The legendary creator behind Ultima discussed his nearly four-decade connection to Dragon Con, the possibility of returning to the Ultima universe, artificial intelligence in game development, the problems facing modern gaming and how traveling to space fundamentally changed his perspective on Earth.

Garriott’s history with Dragon Con stretches back to the convention’s beginning. He recalled being the computer guest of honor at the first Dragon Con and becoming a fan of the convention through that experience.

Those early conventions also put him in the same rooms as creators who had influenced his career. Garriott recalled meeting Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, whose work he described as fundamental to his own career. He later met Tracy Hickman at Dragon Con 2, beginning a relationship that eventually grew into collaborations that continue today.

For Garriott, conventions offered something else that was difficult for a game designer to find: direct contact with players. Publishing a game wasn’t like performing live onstage, so meeting players became an important feedback loop. At the same time, Dragon Con gave Garriott the opportunity to simply be a fan alongside everyone else.

A Return to the World of Ultima

One of the biggest subjects of the conversation was the future of Ultima.

Garriott directly addressed reports surrounding his efforts to reclaim copyrights associated with his original work. He said he notified the U.S. Copyright Office and Electronic Arts of his intention to reclaim those copyrights, explaining that the 35-year timeline following the 1992 sale reaches 2027.

“Next year I will own all my original copyrights,” Garriott said.

The situation, however, isn’t as simple as saying Garriott will control everything associated with Ultima. He stressed that copyrights and trademarks are separate, with trademark issues still complicating the situation.

Garriott said negotiations are underway concerning what happens next.

But when asked whether that could eventually mean returning to the series, he didn’t hide his intentions.

“We may return to the world of Ultima. That’s the plan.”

What would a modern Lord British game actually look like?

Garriott’s answer suggests it wouldn’t simply be an old Ultima with better graphics.

Ethics and virtues would again play a role in the story, while the world itself would be built around interaction. Garriott described a philosophy in which objects aren’t simply scenery. If players can see something, they should reasonably expect it to work.

Cups and plates could be picked up, placed somewhere else, filled and used. Even mundane objects should behave as though they belong in a functioning world.

“Everything will be interactive,” Garriott said.

That philosophy extends to the world itself.

Garriott isn’t interested in creating enormous environments simply for the sake of scale. Towns should contain enough buildings to make players believe they’re in a town, but those buildings should have a reason to exist.

He similarly favors carefully handcrafted environments rather than depending entirely on procedural generation. A world that looks natural isn’t necessarily a world that produces a good story.

Exploration is another element Garriott believes modern RPGs sometimes sacrifice in the name of convenience.

Many contemporary games give players a destination marker and sometimes a route leading directly toward it. Garriott sees value in making the player discover that route.

He described the example of traveling between two towns separated by mountains and forest. Instead of following a marker directly to a mountain pass, the player might need to enter the forest, reach the mountain range and search along it until discovering the passage.

That discovery is part of the adventure.

When the game shows the player exactly where to walk, Garriott said, “You’re not really exploring to get there.”

That doesn’t mean he wants to preserve every inconvenience from early computer RPGs. Garriott acknowledged that returning to some older keyboard-driven Ultima games can be extremely difficult today and said modernized versions would need modern interfaces.

The goal would be to remove unnecessary friction without removing discovery.

That experimental approach has been part of Ultima from the beginning.

Garriott recalled how the team behind Ultima Online once attempted to build an actual virtual ecology. Grass provided resources for herbivores, while carnivores hunted the herbivores. If players killed too many deer or sheep, predators could move toward populated areas, potentially attacking villagers and creating quests.

In controlled conditions, Garriott said the system worked beautifully.

Then players arrived.

They killed everything.

Wolves, sheep, deer — virtually anything players could attack disappeared faster than the simulation could compensate. Eventually, the development team removed the entire system.

“We spent, you know, human years on it and it was useless,” Garriott recalled.

Other experiments were far more successful.

Dialogue systems and NPC schedules helped create characters who appeared to live independently of the player. Characters could wake up, go to work, eat and eventually return to bed. Others might secretly leave at night and engage in activities players would only discover by abandoning their normal routine and following them.

Those experiments helped create the kind of living virtual world Garriott still wants to pursue.

AI, AAA Development and the Changing Game Industry

Artificial intelligence could play a role in building that next generation of virtual worlds.

Garriott confirmed that his team is already experimenting with AI as a development and prototyping tool. Rather than spending months committing resources to an idea, developers could potentially test concepts quickly before deciding which direction deserves full production.

That could include fundamental questions such as whether combat should be real-time, turn-based or somewhere between the two.

Garriott isn’t approaching AI without concerns.

“As a human, I’m actually profoundly worried about what the future of humanity is going to be like,” he said while discussing the possibility of AI eventually becoming more intelligent than humans.

He also raised concerns surrounding energy and water consumption, training data and whether creators are being compensated for material used to train AI systems.

Within game development, however, he sees the technology as potentially giving individual creators more direct control.

Garriott remembered a time when he could personally create much of a game. As projects grew, his job became increasingly managerial. Instead of making the map, he became the person setting the vision. Leads worked beneath him, with additional teams beneath those leads.

Eventually, the people actually creating something could be several layers removed from the person who originally envisioned it.

“That’s frankly not fun,” Garriott said.

He also believes it can affect the finished product because what ultimately gets created may no longer feel like the work of the original creator.

AI-assisted tools could potentially reduce that distance.

A designer might create a detailed prototype before handing it to an artist or specialist for the final production work. The idea wouldn’t have to pass through as many layers of interpretation, and smaller teams could test ideas far more quickly.

Garriott believes that could make development less expensive while returning creators closer to the act of creation itself.

Cost is particularly important because Garriott believes the modern game industry is facing serious economic problems.

He compared the current environment to the video game crash of the early 1980s, arguing that the traditional AAA model has become increasingly difficult to sustain as development budgets and production timelines have grown.

He also criticized the industry’s increasing dependence on recurring monetization.

Garriott argued that free-to-play games and similar models can encourage developers to build mechanics around repeated purchases and unpredictable rewards. He compared some of those systems to the psychology behind gambling.

His concern comes down to incentives.

When a developer’s revenue comes primarily from selling the game, Garriott argued, the financial goal is to create something worth purchasing. When revenue depends on keeping players spending after they begin playing, developers have an incentive to encourage behaviors that produce additional transactions.

Garriott believes that difference can ultimately influence the design of the game itself.

From Lord British to the Edge of the World

Garriott’s fascination with exploration isn’t limited to virtual worlds.

His father was an astronaut, while his mother was a naturalist and artist. Garriott credits both with helping develop his curiosity at a young age. His mother would take him into the woods to investigate nature, follow insects and understand how things worked.

That desire to explore eventually took him far beyond the woods — to the North Pole, South Pole, the depths of the ocean and orbital space.

Space in particular changed him.

Garriott described orbiting Earth at roughly 17,000 miles per hour, circling the planet approximately every 90 minutes and watching a sunrise or sunset roughly every 45 minutes.

“You cannot take your eyes off the window,” he said.

Looking down at Earth, Garriott began noticing things that are difficult to comprehend from the ground.

The atmosphere appeared remarkably thin. Freshwater seemed limited. He could see deforestation, wildfires and pollution stretching across enormous areas.

Then he passed over Texas.

Garriott recognized his hometown, familiar roads and places where he had grown up. But after spending days observing the entire planet, those familiar locations suddenly existed within a scale he could directly comprehend.

The realization gave him goosebumps.

Earth went from feeling almost impossibly large to what Garriott described as “extremely finite and deeply interconnected.”

Only afterward did he learn that this shift in perception has a name: the overview effect.

Despite everything he has already accomplished, Garriott isn’t finished exploring.

Shortly before Dragon Con, he returned from Indonesia, where he had been diving around Komodo Island. He saw Komodo dragons for the first time and explored a coral reef that had been affected by a recent earthquake.

There are still places on Earth he wants to explore and others he hopes to revisit with his children.

Beyond that, Garriott wants to leave Earth orbit again.

The Moon and Mars are on his list.

Whether the next adventure is on Earth, in space or inside a virtual world, Garriott said he still has a “very long bucket list.”

And that list now appears to include Ultima once again.

Near the end of the conversation, Garriott revealed that one of the first projects being considered is essentially a return to Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar.

“The first thing we’ll bring back is basically Ultima 4, Quest of the Avatar,” Garriott said, adding that experiments surrounding the project are already underway.

For someone whose career has repeatedly crossed the boundaries between games, technology and exploration, a return to Ultima would bring Garriott back to the world that made Lord British famous.

But if his comments at Dragon Con are any indication, he isn’t interested in simply recreating the past.

He wants to experiment with what comes next.

The Storm Before the Storm

Let’s be real — Day 2 of Welcome to Rockville 2026 had no business being as good as it was.

Friday at Daytona International Speedway came in hot with a lineup that read like someone’s dream festival poster: Foo Fighters, Turnstile, The Offspring, Parkway Drive, Lorna Shore. Thirty-nine bands across five stages. The kind of bill where you look at the set times and genuinely stress about who you’re gonna miss.

And then Florida did what Florida does.

Mid-afternoon, the sky went from blue to black in what felt like thirty seconds. Thunder, lightning, the whole apocalyptic package. Staff called a red alert and the speedway emptied out. Kreator got yanked mid-set. Poppy didn’t even get to finish. Thousands of fans crammed into cars waiting it out, and for about two hours, nobody knew if the night was dead.

Spoiler: it wasn’t.

Turnstile Walked Out and Fixed Everything

Two hours late. Second stage. Pressure that would bury most bands. Turnstile walked out like they’d been waiting for exactly this moment their whole lives.

“Thank you for braving the storm,” Brendan Yates said, and the 10,000 people who refused to leave lost their minds.

Can we talk about how Turnstile does this? No pyro. No CO2 cannons. No coordinated stage moves. Just five people on a stage playing like it’s still a hardcore show in a sweaty basement — except now there’s ten thousand voices screaming every word back at them. That’s not production. That’s conviction.

NEVER ENOUGH took all that pent-up frustration from the weather delay and turned it into something electric. DUMB opened a pit that swallowed half the damn field. And I CARE — honestly, still the best song The Smiths never wrote — had the grandstands singing so loud you’d think it was the headliner.

Dave Grohl shouted them out from the main stage later that night. The man has excellent taste.

Photo: Steve Thrasher / Danny Wimmer Presents

Foo Fighters vs. The Clock

By the time Foo Fighters walked out, it was deep into the night. The schedule was shredded. The crowd had been rained on, evacuated, and forced to wait for hours. Nobody would’ve blamed them for being fried.

Dave Grohl walked to the mic and howled: “Heyyyy! You had to wait all night for this shit, and we’ve got to squeeze 31 years into this fuckin’ set. Are you ready?!”

Reader, they were ready.

Opening with WINNEBAGO — a Late! cover, the first song Foos ever jammed together back when this band was just a cassette tape and a dream — was a power move. And then ALL MY LIFE hit and the tarmac shook. From there it was just banger after banger: TIMES LIKE THESE, STACKED ACTORS, MY HERO, LEARN TO FLY. Every single one felt like it mattered, not like a band going through the motions.

THE PRETENDER and BEST OF YOU landed like two-ton reminders of exactly how this band became one of the biggest on the planet. And the new stuff? They slid in OF ALL THE PEOPLE and the title track from their 12th album YOUR FAVORITE TOY, and both held their own against thirty years of classics. That’s hard to do. Most legacy acts can’t pull that off. Foo Fighters made it look easy.

The Moment Everyone Felt

Here’s the thing about Foo Fighters. They can go from making you laugh to making your chest tight in the space of thirty seconds.

AURORA stopped everything. Dedicated to Taylor Hawkins, the kind of tribute that doesn’t need words because the silence says more than any speech could. Dave kept it brief. He didn’t have to say much — every person in that crowd knew exactly what that song meant and exactly who wasn’t on that stage. You could feel it in the stillness before MONKEY WRENCH came in and tore the whole thing apart, because that’s what this band does. They live in the space between grief and joy and somehow make both feel true at the same time.

“We’ve played shows before where the weather has fucked stuff up,” Dave told the crowd, and you could tell he meant it. “Everybody goes away to their cars and I always wonder whether they’ll come back. So I’m very thankful that you have.”

The Undercard Brought It

Photo: Nathan Zucker / Danny Wimmer Presents

The Offspring ripped through a nostalgia bomb of a set that had the entire speedway doing the “whoa-oh” parts like it was 1999 and nothing bad had ever happened. Parkway Drive reminded everyone exactly why they leveled up from club stages to festival main stages — Winston McCall owns a crowd the way few frontmen can.

Lorna Shore brought heaviness so thick you could feel it in your teeth. Hollywood Undead turned their stage into a straight-up party. And the depth on this thing was just stupid — Sevendust, The HU, Static-X, Zakk Sabbath all on the same day? Carcass and Dying Fetus held it down for the extreme metal heads. Cattle Decapitation did things to the afternoon sun that are probably illegal in several states.

Photo: Who is Coop / Danny Wimmer Presents

Not every band made it on. The evacuation compressed the schedule and some names fell off the bill. That stings. But the ones who got their moment played like they had something to prove — and honestly, after two hours of sitting in a parking lot wondering if rock and roll was canceled for the night, so did everyone in the crowd.

Past 1AM and Nobody Budged

Foo Fighters closed with EVERLONG. Of course they did. You don’t end a night like this with anything else. It was past 1am. Tens of thousands of people who’d been rained on, evacuated, stuck in cars, and forced to wait for hours were still standing there screaming every word like the night had just started.

“We don’t say goodbye to audiences,” Dave said, and you believed him. “Because we like the idea that someday we might see you again. So this is our way of saying thank you — and not goodbye.”

Day 2 of Welcome to Rockville 2026 was supposed to fall apart. Instead it became the kind of night that reminds you why you still buy festival tickets and stand in fields and lose your voice. When the weather tries to shut it down and the schedule goes to hell and the bands still show up and deliver like that — that’s the thing you can’t stream. That’s the thing you have to be there for.

Photo by @nathanzucker / Danny Wimmer Presents

Maybe it was the Daytona air. Maybe it was the 50,000 fans who’d been waiting since gates opened at noon. Or maybe — just maybe — it was the fact that Guns N’ Roses had unfinished business in Florida. Whatever it was, something clicked Thursday night at Welcome To Rockville, and the “most dangerous band in the world” showed up ready to remind everyone why that title still fits.

This was supposed to happen in 2022. GNR was booked, the stage was set, and then the sky opened up. Thunderstorms washed the whole thing out. Four years later, Axl, Slash, and Duff finally got their Daytona moment. And honestly? It felt less like a festival set and more like a band with something to prove.

Scheduled for a three-and-a-half-hour slot, GNR came in slightly late — because of course they did — and delivered 24 songs in just over 150 minutes. Compared to last summer’s wildly overstuffed 30-song sets, this was the lean, mean version. Less noodling. Less dead air. Just the hits and a handful of deep cuts, the way it should be.

And Axl? Can we talk about Axl? No, he can’t roll back four decades of wear and tear on those vocal cords. He’s not going to sound like 1987 ever again. But Thursday night, he was sharper than he’s been in years. Playfully sassy, too. After absolutely torching through Live And Let Die — a Wings cover GNR has basically stolen and made their own — he smirked at the crowd and said, “I remember all the way back to when Paul and I didn’t write that together.”

Photo by @SamShapiroMedia / Danny Wimmer Presents

The moment that had everyone talking, though, came during Double Talkin’ Jive. Axl disappeared for the extended instrumental outro — Slash doing Slash things, which never gets old — and when he wandered back out, he had the biggest grin on his face. “I apologize if I was gone too long,” he told the crowd. “You guys got me so excited, I had to go rub one out.” Fifty thousand people lost it.

The setlist was a greatest-hits tour de force. Mr Brownstone and It’s So Easy came early and hit like a freight train. Sweet Child O’ Mine landed exactly when the crowd needed it, and November Rain — piano and all — turned the speedway into the biggest karaoke session in Florida history. Nightrain into Paradise City closed the night, and watching that massive audience spill out into the heat with Paradise City still ringing in their ears was the kind of festival moment you don’t forget.

But Day One wasn’t just about the headliner. Not even close.

Day One’s Best of the Rest

Five Finger Death Punch hit the main stage in the late afternoon and did exactly what they do — pummeling, crowd-pleasing, singalong-heavy metal that had the pit churning before the sun even started thinking about setting. Ivan Moody worked the massive stage like he owned it, and for 45 minutes, he basically did.

Godsmack followed and reminded everyone why they’ve been festival staples for two decades. Sully Erna’s voice has somehow gotten better with age, and the dual-drumming battle sequence — a Godsmack tradition at this point — had first-timers pulling out their phones like they’d just witnessed a magic trick.

Photo by @NathanZucker / Danny Wimmer Presents

Ice Nine Kills turned their set into a full-blown horror movie. If you haven’t seen what these guys do live, it’s less of a concert and more of a slasher film with breakdowns. Spencer Charnas went through multiple costume changes, there were actors in full gore makeup reenacting murder scenes, and the crowd ate up every single second of it. INK are doing something no one else in heavy music is even attempting right now.

Alice Cooper — at 78 years old — brought the theatrics that basically invented the rock show as we know it. Guillotine, straightjacket, the whole nine yards. Watching a new generation of rock fans see Alice Cooper for the first time is its own kind of entertainment. The guy doesn’t need pyro or video walls. He just needs a stage and a prop department, and he’ll make it feel like the biggest show you’ve ever seen.

Amon Amarth brought the Viking invasion. Their stage setup — a massive longship, fire everywhere, Johan Hegg in full warrior mode — has become one of the most reliably awesome sights on the festival circuit. When the row pit opened up during Twilight of the Thunder God, it looked like a Renaissance Faire got really, really angry. In the best way.

Story of the Year and Mayday Parade held it down for the emo and post-hardcore faithful on the side stages, proving that 2005 never actually ended — it just got louder. State Champs turned their set into a pop-punk clinic, and Cradle of Filth brought the black metal theatrics that only Dani Filth can deliver.

The undercard was stacked in a way that only Rockville seems to pull off. Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening — if you haven’t seen this, you need to — brought genuine Zeppelin magic courtesy of the son of the greatest rock drummer who ever lived. Dethklok brought the cartoon death metal chaos. All That Remains and Anberlin represented two completely different corners of the scene and both killed it. Death Angel, Born of Osiris, Deicide, Suffocation, Immolation — the death metal representation on Day One alone could have been its own festival.

And the discoveries? Every Rockville has them. The Paradox turned heads on one of the smaller stages. Castle Rat brought a medieval doom energy that felt like it belonged in a different century. Afterlife — a relatively new name on a bill this massive — had people checking set times to make sure they didn’t miss whatever comes next from them.

The Vibe in Daytona

There’s something about the Daytona International Speedway as a festival venue that just works. The space is massive — you’re walking miles between stages if you’re not strategic about it — but it never feels empty. The Owners Club grandstand gives the bougie crowd a place to sip cocktails and watch from above, while the pit warriors do their thing down front. Off-duty cops were spotted on top of a portacabin with their arms around each other’s shoulders during the GNR set. That’s the energy. Everyone’s dialed in.

If there’s one thing to nitpick, it’s the Florida heat. May in Daytona Beach means sunscreen isn’t optional, it’s survival gear. Hydration stations were doing the lord’s work all day, and the misting tents had lines that looked like they were giving away free merch. But honestly? The weather cooperated. No rain. No thunder. No repeat of 2022. Just a perfect, sweltering rock and roll Thursday.

And somehow — it’s only Thursday. Three more days of this.

Foo Fighters headline Friday. Bring Me The Horizon owns Saturday. My Chemical Romance closes the whole thing out Sunday. That’s an absurd amount of rock royalty still to come, and Thursday already felt like a full weekend.

If Day One was any indication, Rockville 2026 is shaping up to be the kind of festival people will be talking about for years. And the best part? We’re just getting started.

Key Takeaways

• Revenue smashes expectations: $10.3B in Q1, up 38% year-over-year—with Data Center alone delivering $5.8B at 57% growth
• Stock goes vertical: Shares jumped 19% after hours as Q2 guidance of ~$11.2B blew past Wall Street’s highest estimates
• AI demand is accelerating, not slowing: Lisa Su says agentic AI and inferencing workloads are driving unprecedented demand for both CPUs and accelerators
• The MI450/Helios pipeline is massive: Customer forecasts already exceeding AMD’s initial expectations before these next-gen products have even shipped

Can we talk about what just happened? Because AMD didn’t just beat earnings expectations yesterday—they obliterated them. And Wall Street responded the only way it knows how: by sending the stock into the stratosphere.

I’m not exaggerating. Shares shot up nearly 19% in after-hours trading on May 7, pushing AMD’s market cap toward heights that would have sounded like fan fiction two years ago. The catalyst? A Q1 2026 earnings report that made even the most bullish analysts do a double take.

Let me hit you with the numbers because honestly, they’re the kind of digits that make you pause mid-scroll. Revenue landed at $10.3 billion*—up 38% from the same quarter last year. Net income hit **$1.4 billion** under GAAP, nearly doubling what they pulled in a year ago. On a non-GAAP basis, earnings per share came in at *$1.37, absolutely torching the consensus estimate.

The Data Center Took the Wheel

Here’s the headline within the headline, and it’s honestly the one that matters most. AMD’s Data Center business pulled in $5.8 billion in Q1—a staggering 57% year-over-year jump. For the first time, data center revenue isn’t just a growth story. It’s the main story. It’s now the single biggest revenue engine at AMD, and the gap is only widening.

Lisa Su didn’t hold back on the call. “We delivered an outstanding first quarter, driven by accelerating demand for AI infrastructure, with Data Center now the primary driver of our revenue and earnings growth,” she said. What stood out to me was her emphasis on where the demand is coming from: inferencing and agentic AI. Not just training giant models anymore—this is about AI being deployed everywhere, constantly, and AMD’s silicon is increasingly the thing running it.

The MI450 Series and Helios platform got specific shoutouts too. Su said customer engagement around these upcoming products is strengthening, with forecasts from major customers exceeding what AMD initially expected. That’s the kind of forward visibility that makes investors feel warm and fuzzy.

Not Just an AI Story

It would be easy to call this “the AI quarter” and move on, but the rest of AMD’s business showed real muscle too. The Client segment—think Ryzen processors for laptops and desktops—brought in $2.9 billion, up 26% year-over-year. AMD keeps eating into market share here, and the consistency of those gains tells you it’s not a fluke. People actually want Ryzen chips now. That wasn’t always true, and the fact that it’s so normalized is kind of the point.

Gaming was the pleasant surprise of the quarter. Revenue hit $720 million, up 11%. Radeon GPUs are holding their own even as the semi-custom business (the part that makes chips for consoles) remains in its typical mid-cycle lull. I’ll be honest—I expected gaming to be flat or slightly down given where we are in the console generation, so seeing growth here is genuinely impressive.

The Embedded segment rounded things out at $873 million, up 6%. It’s the quiet workhorse of AMD’s portfolio—powering everything from automotive systems to industrial equipment—and it’s quietly growing while nobody’s really paying attention.

That Guidance Though

If the Q1 numbers were the appetizer, the Q2 guidance was the main course nobody saw coming. AMD said it expects revenue of approximately $11.2 billion for the current quarter. Let that sink in. That’s roughly 46% year-over-year growth at the midpoint, and about 9% higher sequentially. Non-GAAP gross margin is projected around 56%.

This is the part where you start to understand why the stock rocketed. Companies don’t guide to $11.2 billion quarters unless they can already see the orders lined up. Jean Hu, AMD’s CFO, called it “record quarterly free cash flow” and talked about the “leverage in our operating model as we invest for accelerated growth while expanding profitability.” Translation: they’re spending more but making even more in return. That’s the kind of math that makes finance people very happy.

What This Says About the Bigger Picture

Let’s be real for a second about what’s actually happening here. Two years ago, the dominant narrative was that one company had a monopoly on AI chips and everyone else was fighting for scraps. AMD’s Q1 doesn’t just challenge that narrative—it buries it. When the Data Center segment grows 57% in a single year and the CEO is talking about customer demand exceeding forecasts, you’re looking at a genuine competitive shift.

And here’s what gets me: this isn’t even the part of the story where AMD’s next-gen products have shipped yet. The MI450 Series and Helios are still in the customer engagement phase. The numbers we’re seeing right now are being driven by EPYC server CPUs and the current Instinct GPU lineup. The pipeline behind those products sounds enormous.

I keep thinking about what Su said about agentic AI specifically. That’s not a buzzword she’s throwing around—agentic AI means AI systems that act autonomously, making decisions and taking actions without human intervention. Those workloads are computationally hungry, and they run around the clock. If that’s where enterprise AI is heading—and every signal suggests it is—then the demand for high-performance data center silicon isn’t going to plateau anytime soon.

The Bottom Line

AMD just put up a quarter that silences the skeptics. Revenue surging 38%, data center becoming the dominant engine at 57% growth, client and gaming both showing strength, and guidance that points to an even bigger Q2. The stock’s reaction says it all—when Lisa Su talks about “increasing visibility” into the growth trajectory, investors are listening.

The company that was once the scrappy underdog is now setting the pace in the most important technology race of the decade. And if Q2 delivers anywhere near that $11.2 billion target, we’re going to be having a very different conversation about who’s winning the AI infrastructure war.

• Met Gala 2026 became the biggest pop-culture conversation of the week almost instantly.
• Major stars like Beyoncé, Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, Anne Hathaway, Sabrina Carpenter, and Dwayne Johnson drove the night’s viral momentum.
• The event turned into more than a fashion showcase, with fans treating it like a live scoreboard for celebrity culture.
• The morning after, the biggest winners were the stars who gave the internet something fun to obsess over.

If pop culture is a giant group chat, Met Gala 2026 completely hijacked it.

The annual event took over social feeds, entertainment sites, and fan conversations the second celebrities started hitting the carpet in New York on May 4. By the next morning, it was obvious this was not just another red carpet. It was the story people wanted to scroll, argue about, and send to friends.

That is what makes this year’s Met Gala such a monster headline. It pulled in fashion people, movie fans, music fans, and the terminally online all at once. When one event gets Beyoncé, Rihanna, Anne Hathaway, Bad Bunny, Madonna, and Dwayne Johnson into the same orbit, the internet is going to lose its mind.

And honestly, that is exactly what happened.

Why Met Gala 2026 hit so hard

Part of the appeal is simple. The Met Gala is one of the few celebrity events that still feels like appointment viewing, even for people who swear they do not care about fashion. It is visual, chaotic, glamorous, and just self-serious enough to create instant memes the moment a look lands badly.

This year’s event also arrived with the kind of momentum pop culture lives on. Major outlets like Variety, Vogue, People, and the Associated Press all pushed heavy same-night and next-morning coverage, which is usually a sign that a story has broken out of its niche and gone fully mainstream.

That broad attention matters. The Met Gala is no longer just about who wore the best outfit. It is about who owned the conversation. The stars who understand that usually walk away with more than compliments. They leave with screenshots, fan edits, debate threads, and another boost to their cultural stock.

Met Gala 2026 felt especially built for that kind of reaction economy. Every entrance seemed designed to trigger either awe, confusion, thirst, or at least one all-caps post from somebody losing it in real time.

The stars who kept the timeline busy

Beyoncé was always going to dominate attention the second her name entered the mix, and this year was no different. Rihanna and A$AP Rocky also remained central to the night’s energy, because they have become one of those rare celebrity pairings that people watch like an ongoing franchise.

Anne Hathaway kept her grip on the internet’s fascination too, proving once again that she knows how to show up at exactly the right event and turn polished elegance into a trending topic. Sabrina Carpenter added even more pop-star heat to the mix, while Bad Bunny and Madonna brought the kind of big-name presence that makes the whole thing feel larger than life.

Then there was Dwayne Johnson, who generated his own wave of chatter after appearing in a look that immediately sparked discussion online. That is the Met Gala sweet spot. If people are debating the outfit, the meaning, and whether it worked, the mission is basically accomplished.

Even people who did not watch live still woke up to the aftermath. Best-dressed lists were everywhere. Worst-dressed lists were right behind them. The accidental comedy of awkward poses, surprise styling choices, and bold swings only fed the cycle.

More than fashion, this was a pop-culture power ranking

What made the night interesting was how quickly it stopped being only about clothes. Met Gala coverage now works like a live ranking of who can still command real attention in a fractured media world. It is not enough to be famous. You have to create a moment.

That is why the event keeps winning. It gives celebrities one shot to remind people who they are, what their brand is, and whether they still know how to play to the crowd. Some stars show up in a beautiful look. Others show up knowing they are about to become the entire conversation.

This year also had a little extra juice because adjacent headlines fed into the spectacle. Blake Lively’s appearance after news of her legal settlement with Justin Baldoni gave the event a fresh crossover talking point, blending celebrity news and red-carpet coverage into one bigger story.

That crossover is pure pop-culture fuel. It means the Met Gala was not just living in style coverage. It was bleeding into movie news, social chatter, and the wider celebrity machine.

The morning-after winner is obvious

The real winner of Met Gala 2026 is not one single outfit. It is the event itself.

At a time when fans are scattered across a million apps and fandom bubbles, the Met Gala still has the rare ability to force everyone into the same room, at least digitally. For one night, and especially the morning after, it becomes the closest thing pop culture has to a season finale.

That is why it is the hottest topic in entertainment right now. It gave fans spectacle, gossip, glamour, and just enough weirdness to keep the conversation moving. In other words, it gave the internet exactly what it wanted.

Expect the discourse to keep rolling all day as more galleries, reactions, and ranking posts pile up. The carpet may be over, but the real show, the part where the internet picks its winners and dunks on the misses, is still in full swing.

Sources

• Variety’s Met Gala 2026 red carpet gallery
• Vogue’s best-dressed stars roundup
• Associated Press Met Gala 2026 photo gallery
• People coverage hub
• Variety on Blake Lively’s Met Gala appearance after settlement news

Image Credits

• Featured image: Rihanna Met Gala 2017 by Danilo Lauria via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
• Inline image: The MET by Kai Pilger via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
• Inline image: Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala in 2019 (cropped) by Cosmopolitan UK via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

At the Sun ’n Fun Aerospace Expo in Lakeland, Florida, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman delivered a wide-ranging address that mixed inspiration with a blunt assessment of where the agency is headed. Framed by the excitement of the Artemis program and a new generation of space enthusiasts, Isaacman made it clear that NASA’s next chapter is not just about returning to the Moon but building a sustained human presence beyond Earth.

The presentation opened with a viral moment featuring a young student’s passionate call for space exploration, symbolizing what Isaacman described as the “Artemis Generation.” That energy carried into a recap of Artemis II, which successfully sent astronauts farther into space than ever before, reaching speeds over 24,000 miles per hour before returning safely to Earth.

From there, Isaacman laid out NASA’s near-term vision: frequent missions to the Moon’s south pole, where water ice could support long-term habitation. Beginning as early as 2027, NASA plans a steady cadence of robotic landings to test technologies, deploy rovers, and prepare the groundwork for a permanent lunar base. Unlike the Apollo era, he emphasized, the goal now is permanence—“we’re going back to stay.”

Building Toward the Moon and Mars

Isaacman described the Moon as a proving ground for deeper space exploration, particularly Mars. He suggested that a crewed mission to Mars could realistically occur within the next 10 to 20 years, but only after critical capabilities are developed on the lunar surface. These include in-situ resource manufacturing, nuclear power systems, and new propulsion technology systems that would allow astronauts to travel farther and return safely.

At the same time, NASA is shifting its strategy. Rather than spreading funding across numerous smaller projects, Isaacman said the agency is now focusing on “needle-moving objectives”—large-scale efforts like building a moon base, increasing launch frequency, and advancing deep space propulsion. He acknowledged past inefficiencies, noting that billions had been spent on programs that failed to deliver meaningful outcomes, and stressed that future investments would be more focused and results-driven.

A key part of that shift is increasing launch cadence. Isaacman pointed out that earlier NASA programs routinely launched missions every few months, while recent efforts have been separated by years. The goal now is to return to at least an annual rhythm—and eventually faster—to maintain expertise and accelerate progress.

Audience Questions Highlight Challenges and Opportunities

Following his remarks, Isaacman fielded a series of questions from the audience that highlighted both enthusiasm and concern about NASA’s direction.

One attendee raised concerns about funding for scientific research, particularly studies on how the human body responds to space environments. Isaacman responded by acknowledging the importance of such research but reiterated that NASA must prioritize programs that directly support major exploration goals, such as keeping astronauts healthy for long-duration missions. He emphasized that better allocation of resources would ensure critical science receives proper support.

Another question focused on the future astronaut workforce. Isaacman explained that NASA is moving beyond its traditional reliance on test pilots and is seeking a broader range of expertise. As missions shift toward long-term habitation, the agency will need engineers, medical professionals, software specialists, and scientists which are the same diversity of skills required to sustain remote outposts on Earth.

Questions also touched on technical challenges, including the future of rocket engines and workforce retention. Isaacman addressed concerns about aging systems like the RS-25 engines and emphasized the importance of competition among commercial partners such as SpaceX and Blue Origin to drive innovation and reduce costs. He also outlined efforts to strengthen NASA’s workforce through new hiring programs and closer collaboration with industry.

International cooperation emerged as another theme during the Q&A. Isaacman highlighted contributions from global partners, including Japan’s development of a pressurized lunar rover and Italy’s work on habitation modules. He stressed that while NASA leads the effort, the Artemis program is a collaborative mission for humanity as a whole.

The session concluded with a forward-looking message: NASA is returning to its roots as an active, execution-driven agency, focused on ambitious goals and tangible results. With plans for a lunar base, increased launch frequency, and eventual missions to Mars, Isaacman’s remarks reflected an agency aiming not just to revisit past achievements—but to surpass them.

“This is your NASA,” he told the Lakeland crowd. “We changed the world once. We’re about to do it again.”

Some of the biggest 2026 shows have already happened, but they still matter in a Florida convention roundup because they show just how packed the state’s calendar has become. More importantly, there are still major events ahead, and a few of the newer additions give this list a much better spread across comics, anime, horror, and general pop culture.

That range is the whole point. Florida is not a one-con state. You can hit a free campus anime gathering, a massive Miami Beach fandom weekend, a family-friendly city comic con, a horror convention, or one of Tampa’s biggest anime events depending on what kind of crowd and coverage you want.

FreeCon 22 brought anime and gaming energy to Tallahassee

Dates: April 4 to April 5, 2026
Website: https://tallahasseeanime.com/

FreeCon 22 took over the FSU Student Union in Tallahassee as a free-entry convention built around anime, gaming, and fan community. The 2026 theme was Witches and Magic, which is a pretty clean way to tell people exactly what kind of weekend they were walking into.

According to the event’s official site, FreeCon is celebrating its 22nd year and continues to pitch itself as Tallahassee’s premier anime and gaming convention. That local identity matters. FreeCon feels like the kind of event that keeps fandom accessible instead of making it feel locked behind giant ticket prices and travel costs.

Florida Supercon is still the heavyweight on the summer calendar

Dates: July 10 to July 12, 2026
Website: https://www.floridasupercon.com/

If you want the biggest all-around pop culture play on this list, Florida Supercon is still the one. The Miami Beach show pulls together comics, anime, gaming, wrestling, celebrity guests, voice actors, exhibitors, and creators for a giant summer weekend that tries to cover every corner of fandom at once.

The official site frames it as a full-scale community event where fans can cosplay, connect, shop, and bounce between creator-focused and celebrity-driven programming. For coverage, it is one of the easiest events in the state to work because there are so many angles under one roof.

Tampa Bay Comic Convention keeps comics, cosplay, and celebrity fandom in the mix

Website: https://tampabaycomicconvention.com/

Tampa Bay Comic Convention deserves a place in any Florida convention roundup, even with limited public site access during this pull. It has become one of the region’s more recognizable comic convention brands, with the usual mix of celebrity guests, artists, vendors, fandom shopping, cosplay, and fan meetups that make these events work.

What makes Tampa Bay Comic Convention worth watching is its middle-ground appeal. It has enough scale to feel like a real destination event, but it still carries the kind of regional flavor that can produce better fan stories than the ultra-polished mega-shows. If you want comic-focused convention coverage on the Gulf Coast, this is one to keep on the radar.

METROCON remains one of Florida’s biggest anime conventions

Dates: July 31 to August 2, 2026
Website: https://metroconventions.com/

METROCON bills itself as Florida’s largest anime convention, and the event lineup makes it easy to see why. The official site points to gaming, cosplay contests, panels and workshops, music and dance events, special guests, an exhibit hall, and a full schedule built around a three-day Tampa takeover.

For anime fans, this is one of the big ones. METROCON has the kind of identity that feels distinct from a general comic con. It leans harder into anime culture, cosplay performance, fandom expression, and show-floor energy, which makes it a different beast from the broader pop culture weekends on this list.

Sunshine City Scare adds a horror lane to the Florida event calendar

Website: https://www.sunshinecityscare.com/

Not every fan event in Florida needs to be superhero-heavy or anime-led, and Sunshine City Scare gives the roundup a horror lane. While the site was not fully readable during this pass, the event is built around horror fandom, which instantly makes it stand out from the more mainstream comic and pop culture conventions.

That matters because horror crowds show up differently. The fashion is different, the vendors are different, the cosplay hits a different nerve, and the fan culture tends to feel a little more niche and a little more locked in. For outlets covering Florida’s broader fandom landscape, horror conventions like this help round out the picture.

Anime St. Pete helps keep the local anime scene active on the Gulf Coast

Website: https://animestpete.com/

Anime St. Pete is another smart addition if you want this list to reflect more of the real convention ecosystem in Florida. Even without a clean site pull here, the event’s branding alone tells you what role it plays. It is part of the local anime convention circuit that gives fans a more focused, community-driven alternative to the biggest statewide shows.

That kind of event matters more than people think. Smaller anime gatherings often feel more personal, easier to navigate, and more rooted in local fan scenes. They may not have the same headline power as Florida Supercon or METROCON, but they are often where you find the strongest cosplay community energy and the most dedicated repeat attendees.

Sunrise Comic Con keeps things family-friendly without losing the fan appeal

Date: March 14, 2026
Website: https://www.sunrisefl.gov/comiccon

Sunrise Comic Con is a little different from the huge convention-center model, and that is part of the charm. Hosted at the Sunrise Civic Center, the event bills itself as the largest pop culture festival in west Broward County and mixes guests, artists, authors, panels, demos, cosplay contests, vendors, food, gaming, and tournaments into a one-day event.

That one-day structure makes it easier for families and casual fans who want the convention flavor without the full weekend commitment. Not every event needs to be a three-day marathon to matter.

SUN ‘n FUN is not a comic con, but it still belongs on Florida’s big-event radar

Website: https://flysnf.org/

No, SUN ‘n FUN is not a comic convention. It is an aerospace expo in Lakeland. But it still fits the spirit of a Florida event roundup because it brings the same large-scale, enthusiast-driven, full-day spectacle that convention fans understand immediately.

There is also something very Florida about putting a comic convention guide next to an aviation mega-event. Both pull passionate crowds, both turn hobby culture into community, and both show how broad the state’s event identity really is.

Why Florida keeps working as a convention state

Florida works as a convention state because it never sticks to one template. You have anime events, comic conventions, horror gatherings, city-run festivals, giant fandom weekends, and left-field mega-events like SUN ‘n FUN all sharing the same calendar.

That gives fans options, and options are everything. Some people want celebrity panels and photo ops. Some want a cosplay contest and a vendor floor. Some want anime DJs and dance events. Some want horror merch and spooky niche fandom energy. Florida has room for all of it.

If you are planning future coverage, Florida Supercon and METROCON are probably the biggest upcoming plays still ahead on the calendar. But the smaller and more regional names matter too. That is where the scene feels most personal, and honestly, that is usually where the best stories live.

The movie centers on Hubbs and Joe, two guys roaming Torrance for a night that is supposed to be fun and simple. Instead, their search for a beach-area party turns into a parade of dumb luck, escalating trouble, and full-on burnout chaos.

Bradford Tatum, Michael Kopelow, China Kantner, and Renee Allman star in the film, with Melkonian writing the script alongside Rich Wilkes. Over the years, the movie has hung around as a favorite for viewers who like their comedies scruffy, weird, and completely uninterested in playing it safe.

That cult status is exactly why this Blu-ray debut feels like a good fit. Boutique labels and collector lines thrive on titles that have their own strange little wavelength, and The Stöned Age absolutely has one.

What fans get in the new edition

The new set comes with an audio commentary featuring Melkonian and Wilkes. It also includes three added pieces, a retrospective called Back to The Stöned Age, a reunion feature focused on The Blue Torpedo, and an extended scene.

Lionsgate Limited has priced the Blu-ray and digital combo at $24.99. The film runs 90 minutes, carries an R rating, and includes the original English 2.0 theatrical mix with English SDH subtitles. The presentation is widescreen at 1.85:1.

There is also some extra collector appeal in the packaging itself. Artwork for the release comes from Lucas Peverill, which should give the case a little more personality on the shelf.

Press coverage around the launch may include interview access with Melkonian, according to the release notes. Pre-orders are live now through Lionsgate Limited, and publicity materials are already available for outlets that want to line up coverage.

The Stöned Age becomes Vestron Collector’s Series entry number 38 on April 20. If you have a thing for cult comedies, oddball home video pickups, or movies that feel like one long disastrous Saturday night, this one has your name all over it.

Photo credit: OpenClaw

Key Takeaways

– AI is moving beyond one-shot prompts and into agent-style tools that can handle multi-step work.
– Big players are racing to turn AI into something that can browse, summarize, automate, and take action.
– That shift could change how people work online, but it also raises bigger questions about trust, accuracy, and control.
– The next AI fight is not just about who has the smartest model. It is about who builds the most useful assistant.

For a while, the AI conversation was all about who had the flashiest chatbot. Bigger model. Faster answers. Better reasoning. More wow-factor demos. That race is still happening, sure, but the real trend now is something a lot more important.

AI is moving from talking to doing.

That is why AI agents are suddenly everywhere. Tech companies are no longer pitching AI as just a tool that answers questions. They want it to handle tasks, chain together actions, search across tools, summarize what matters, and in some cases actually get work done with less hand-holding.

That shift is a big deal because it changes the entire value proposition. A chatbot can impress you for five minutes. An agent that saves you an hour every day is something else entirely.

Why AI agents are suddenly the center of everything

The reason this trend is taking off now is pretty simple. The major AI players have already proven they can build models that generate text, code, and images at a high level. The next step is making those models useful in the messier real world.

That means letting AI interact with software, tabs, files, notes, spreadsheets, research sources, and all the other junk people deal with every day. Instead of asking a model one question at a time, users increasingly want something that can help manage the whole workflow.

That is where the agent framing comes in. AI agents are being sold as systems that can plan across multiple steps, use tools, and complete tasks with less babysitting. In theory, that could make them feel less like fancy autocomplete and more like actual digital workers.

And honestly, that is the pitch that could finally move AI from novelty into habit. People do not stick with tech because it sounds futuristic. They stick with tech because it saves time and reduces friction.

The upside sounds huge, but the risk is real too

There is a reason companies are leaning hard into this. If AI agents work the way their creators want, they could reshape how people search, write, organize projects, shop, code, and communicate.

But that is also where things get tricky fast. The more power an AI system has, the more damage it can do when it gets something wrong. A bad answer in a chat window is annoying. A bad action taken across your files, messages, calendar, or browser is a whole different level of problem.

So this is where trust becomes the real battleground. It is not enough for an AI agent to feel clever. It has to be dependable. It has to know when to stop. And it has to make it obvious what it is doing before it starts pressing buttons on your behalf.

That is probably why the companies pushing hardest into agents are also obsessed with guardrails, approvals, memory, and tool permissions. The moment AI goes from suggesting to acting, the stakes jump immediately.

This is the next real competition in AI

The most interesting part of this whole trend is that it changes what winning looks like. The smartest raw model does not automatically win if a rival product is easier to use, better connected to real tools, or more trustworthy in day-to-day work.

That means the next AI war is not just about benchmarks anymore. It is about product design. It is about ecosystem. It is about whether your assistant can actually fit into someone’s real life without becoming another thing they have to manage.

And that is why AI agents feel like such a major turning point. They push the whole industry toward utility instead of just spectacle.

We are still early, and plenty of these tools are going to overpromise before they settle down. That part feels inevitable. But the direction is obvious now. AI is no longer trying to just sound smart. It is trying to become useful enough that people build daily routines around it.

If that happens, the next era of AI will not be defined by chat alone. It will be defined by who builds the assistant people actually trust to do the work.

Photo credit: 4GQTV

Key Takeaways

– MEGACON Orlando says more than 195,000 fans attended the 2026 event.
– The convention featured major cast reunions, celebrity panels, cosplay showcases, and an after-hours Universal Orlando experience.
– Highlights included Lord of the Rings and Hobbit cast moments, John Cena Live, KPop Demon Hunters appearances, and the Masters of Cosplay Grand Finale.
– MEGACON Orlando 2027 is already set for May 20-23.

MEGACON Orlando 2026 is officially in the books, and the show is leaving behind some seriously big numbers. According to the event’s post-show release, more than 195,000 fans packed into Orange County Convention Center for four straight days of celebrity guests, cosplay, collectibles, panels, and full-blown fandom chaos.

That is a huge turnout, even by MEGACON standards. And honestly, it tracks with the energy the event had all weekend. This year’s show felt stacked from top to bottom, with enough reunion panels, fan-favorite guests, and convention floor madness to keep every corner of the building buzzing.

The convention also wasted no time teasing what is next. MEGACON Orlando confirmed that the 2027 edition is already locked in for May 20 through May 23, which gives fans an early target to circle now that this year’s event has wrapped.

For anyone who missed the show or is still recovering from it, the biggest story here is simple. MEGACON Orlando keeps operating like one of the biggest fandom events in North America, and 2026 looked like another giant reminder of that.

The celebrity reunion energy was off the charts

One of the biggest hooks this year was the lineup of cast reunions. MEGACON Orlando brought together names tied to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Star Trek, The Mummy, Hocus Pocus, The Goonies, and The X-Files, which is a pretty absurd buffet of nostalgia if you stop and think about it.

The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit presence clearly hit hard with fans. Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, and Billy Boyd reunited for a 25th anniversary celebration tied to Middle-earth, and that kind of panel basically prints emotion on command.

John Cena also gave the weekend one of its louder crowd magnets. MEGACON says fans showed up for autographs, photo ops, and John Cena Live, where he took the stage for a fan Q&A that quickly turned into one of the convention’s standout moments.

Then there was KPop Demon Hunters, which pulled strong attention through appearances from Arden Cho, Ji-young Yoo, and Rei Ami. The event says their panels drew packed crowds, with fans showing up for behind-the-scenes stories, breakout-success talk, and a look at what could be next.

Cosplay, Weta Workshop, and after-hours chaos kept it moving

MEGACON Orlando also leaned hard into experiences beyond celebrity panels. Weta Workshop brought in creative talent including Sir Richard Taylor, Tania Rodger, Daniel Falconer, and Flo Foxworthy, giving fantasy and film fans a deeper behind-the-scenes look at the craft side of blockbuster world-building.

That kind of programming matters because it gives the weekend more depth than just autograph lines and photo ops. A convention this size needs different lanes, and MEGACON has gotten pretty good at making sure there is always something else happening if one room is packed out.

Cosplay was another huge part of the weekend’s identity, which should surprise absolutely nobody. Fans got the Cosplay Red Carpet, the Masters of Cosplay Grand Prix, and the Masters of Cosplay Grand Finale, where winners from across North America competed for a $10,000 grand prize.

And because this convention apparently does not believe in taking it easy, Friday also brought an exclusive after-hours event at Universal Orlando Resort. Attendees got access to a late-night mix-in across Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, which is the kind of add-on that makes a convention weekend feel even more like a full destination event.

MEGACON Orlando still feels bigger every year

That is probably the clearest takeaway from the whole wrap-up. MEGACON Orlando is not just surviving on name recognition. It keeps scaling up the celebrity side, the cosplay side, the fandom side, and the experience side all at once.

When an event can pull more than 195,000 attendees, land that many reunion-driven moments, and already have fans talking about next year before the floor is even cold, it is doing something right.

The 2026 show sounds like it gave fans exactly what they wanted: big guests, memorable panels, cosplay spectacle, and enough all-day energy to make the weekend feel like a real event rather than just a crowded convention hall.

Now the countdown shifts to 2027. And if MEGACON Orlando wants to keep raising the bar, fans are probably going to show up ready for more.