Fantastic Arcade

****FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE****

Austin, TX-Thursday, September 16, 2010-Fantastic Arcade, the new independent games festival presented by America's largest genre film festival Fantastic Fest, today announced MC Frontalot, the godfather of nerdcore rap, as the headliner of the Fantastic Arcade opening night party on Thursday, September 23.

Fresh off the stages at PAX 2010 and San Diego Comic Con, MC Frontalot kicks off four nights of gamer revelry at Fantastic Arcade, September 23-26. Each night of Fantastic Arcade will feature a different nerd-centric party, beginning on Thursday, September 23 with MC Frontalot. Friday night is Nerdeoke (karaoke on the Highball stage with a song-list exclusively of nerd anthems), Saturday night is a "30 Days of Night: Dark Days" flashlight dance party co-hosted by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Fantastic Arcade closes on Sunday with Datapop 4.0, a dance party featuring music from hacked Nintendo Gameboys.

MC Frontalot first came on the scene through Song Fight!, an online songwriting and recording competition, where to this date he still has never lost a battle. In 2000 he released the song "Nerdcore Hiphop". The song became an instantaneous geek anthem and brought him to the attention of popular webcomic Penny Arcade. He has since played at every Penny Arcade Expo from 2004 to 2010 and even wrote and recorded the "Penny Arcade Theme."

MC Frontalot's meteoric rise to geek glory is chronicled in the 2008 documentary film NERDCORE RISING, which will screen as part of pre-Fantastic Arcade film programming on Wednesday, September 22. Fantastic Arcade and Fantastic Fest badgeholders receive free admission to both the screening and the opening night concert. Individual tickets to the September 23 concert are also available to non-badgeholders on the Highball web site for $10: www.thehighball.com. Doors open at 9 pm and the show begins at 10 pm.

"No other musician today is more in complete lock-step with the spirit and philosophy of Fantastic Arcade than MC Frontalot," says Fantastic Fest director and Fantastic Arcade co-founder Tim League. "We are honored to host the undisputed champion of geek music for our opening festivities."

Scheduled for Sunday, September 26 at 10 pm, the Fantastic Arcade closing night extravaganza Datapop 4.0 features a crackling lineup of 8-bit bands, including Rainbowdragoneyes (10 pm), Fuckjazzforaminute (11 pm), glomag (12 am) and IAYD (1 am). These music artists have taken the music from computer and gaming consoles like the Nintendo Gameboy and Atari Commodore 64 and tweaked it like a mad scientist to create a sound unlike anything you've heard. What results in concert is an organic and absolutely infectious set of beats that will take you back to the days when cheat codes and Trapper Keepers were the hit, while also keeping you on the dance floor until the early hours.

Designed as a games spin-off event from the main Fantastic Fest film festival, Fantastic Arcade is a debut games festival featuring fresh, cutting-edge games designed by independent game developers and publishers, due to be announced in August. Indie game designers will show off their new titles to an audience mix of Fantastic Fest attendees and game fans.

Attendees at Fantastic Arcade will have a choice of a single day pass for $20, with access to all Fantastic Arcade films, panels, parties, happy hour and game demos for one day, or a basic $10 pass that provides access to the game demos and arcade for a single day. The VIP Fantastic Arcade Pass for $60 provides access to everything for all four festival days, plus a limited edition Fantastic Arcade T-shirt. Fantastic Arcade tickets can be purchased online now at www.fantasticfest.com/tickets-2/.

About Fantastic Arcade

www.fantasticfest.com/arcade

More than 3,000 attendees are expected to visit Fantastic Arcade over four days for hands-on gameplay action in a fun, high octane environment at top Austin entertainment venue, the HighBall. Fantastic Arcade sponsors include Alienware, Dell's premiere high-end gaming PC division, Microsoft Game Studios/Xbox Live Arcade, Halo Waypoint, G4, AMD, Dell, 101X, Austin Chronicle, The CW Austin, Devolver Digital, GDC Online, GL33K Audio, IGDA Austin, Playtechtonics, Ricochet Labs, Semi-Secret Software, SXSW Screenburn, and The Guildhall at SMU. Tournament sponsors include Arcade UFO, ASICS, Epiphone Guitars, Game Over Videogames and Moviestorm.

About Fantastic Fest

www.fantasticfest.com

Dubbed "The Geek Telluride" by showbiz bible Variety, Fantastic Fest is also known as the "Comic Con of film festivals." Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the United States, showcasing eight days of offbeat cinema from independents, international filmmakers and major Hollywood studios. The 2009 edition hosted over 70 world, U.S. and regional premieres of the latest sci-fi, horror, fantasy and cult films from around the world. Fantastic Fest is scheduled for September 23-30, 2010.

For more into or to secure a media pass for Fantastic Arcade, contact Fiona Cherbak, ThemePark Studios, (512) 916-9633 or fiona@themeparkstudios.com, or contact Mike Plante, Fantastic Arcade creative director, at mike.plante@fantasticfest.com. For more information, visit www.fantasticfest.com/arcade.

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