Retro World Expo 2026!

[Downing]

Hey everyone, this is Downing!

I figured I'd make a post here about the upcoming Retro gaming convention coming up in September in Hartford, CT. Last year @Gman , @CrazyGadget and myself attended the event for BitBuilt's debut which was an amazing time and I am happy to announce that the three of us will be meeting up there again September 12th and 13th.



Only a 2 day convention this time around, but that works out pretty well for me.

Anyway, I just wanted to put it out there that I'm trying to get us a bit bigger of a presence there this year and we have room for potentially 2 or 3 more members to come join our table and showcase their portable projects if they are so interested or can even make it!

The event organizers are starting to make posts about guests and are hoping to get info about them asap, even though we're still a couple months out.

If interested, let me know and I can give you a few more details about it! It's no MGC by any means, but it is still a busy hall with very receptive attendees who seem to absolutely love what the console modding scene has been able to accomplish!

Let me know if you'd like to be a part of it this year!

Retro World Expo!

Downing

 

[CrazyGadget]

Year 2 of RWX was a blast!

We took notes of what worked well and what could be improved upon last year, and boy howdy did we come back with a punch!

To start off, TWO TABLES!

We also had two workbench setups, where we all worked on a GC Nano v2, a G-Boy, and a little special something from @Downing.

While I don't have too many pictures from the weekend, this is - so far - the first instance of two iQubes in the same room!

The fan-favorite portable of this weekend by far was @Gman's Classroom64. People loved seeing it open up to reveal the guts while it was still turned on!

At one point, @PiR8_BTY pulled up for like 30 minutes, stopped by the table 3 times, missed Gman all 3 times, and then dipped to go to Six Flags. Gman thought I was crazy and insisted that there was no way PiR8 showed up. I genuinely started thinking I was crazy until Downing confirmed the Booty's presence.

One thing that Gman and I looked forward to was the infamous Bear Bowl from Bear BBQ. Unfortunately, while we were in line, they announced that they were out of every meat except kielbasa and brisket, and that they were out of cornbread, much to our dismay. Nonetheless, still pretty bangin' BBQ:

The only other notable picture I have is a NOT AE86 that @machonacho roasted Gman for not knowing was fake (I also had no idea):

@Downing definitely covers more of the weekend's highlights in his latest video, so Downing, please post it here!

Thank you Downing for coordinating this event, I look forward to next year!

 

[Downing]

Yeah man, it really was one of the most memorable events I've ever been too and continues to be so over a month later! But if you want to see my perspective of the event, here's the video...which took more time to produce than the whole convention took...



But seriously guys, this event is no joke and though comparing to MGC really isn't fair, I felt more engagement from the people who came to our booth than I've ever felt at MGC. Of course, that's probably because there were only 3 of us at the table and far less shiny things to be distracted by as opposed to an entire room of Bitbuilt stuff, but it was still awesome to have the in-depth conversations with people who were genuinely in aww.

If you do make it to the end of the video though, you'll find that not all was candy and rainbows because for the first time, and I think I speak for @Gman and @CrazyGadget on this, with us not being in a dedicated room away from a vendor hall, we actually got a bit of hate, and not for reasons any of us expected!

But even with that, I think Retro World Expo has the potential to become another HUB for BitBuilt like MGC, though of course much smaller in scale. But, BitBuilt East Coast has a nice ring to it (copyright Crazy Gadget)!