My Trip to VCF Midwest 2026

About a month ago, I hopped in my car and headed to Schaumburg, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Among the swath of generic office parks and strip malls, the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel hosted this year’s iteration of the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest. For those unfamiliar, this festival exists in a few different cities worldwide and is organized by several groups. Best of all, the Midwest one is the largest and entirely free to attend. I was only able to attend for a bit on Sunday, but I thought I’d share a bit of my experience. I had no idea what I’d actually be getting into other walkthroughs of the prior year and chatter online. I had planned on recording a special episode of Magical & Revolutionary, documenting bits of my early morning, drive, and interesting items, but that didn’t quite work out. Voice Memos decided to use my car’s awful microphone, and once I arrived, I was awestruck at the sheer size of the space. Selfishly, content creation went out the…