Fusion Gaming Convention

Fusion Gaming Convention aka. FusionGC is a Video Game convention located in Roanoke, VA. It is an annual video game convention and tournament featuring many different games and guests.
Tournaments
The central feature of Fusion Gaming Convention is cash prizes for placing well in tournaments. Fusion runs tournaments in a variety of games, although almost all of them are regularly used tournament games. Players pay a $5-$10 fee to enter the tournaments, and the money is distributed to the winners as follows:
*1st place: 60%
*2nd place: 30%
*3rd place: 10%
History
Fusion Gaming Convention was conceived in 2001 by two high school sophomores as a small six person LAN party, under the name MegaLAN, for the PC game Counter-Strike. Inspired in 2002 by MAGFest, it has grown progressively through the years into an all-encompassing three-day event. Fusion involves all types of video gaming and video game aspects, including tournaments, video game enthusiasts, musicians, and many others.
Megacon
Before Fusion was held at the Ramada inn, it was held in a small warehouse in south-east Roanoke. This was a small local event, with no out of town attendance. Admission was free, but to generate revenue the owners took 10% out of all tournament entries. Attendance at this event was officially announced at 100 people. Shortly after MegaCon ended, the convention was forced to change their name as the result of a pending lawsuit from Florida based convention, Megacon.
Fusion 2005
The attendance at Fusion in 2005 was officially announced at 230. Fusion gave out over $1700 cash and about $2000 more in prizes including Street Fighter Arcade Sticks, Street Fighter Controllers, Soul Calibur & Tekken 5 art books, and an X-Arcade Stick. They also held other events throughout the weekend such as a video game themed Jeopardy game show, a guest panel by Robert Aldrich, a short piano concert by Koaltahk and an auction.
Fusion 2006
The attendance at Fusion 2006 was officially announced at 275. In 2006, Fusion gave away $2000 cash and about $1500 more in various prizes, including energy drinks, D_skins, and a Nintendo Entertainment System with 100 games.
In 2006, Fusion hosted the following console tournaments:
*Halo CE
*Halo 2
*Tekken 5
*Guilty Gear XX
*Marvel vs. Capcom 2
*Capcom vs. SNK 2
*Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
*Street Fighter II: Anniversary Edition
*King of Fighters 2002
*Soul Calibur III
*Super Smash Bros. Melee
*Madden 2006
*
*Mario Kart DS
*Dance Dance Revolution
*Guitar Hero
*Magical Drop III
*Tetris
Trophies were distributed to all 1st place winners.
Concert
Fusion also had a concert on the first night of the event featuring the following bands:
*Red Light Syndrome
*K-1 Royal
*Trashbag Ponchos
*Entertainment System
*This Place is Haunted
The last two bands of the night, Entertainment System and This Place is Haunted, provided covers of some famous game music such as Metroid and Castlevania.
Important People
Staff
*Overseer/CoWebmaster: Andy Roberts
*Sponsorship/Prizes: Shan Shapiro
*Webmaster: Clay Davis
*Gameroom Chair: Derek Shelton
*Tourney Chair: Brett Hensley
Interns
*Joe "VampJoe" Williams
*Robby "Rollz" Price
*Max "MadMax" St. Clair
*Justyn Dooley, Usually referred to as "Dooley"
*The John Yamine
Guests
Fusion plays host to a few video game related guests each year. In 2006, Fusion had their cardinal guest, Robert "Bob" Aldrich. He had the first and second book of his flagship series "Crossworld" on sale throughout the convention. He also hosted 2 panels, one on the video game industry and another about his books, the Jeopardy esque gameshow and the raffle throughout the weekend. All of which were made increasingly funny due to his public speaking talents.
Empire Arcadia also showed up to host the Empirial Breach and win various tournaments throughout the weekend. They took home well over half of the trophies home with them on Sunday.
Another guest was Fizz Man (Ben Howard) is the founder and CEO of Fizz Man Industries. A gadabout and racanteur by nature, he frequents the video game convention circuit with his hand crafted video-game-esque figurines.

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See Also

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