Chances are we had something fun for you to play.  Our Freeplay room also featured a few arcade machines, and the Arcade Armageddon crew who were running a competition for their concert Saturday night!

If Competition is more your thing, step into the System Link / Steel Battalion room, where we provided LAN-connected Xbox systems ready for Shooting, Racing, Fighting, and Competing.  If you’re looking for a truly unique experience, our Steel Battalion link includes some incredible mech action with the largest, most complicated controllers ever made!

We will continue to make our Freeplay library available throughout the year, so if you didn’t get a chance to play some of the rare and classic games we had in this year’s Freeplay room, check back soon, and we’ll be sure to let you know when the next opportunity arrives.

Vendor Hall & Artist Alley

Our Expo’s largest room is always the Vendor Hall!  Featuring local and national vendors, artists, organizations, and individuals, the Vendor Hall is your best bet to find a game, system, or art inspired by videogames.

Walking through the SRGE Vendor Hall, you see thousands of classic games, memorabilia, and memories from gaming’s past.  In addition to the games and systems from gaming history, many of our vendors had shirts, stuffed animals,videogame candy and drinks, and toys.  We had videogame schools showing off their latest prototypes, and Hyperkin showed off their amazing Retron5 console.

If jewelry and craft items were your thing, the Artist Alley at SRGE held some amazing artists ready to fill up your pinterest board.  Framed art, custom triforce jewelry, comic books, and even videogame themed tea and soap graced our humble show, giving attendees a unique, one-of-a-kind experience and opportunity to bring home something that was perfect for them or their friends!

SRGE Partner Events

Arcade Armageddon, Featuring Danimal Cannon, Mega Ran, and The Icarus Kids (also featured in our inagural Panel Room), put on an amazing show Saturday night of SRGE.  Right next door at the Vera Project, Dan Crowdus and the other organizers of the show put on an incredible concert, punctuated with a tournament that culminated in a frenzied game of Ice Climber!  This was Arcade Armageddon’s 2nd year working with SRGE, and we were delighted to have them perform right next to SRGE, and we look forward to seeing what will happen next year!

We also had the movie buffs covered this year!  In partnership with SIFF cinema, SRGE featured two videogame documentaries on the silver screen!  Queen Anne’s historic SIFF Uptown theater featured a special screening of Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters on Friday night before the show.  On Saturday night, attendees were treated to an exclusive screening of The Space Invaders: In Search of Lost Time featuring director Jeff Von Ward in attendance, flying up from California Extreme just to answer your questions!

Both SIFF and Electrowookie had a great time putting on these events in conjunction with SRGE 2013, and we’re already hard at work making new events for SRGE 2014.  In addition, you can look forward to SRGE Partner Events all year long!  In 2013, we partnered with Ninkasi Brewing at Emerald City Comic Con, Sakura-Con, the EMP (Mario Kart on an 80ft screen!), and others to create exclusive events for the SRGE community, and we will do everything we can to make next year even more fun!

Thanks SRGE Staff And Volunteers!

Thanks to all the staff and volunteers (including those not pictured here) who made SRGE 2013 such an amazing event to put together, and here’s to all our new adventures in 2014!

SRGE 2013 Gallery