Super Smash Bros. Slamfest '99

Super Smash Bros. Slamfest '99 was an official promotional event held at the in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 24th, 1999.Nintendo Stages Smashing Fight - IGN (04/21/1999) Organized by Nintendo of America and public relations firm Golin/Harris,GameXplain interview with Ed Espinoza its purpose was to promote the release of Super Smash Bros. The event featured a real-life, staged wrestling match between costumed performers dressed as Mario, Yoshi, Pikachu, and Donkey Kong, performed in front of a live audience. Additionally, demo kiosks were set up for attendees to preview the game. The costumes used were the same as those seen in the North American commercial for Super Smash Bros.
The wrestling match was broadcasted live on the web via RealPlayer G2. A downloadable file was available from the event's official website for several months following its conclusion, allowing users to watch a rebroadcast of the match when loaded into RealPlayer. Despite the rebroadcast, no video footage of Slamfest '99 is known to survive, and the broadcast is currently considered .
==Event details==
Slamfest '99 was a joint production between Nintendo of America and public relations firm Golin/Harris International, Inc, and was produced and scripted by Ed Espinoza of Golin/Harris. It was held in the "Salem Waterfront" district at the MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 24th, 1999, from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM PST. The match, which took place in a boxing ring initially slated for use in an upcoming Mike Tyson fight, was performed and choreographed by Cirque du Soleil actors and lasted for 17 minutesThis beats Monday Night RAW! - Nintendo World Report (04/26/1999).
The costumes used in the match were created by California-based KCL Productions. They were previously used in the North American commercial for Super Smash Bros., and later in various Nintendo-related advertisements and events. KCL Productions had no involvement with Slamfest '99 beyond initially providing the costumes to Nintendo. 
Promotion for Slamfest '99 was deliberately limited in scope as a cautionary exercise in the wake of the earlier that week, as it had spurred controversy surrounding violence in video games. More than 100 children from the Andre Agassi Foundation were invited to the event, as well as six members of the media,Winnipeg Free Press, April 29, 1999, pp. C10 including an Associated Press photographer. While the event was not mentioned in Nintendo Power magazine around the time period, several print publications and numerous online gaming outlets covered it.
==Firsthand accounts==
==Broadcast==
The wrestling match was broadcasted live on the web via (RTSP) and could be viewed in an application that supported the protocol, namely RealPlayer G2. Nintendo's website provided a link to an InternetBroadcast.com domain, which hosted an informational webpage for Slamfest '99 as well as the data for the broadcast.Official Slamfest '99 Website (archived) InternetBroadcast.com was a web broadcasting service owned by the company MediaOnDemand.com.
A Real Audio Metadata (.ram) file was available to download from the event's website for several months following its conclusion, which allowed users to watch a rebroadcast of the stream when loaded into RealPlayer. The .ram file was not an actual encoded video file, but rather a container file that would direct RealPlayer to stream the video from the URL it contained.
The URLs which hosted both the .ram file and the address it pointed to are currently non-functional, as are their archived counterparts in the .
==Legacy==
In the years since it took place, Slamfest '99 has never been referenced in any official capacity by Nintendo, and maintained an extremely obscure status even among fans of Nintendo and Super Smash Bros.
No video footage of Slamfest '99 is known to survive, and the broadcast is currently considered lost media. However, some non-video content has surfaced, such as photographs, magazine articles, written firsthand accounts, and archived snapshots of the event's official website in the Wayback Machine. Additionally, a talking Donkey Kong plush figure from the "Nintendo Collectibles" line was found featuring promotional material for the event.ForcedUserX's DK Plush featuring promotional material for Slamfest '99
In May 2020, André Segers of the YouTube channel GameXplain published a tweet recalling Slamfest '99,André Segers' Slamfest '99 tweet, 5/11/2020 which garnered the attention of members of the Lost Media Wiki. A coordinated search effort to find the broadcast footage was launched by the Lost Media Wiki in the following months.
In February 2023, a collection of new high-quality photographs from Slamfest '99 were uploaded to social media by members of the Lost Media Wiki. The photos were provided to the Lost Media Wiki by Slamfest '99's producer, Ed Espinoza.
==Gallery==
:For more images, see: Super Smash Bros. Slamfest '99/Gallery.
Ed Espinoza posing with Mario and DK at Slamfest '99.png|Slamfest '99 producer Ed Espinoza posing with Mario and DK outside the ring.
Slamfest '99 photograph from Nintendo Magazine System.jpg|Photo from Nintendo Magazine System article, Issue 75, June 1999 
N64_Magazine_Slamfest_2.png|Photo from N64 Magazine, Issue 29, June 1999. 
Slamfest '99 - Donkey Kong photograph .jpg|Donkey Kong at Slamfest '99.
Slamfest '99 - Z64Planet Collage.png|A collage of Slamfest '99 images from the Zelda 64 Planet website.
Slamfest '99 - DK vs Mario.jpg|DK and Mario duking it out in the ring.
SlamfestTicket.png|A ticket that came with a DK plush promoting Slamfest '99.
Slamfest99 EdEspinozaCollection Image7.jpg|Yoshi and Pikachu sizing each other up.
==References==
==External links==
*Lost Media Wiki article detailing the search effort for Slamfest '99
*LSuperSonicQ investigation video
*LSuperSonicQ update videos #1, #2, #3, #4
Category:Super Smash Bros.
Category:Events