2021 Special Guests

1UP Comedy

Producing Atlanta’s best comedy shows at alternative venues throughout the city since 2012, 1UP Comedy is happy to bring the laughs to the Southern-Fried Gaming Expo with 2 1-hour stand-up sets featuring some of the city’s best comedians.

This event is intended for mature audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.

Friday Night Comedian Lineup:

Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment

Founded in 2014, Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment has grown into the wildest night in Atlanta nightlife. Featuring monthly events, an online community, and philanthropic projects, AWE is the greatest entertainment community in the South.

Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment matches will be both Friday and Saturday (8/20 & 8/21)

Devomatix

The band Devomatix exists for one reason: to pay tribute to the iconic robotic-punk group from Akron. Since forming the Devo tribute band in Atlanta, Mark Kozee and his group have been performing throughout the Atlanta area, including participating in the Little Five Points Halloween Parade, and even being joined on stage by Devo members Jerry Casale and David Kendrick for the DEVOtional convention, an annual gathering of hopelessly devoted Devo fans at the Beachland Ballroom & Tavern in Cleveland, OH. “It is a labor of love for us,” Mark says. The band also includes Andrew Doss on synths, Adam Zisser on drums, Mike Smitherman on bass, and Jimmy Graft on rhythm guitar and keys.

Devomatix will be performing on Saturday 8/21

Members Only

Members Only is an Atlanta-based party band that plays nothing but hits and can keep your event on their feet all night long! We feature 2 lead singers (male and female) and a young, energetic group of players that will make your event unforgettable!

Members Only will perform Saturday 8/21 at our ’80s Prom Event

Faydra_Black

Atlanta Native, Cosplayer, Mommy, Twitch Streamer and Mental Health Advocate. I stream mostly World of Warcraft and LEGO Builds. Staff for the Stream Atlanta meetup community. You can find me at conventions all over the South East!!

Bobby Blackwolf

Bobby Blackwolf has been a video game podcaster since 2005, recording his show live on internet radio until 2018, when he moved to Twitch. In 2012, he co-founded the Voice of Geeks Network, a podcast network and streaming channel all about geek culture. He streams his video game talk show, The Bobby Blackwolf Show, every Sunday night at 8PM ET/5PM PT on the VOGNetwork Twitch channel, covering the gaming industry and including live chat interaction.

Paul Byron

Paul Byron is a Comedian, Improvisor, Voice Actor, Writer, Cultural Commentator, Political Philosopher, Streamer, and, Podcaster in the Atlanta area. He’s a big fan of long sandwiches and the soups of the world.

CaptNRetro

CaptNRetro is a doer… a doer of all kinds of stuff, mainly involving pinball and arcade repair, restoration and live streaming. He is loud and silly, his YouTube channel is an outlet for that! This is his 3rd year in a row as a panelist for SFGE and is an Atlanta fixture in the pinball and arcade restoration scene!

Dwight Cenac

Dwight Cenac is a father of one, native Jacksonvillian and the creator of the White Label Game System. His first Kickstarter, High Noon, is a cards-and-minis tactical western skirmisher, a non-cooperative dungeon crawler with cowboys, indians, samurai, ninjas, aliens, cyborgs, machine-gun-toting priests, bandidos with tequila bombs, blondes with shotguns, hillbilly moonshiners and burly wrestlers, vampires and werewolves, angels and demons, a gunslinger in a suit of armor, that Tesla guy, and a whole slew of other colorful characters that funded in just 7 hours with a final raise of just over $150,000. When he’s not developing ridiculous expansions for the game, he spends his time running a family business while thinking of developing ridiculous expansions for the game. He’d like long walks on the beach if they made a mobile game table to allow for gaming while walking. And come to think of it, he probably just thought of his next Kickstarter.

Marty Connell

Marty Connell is 1/2 of the amazing podcast Rolling Dice & Taking Names. He and co-host Tony McRee produce Rolling Dice & Taking Names, dedicated to exploring the board gaming hobby where they review the latest games, interview designers and discuss popular topics. Have a listen and they’ll show y’all a good time.

Mondo Davis

Mondo Davis is a board game designer from St. Louis, MIssouri. Mondo signed his first game, Color Field, with 25th Century Games in 2019, and has since signed four other designs. Mondo currently lives in Clarkston, Georgia with his wife and his three year old daughter. In addition to board game design, Mondo enjoys travelling, hiking, and tending the temperamental fig tree in his back yard. You can find more of Mondo’s work at www.mondodavis.com

Joe Decuir

Joe Decuir is an IEEE Fellow for contributions to personal computer graphics and video games, citing these three animation machines. He was privileged to contribute to their success, supporting Jay Miner and teams of talented and hardworking designers.

Kevin Delp

Kevin Delp has been playing board games since he can remember – Parcheesi with Dad, Skip Bo with Grandmom and he even met his wife Melissa while playing a card game. Kevin Delp co-designed the fan expansion for T.I.M.E Stories, Submerged Atlantis with his wife Melissa and both are part of Tantrum House. Tantrum House is a board game media group intent on pursuing ever improving video, audio, and visual quality standards in the passionate promotion of our hobby because we believe that games have incredible power ​to connect people and bring them joy.

Melissa Delp

Melissa Delp grew up playing games like Clue, Mastermind, Pay Day, and Rook and her fondness for board games never ended. Her favorite games involve solving mysteries and puzzling out the best strategy. She also has a secret passion for Pinball. So watch out for her around those machines during the Expo! Melissa co-designed the fan expansion for T.I.M.E Stories, Submerged Atlantis with her husband Kevin and both are part of Tantrum House. Tantrum House is a board game media group intent on pursuing ever improving video, audio, and visual quality standards in the passionate promotion of our hobby because we believe that games have incredible power ​to connect people and bring them joy.

DrKrazy

DrKrazy is an Affiliate on Twitch who has been Broadcasting on the platform for over 6 years. He’s a Variety Streamer who is often seen playing Sea of Thieves. When the Seas don’t interest him though he turns his gaze to Adventure and Platformer games. When he’s not Streaming he is often planning the Next Meetup as the Community Manager for Stream Atlanta, which has pulled over 300 Broadcasters into a single Event space.

Emceemur

Gamer since 1985 and collector since 1991, Emceemur is a preservationist of vintage games and a YouTube content creator on the rise. Mur has acquired some of the rarest pieces in existence and has extensive knowledge on the subjects of both gaming and its history as well as the state of the market and its current trends. The Emceemur Show features showcasing of vintage to modern gaming items scavenged in the wild as well as day one reviews of new releases on all platforms.

Chan Grant

In 2014, Chan Grant was first introduced to virtual reality when a friend brought an Oculus Quest Dev Kit 1 to the game lab of Southern Polytechnic State University. Little did Chan know, he’d be working in the XR space from that moment on. From games to simulations and even medical assistance, Chan has been developing VR products for various industries and purposes. Despite this, Chan feels that the VR space is still growing and needs to develop into several key spheres to continue to thrive. As the lead developer at Futurus, he is actively working towards expanding upon the possibilities of XR.

David Greelish

David Greelish has studied computer history and collected old computers for over twenty five years now. He is a computer historian, writer, presenter and podcaster. He has written extensively about computer history, created and participated in numerous podcasts, conducted both audio and written interviews with notable people in the industry, like Ed Roberts, John Sculley and Alan Kay. He has published all of his computer history fanzines along with his own story in the book “Classic Computing.

Ryan Gutowski

Ryan and his family started One Board Family, a website dedicated to multi-generational gaming for the past 6 years. He’s passionate about building community around the game table. Ryan loves the theme of city building and worker-placement and set collection games are his favorite mechanics.

Tony P. Henderson

Tony P. Henderson is a moderator, podcaster, and digital media creator known for the “Tony P. Oddcast” and the long-running “Geek Vs” podcast.

Before the launch of Avengers: Endgame, the world was curious who Tony P. Henderson was when his likeness appeared in the trailer and final cut of Avengers: Endgame.

Additionally, Tony’s moderating work was recently the highlight of a BET segment highlighting black nerd culture. Tony has also had minor appearances in “ER”, “Judging Amy,” “Wanda At Large,” “The District” local commercials, and the Oscar-Winning “Million Dollar Baby.”

Tony is always looking for an opportunity to entertain and bring people together and he lives by the words of Eric B. & Rakim, “MC means Move the Crowd.”

Christopher Kao

Chris has been playing video games since the days of the Apple 2e. Having grown up in the height of the 8 bit era, he is an avid fighting game player, a lover of all things retro, and a GBA collector. He is an expert in the gaming industry and gaming history with over a decade of experience as a designer, producer, and product manager for companies such as Warner Bros, Zynga, and Adult Swim. He loves talking about games and pop culture and has spoken at Digital Hollywood, the Pomona Idea Summit, and San Diego Comic Con.

James Kelly

James Floyd Kelly is a full-time writer in Atlanta, Georgia. James grew up in the 80s during 10-for-$1 token nights and everyone was worried that videogames and Dungeons & Dragons were going to be the death of the country. His favorite videogames (in no particular order) are Gauntlet, Donkey Kong, Spy Hunter, Galaga, Time Pilot, and Tempest. He and his wife have two young boys who also love gaming.

For 2021, James will be the RPG & War Games Crew Chief, working with game developers and publishers to provide attendees with a wide range of tabletop games for both the Tabletop Library and the Play-and-Win collection.

Kyle Key

It all started when I found out I needed open-heart surgery. You read that right—I have a bad ticker. Leading up to the surgery, I bought tons of board games. All I wanted to do was spend quality time with friends and family through board gaming. Even in the middle of my surgery, my wife and friends played Pandemic in the waiting room—later saying that might not have been the best place to play that game. Over those six months of recovery, I realized just how well board games brought people together and gave them great memories to hold on to. And so, Keymaster Games was born with the hope of doing just that.

Kevin Lanzing

Kevin Lanzing is the designer of several board and card games, including Flash Point: Fire Rescue and Jurassic Parts. He likes to find the game in everything he does, from rafting to lawn maintenance. Kevin lives in the Atlanta area with his wife and sons.

Mark Malek

Mark Malek was born into an arcade. Along the way his parents picked up an Atari 2600 for cheap and he proceeded to pick up every game console he could get his hands on and a few arcade games as well. Throughout life he’s dabbled in music composition, film production, and graphic design but these days you can find him looking for the future in a VR headset or tinkering with small electronics.

Pierce McBride

Pierce is the Lead Developer for Loam and an amateur houseplant gardener. Before joining the team at Amebous Labs, he received his master’s degree in digital media from Georgia Tech and designed games for Disney. If you were curious, his favorite VR games are Half-Life: Alyx and SUPERHOT.

Charles McFall

Charles is the Rock God of Podcasting and he has lived the stories others just tell!

He started podcasting in the very early days of its conception. Former MTV VJ Adam Curry essentially created podcasting in early 2004 and he jumped right on board in August of 2004.

Currently, The Rock God of Podcasting is the host of multiple award-nominated shows including “Rock God of Podcasting,” Pokemon GO Podcast” which is the #1 show about the game that is revolutionizing how we interact with games, and “Breaking the Panel” which is a “view” style discussion show where the headlines are merely a jumping-off point for a deeper discussion about the news and happenings in the world of comics from the bookstores to the big screens.

The Rock God of Podcasting is a full-time professional moderator and podcaster with high energy, a radioactively contagious passion for life, and is eager to interview anybody.

Will Meadows

Will, and his wife Sara, are board gamers to the core! They’ve been hosting weekly game nights out of their home since their teenagers were rugrats—hence the name “Tantrum House”—and they’ve managed to pull in a number of good friends along the way! TantrumHouse.com is now a media powerhouse of board gaming content run by 4 couples (all with very different gaming tastes). From weekly live Playthrus and Podcasts to their very own gaming convention in NC, TantrumCon, they are a constant source of high-quality, family-friendly, hobby-focused fun.

Blake Myers

Blake Myers is a fixture in the Atlanta film community. Blake specializes in special gore effects and indie production design. He works on various independent and big-budget movies. He has been the festival director of the Buried Alive Film Festival for the past 15 years. When he’s not making gory messed up movies, Blake enjoys building arcade light boxes, building arcade machines and playing video games.

PB Undesirables

A self described pinball evangelist PB_Undesirables streams real life pinball on Twitch looking to indoctrinate more people into the Cult of the Silverball. Additionally they stream tarot readings, retro games, retro-inspired games or occasionally IRL walking around with a selfie stick streams.

Boisy Pitre

Boisy has been a fan of the Tandy Color Computer since his teens. He’s the co-author of “CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy’s Underdog Computer” and is a regular contributor to the CoCo Crew Podcast.

Monica Rasso

Monica Rasso is the person who brings together designers, players, and publishers, by serving as General Manager for conventions in the Southeast USA.  Her projects over the last 10 years include: TantrumCon in North Carolina, Proto ATL in Georgia, Nexus Game Fair in Wisconsin, Game and Party Con in Florida, and Meeples at Sea board gaming cruise. Although she has a portfolio of game design ideas, she is most comfortable serving as the ultimate playtester, helping others to perfect their designs and find the right company for their game.

Jon Reddick

Jon Reddick is a well-credentialed nerd of the 80s, classic game fan, and technology geek and he merged those interests into the creation of GenXGrownUp.

Alberto Ruiz

Alberto Ruiz just an I.T. guy who loves “retro” gaming on modern computer hardware. Alberto has a passion for Raspberry Pi/Retropie, specifically related to gaming. It has been told that “He knew Super Mario before he had a brother.”

Joel Ruiz

Joel Ruiz is a video editor and podcast producer with over a decade of production experience and projection promotion. From 2015 to 2018 he wrote, edited, and produced over 100 short films in the comedy, Ladies Night. In 2019 he started Critical Bits, a comedy RPG podcast. Through Critical Bits, Joel runs several actual play events and livestreams, including Seasons, Pokémon Revolt, Helldale Hornets, along with various annual events and streams for Spider Day. As gamemaster in the current Critical Bits main campaign, The Fun Bunch Saga, Joel crafts a comedically terrifying world full of superheroes.

Stewart Russell

Stewart Russell is a professional Dungeon Master who has been playing Dungeons and Dragons since 1976. One of his current campaigns has 14 players. Stewart has spoken at Magic City Con, Annicon, Farley Con, and many other conventions. He is also the owner of BoxTerrain which specializes in tabletop terrain. From tiles, scatter terrain, battle mats, dice towers, and other assorted items to take your game to the next level. Whether you play D&D, Pathfinder, Warhammer or any other tabletop RPG, they have something for everyone!

Mo Smith

As someone who barely manages to squeeze in as a GenXer Mo’s memories include more of the 70’s than those younger GenXers. Reading and movies are his passions with some video gaming thrown in there for good measure!

Jonathan Soon

Jonathan started playing games with the NES and 80s era arcade games. A renaissance gamer, Jonathan has played many games across varied genres on consoles as well on the PC. He helped cofound TheKBLife YouTube channel which has to date raised over $2,000 for CHOC (Children’s Hospital of Orange County) via Extra Life. Recently, he’s gotten into pinball and co-founded Slamdown Pinball which has run over 50 events in Southern California. He is currently on a quest to climb the World Pinball Player Rankings.

Shannon Strucci

Shannon Strucci is a filmmaker and podcast host known for her webseries FAKE FRIENDS, a series on parasocial relationships, her role as a player and host on the teen superhero body horror actual play podcast Critical Bits, and her role as film correspondent on the podcast Struggle Session. She also publishes other video essays and reviews, directs and edits short comedy/horror films, has written narrative scripts and short stories (including the creepypasta “A Hands-On Approach”), and has collaborated with other video essayists, including with Hbomberguy on their Scanline series. She has guested on many film, actual play, and pop culture podcasts and livestreams and her video essays have been featured in IndieWire/Press Play, Kotaku, Sight & Sound, Digg, Filmschoolrejects, Fandor, Polygon, Wired, and others.

Brian Stuart

Brian L. Stuart teaches Computer Science at Drexel University. He has also taught at Rhodes College and the University of Memphis. His professional experience also includes work in industries ranging from telecommunications to data storage to agriculture to logistics. His current research is primarily focused on the ENIAC.

Shelby Vecchio

As Loam’s Art Director, Shelby Vecchio works with the team at Amebous Labs to create the game’s environment and assets. Alongside a team of talented artists, Shelby uses her multimedia skills and experience to give the world of Loam its unique look and feel.

Jeffrey Wittenhagen

Jeff is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Premium Edition Games bringing all the amazing items you see to life! He is also the CEO and author at Hagen’s Alley Books where he has written and published over a dozen books himself and for other passionate authors all over the world. He has been featured in multiple video game documentaries including The Bits of Yesterday and Video Game Box Art and was partially responsible for the “Boom Tetris for Jeff” craze doing commentary for the Tetris World Championships in 2016.

Linda Zhang

Linda Zhang is an XR Developer for Loam. As part of the Amebous Labs development team, she works on the game’s software engineering. Using her knowledge of data-oriented programming, she improved the game’s back-end making it easier to add new features and optimize its performance.

Shelby Lee

Shelby Lee is an Atlanta local and a co-host of the podcast, Critical Bits, where she plays overachieving teen, Alex Finch.