Video game enthusiasts and collectors took a trip down memory lane as Retrofest Arkansas brought classic arcade games, vintage fashion and celebrity guests to the Conway Expo Center on Oct. 12-13. 

Organized by Rick Hutchinson, known as “Retro Rick” on YouTube and the owner of Retro Rick’s GamePoint, Hutchinson said the event aimed to provide a local version of video game conventions held nationwide.

“I get to go and travel to these video game conventions all over the United States, but we don’t really have a big one here, so I saw the opportunity and was like, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s make one right here in Conway, Arkansas.’ And it has been a huge success,” he said.

Hutchinson said, “I love nostalgia. I love what it does. It takes you back to a simpler time. You have all these jobs, all these responsibilities when you get older. There’s something about video games in your childhood that just brings you back to that really peaceful, simple time.”

The convention hosted a range of booths run by local businesses and collectors, selling vintage apparel, toys and games. 

Attendees explored a showcase of classic arcade machines and vintage consoles, participated in a Smash Bros and Mario Kart tournament and listened to performances from acoustic guitarist Travis Bowman, DJ Jamie Bosanko and Conway jazz band High Ping.

“They’re listening to video game music from a band. They’re playing in the arcade,” Hutchinson said. “They’re playing old games that they used to play back when they were a kid. They’re buying — finding these games that they used to have. It’s the best part.”

The convention also featured appearances from TV and movie personalities, like voice actor Joe Whyte of “The Emoji Movie” and Chris Redfield in “Resident Evil: The Remake” and Daniel Pesina, an American actor and martial artist who played Johnny Cage in “Mortal Kombat.”

Ryan Drummond, the original English voice of Sonic from the Sonic the Hedgehog video game franchise from 1998 to 2004, said, “I was joking the other day. Anytime Rick calls, you just say yes, and you find out later what it is.”

He said he met Hutchinson a year ago at an in-store event he did at Retro Rick’s GamePoint.

“He’s such a pillar of not just the community but the gaming community as well,” Drummond said.

“Not to be cheesy, but my favorite memories from all these events, Retrofest included, is I get to meet the coolest people,” he said. “We just had our 25th anniversary of the first “Sonic Adventure” game. So, any kid that played that game at ten years old is now 35. I have these grown people coming up to me, and they shake your hand, and they’re just like, ‘This was my childhood. I’ve heard your voice come out of my television for years.’”

Nadji Jeter, the voice actor for Sam in “The Last of Us” (2013) and Miles Morales in several Marvel Spider-Man video game projects since 2017, said he grew up playing classic games from the 90s.

“I’m a 90s baby. I grew up on the Crash Bandicoot. I grew up on the Spyros. I grew up on the Super Mario. So, I grew up on the classics as well,” he said. “What Rick is doing for his community and for just the gaming world in general, it’s something you gotta love. We’re in a world where a lot of things are transforming into a new age and it’s coming from a certain place, and a lot of kids don’t know where it comes from. So, Retro Rick is one of those guys like, ‘Hey, this is where everything started from. This is the classics. This is where the kids still need to go and look how everything started.’”

Kayla Whillock, a Pokémon card collector, said she became “obsessed” with Pokémon at a young age.

“I would go up and down the street selling cookies to my neighbors to buy cards,” she said.  “I vividly remember being very sick with the flu — like 4 years old, Christmas time — but Santa made sure to put all of my Pokémon cards into one huge box so that I could still open them, and I saved and saved them.”

She said a tornado came and destroyed her house and all of her cards in the fifth grade.

“As an adult, my brother got into it. He was eight years old, and I was totally down. I was like, ‘You want to buy Pokémon cards? We can spend money on Pokémon cards,’” she said.

Whillock said she had a “massive” collection before she knew it. 

“Then, sadly, I ended up getting hit by a car,” she said. “My boyfriend joked when we started dating, he was like, ‘You could totally make a living doing this. This would be amazing if you could find a way to make money because you’re just so passionate.’”

She said she started adding up her collection’s worth, which was about $10,000.

“I was like, ‘I need money. I need a job that I can do from home.’ So before I knew it, I sold all $10,000 within a couple of months,” she said.

“I love Retro Rick,” she said. “So I’d seen his videos before. I grew up going to GamePoint, and actually, he bought it right when my accident happened. So, I remember seeing him put the sign up when I was coming back from the hospital.”

Whillock said she started frequenting Retro Rick’s GamePoint, and Hutchinson began to ask for advice on Pokémon cards.

She said, “Rick has a gift for connecting people.”

Dan Eardley, known as “Pixel Dan” on YouTube, said Hutchinson invited him as a YouTube guest.

“I’m also here promoting my book that I wrote, which is called ‘The Toys of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,’” he said. “He-Man’s my favorite childhood toy, and so I had the opportunity to work with Mattel, the toy company that made it, to write an official guide to all the action figures that have ever been released.”

He said, “It’s been awesome. Great turnout. I love the variety at the show. I think that is really fun. Lots of games and toys and cool, geeky stuff that we’re all into.”

Laci Weston, who runs the channel “Do You Nerd?” on YouTube with her husband Tom, said, “Rick actually invited me and my husband. We film conventions and promote them. We saw a lacking in the field. We would look for convention videos to see if we wanted to go to any of them, and we didn’t see it. Everybody would just show themselves, not the convention. So we film the convention, not really us.”

Sam Vandiver, the owner of the retro video game store Radjunk in Florida, said she met Hutchinson about ten years ago at a convention in Texas.

“We’re based out of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, so we drove quite a ways to get here,” she said. “Like ten hours.”

She said, “I played a lot of stuff as a kid, and we got into collecting stuff. We wanted to get back all the things that we had as kids, and it kind of got out of control, and made it up with so much stuff that we opened a store.”

Hutchinson said his favorite part of Retrofest was “seeing so many people grinning from ear to ear, so excited.”

He said, “It [Retrofest] has been so good, so successful that we already have it lined up to do next year, same weekend.”