South Africa’s Really Awesome Gaming Expo (AKA rAge) has come and gone for another year. 2025 marked the show’s third new Johannesburg venue in four years, since returning post pandemic, and the latest location shift brought with it a lot of curiosity or concern, depending on your point of view.

You see, this past weekend, 5 – 7 December, rAge took place on the Level 8 rooftop space of Fourways Mall, making it one of the first major events to set up shop in what is, no ways around it, a converted, covered parking lot.

Of course, being an early adopter comes with risks, and rAge certainly was hit by some unwanted surprises – leading to strong opinions. That said, it wasn’t all bad, and personally I’m going to put the failings down more to the mall, one of the city’s infamous retail white elephants, than the rAge organisers. Lessons learned, we can hope, with improvements on the cards.

The good first

Once you entered the expo, the new space felt like a good fit for the show. rAge rattled around in the giant halls of Gallagher and the JHB Expo Centre since 2022. At Fourways, the expo filled the designated area better, with the lower ceilings and bare concrete helping to bring back fond memories of rAge’s Golden Age at the Dome.

Also, there was a greater diversity of things to do than in recent years. If you weren’t into esports and walk-in gaming competitions, there was always the Anime After Hours Stage, with its K-Pop idol competitions, pop culture panels and celebration of man-made art. Cosplay Central, meanwhile, was spacious and well-equipped, while organisers GES Cosplay put extra effort this year into its spotlight and competition offerings, including the scene’s photographers for the first time. Across the board, people were clearly trying to give attendees a wider range of attractions, and make them novel where they could – with grassroots geeky communities leading the charge.

All this said, was the rAge 2025 experience worth R220 – R240 for a day pass? Eh, that’s more debatable. R180 seems like a better spit-balled figure for cash-strapped consumers, and one day at rAge was all you really needed to do your shopping, complete your giveaway entries, and get hands-on with everything on offer.

The big problems

Again, I’m going to put these drawbacks on the shoulders of Fourways Mall and its event team rather than the rAge organisers. Because it seems like a lot of confident responses to concerns, followed by serious under-delivery of solutions.

First up, the parking was a nightmare. Fourways Mall isn’t short on space but the top few floors, closest to the show, were jam-packed by attendees, and the situation was aggravated by large portions of the area being taped off. Given that Fourways Mall is the shopping centre equivalent of the Winchester Mansion, drivers could have been better directed to where spots were more easily available.

Secondly, there were zero toilets in the expo space, which seems like a massive oversight. If you needed a bathroom, you had to leave the show, and head down two storeys to enter the Mall itself and use its restrooms. Quite a trek for anyone with a straining bladder. For people taking part in the weekend-long LAN, the lack of on-site ablutions came with the additional issue of intermittent servicing. The closest Mall bathrooms are only cleaned and restocked at certain times of the day, not overnight. How hard would it have been to set up some porta-potties at rAge?

Still, the biggest issue at rAge 2025 was the heat. Giant standing fans were brought in on the second day, but the show space had zero air conditioning, no extraction fans, and was lacking ventilation in general, as shutters were drawn down to guard against wind and rain. Adding to that, Level 8 is right under the Mall’s metal roof, meaning the South African summer sun baked down as all the technology and people inside the expo generated heat that radiated up. This made the show extremely uncomfortable and uninviting. Reportedly, solar panels are on the cards for Fourways Mall in 2026, which will better shield the top floor and absorb heat, but that didn’t help attendees this year – especially people in costume.

As for smaller concerns, for those keyed to this topic, rAge clearly doesn’t have anti-AI policies, going by its own promotional material, the “art” used by some of its big esports sponsors, and a couple of vendors.

Meanwhile, I’d argue that while its competitions are a fantastic opportunity for cosplayers finding their contest feet, the event, as a whole, is no longer the place to be if you want your cosplay to be appreciated beyond the community. Unlike the fans at Comic Con, rAge ticket holders have different priorities to snapping pics with all but the most iconic characters. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze, especially if you’re subjecting yourself to heat exhaustion.

Conclusion

Still, if rAge and Fourways Mall are genuinely committed to ironing out the operational issues that emerged this first year, I would be back. There is a lot of potential to this new space, which has undeniable throwback feels. This could be the new settled home rAge has been searching for, although there are a lot of BUTS to smooth over before unpacking that final moving box.

Did you attend rAge this year? If so, share your thoughts in the comments.