Metarama To Be First Festival Conjoining the Worlds of Video Games and Live Music

Back in October, Insomniac announced PLAY Festival, which was supposed to be an interactive gaming and music experience debuting this year – but there have been no updates since then and no posts on the PLAY Festival Facebook since early November. Seems safe to assume it won’t materialize this year, if at all.

On Wednesday, C3 Presents, the producers behind Lollapalooza, Shaky Knees, Shaky Beats, Austin City Limits and Voodoo music festivals, revived this fest concept with the unveiling of their own Metarama Gaming + Music Festival. This will be the first festival to combine gaming, esports and live music. C3 Presents has partnered with Esports Hospitality Concepts, which runs hundreds of live esports events in Las Vegas, to bring this outdoor event to life at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds October 19-20.

Metarama will showcase current popular video games, exhibition matches of world-class players, big-league esports tournaments, open, no-cost gaming zones featuring old-school arcade and classic console games, and of course a variety of electronic music DJ performances. Cosplay contests, professional drone-racing spectacles, live comedy sets and more will add to the entertainment. Lineup, onsite activities and ticket information will be revealed soon.

With ACL running the first two weekends of October and Voodoo the last one, C3 Presents is now putting on a festival each weekend that month! I’m particularly excited about the cosplay sights that will populate the dancefloor at Metarama. Think costumed “Fortnite” players busting out all those iconic dance moves and more in a real setting. Virtual reality and augmented reality games and installations ought to figure in for mind-blowing awesomeness as well.