Attack of the Show creator and host Kevin Pereira is kind of nuts. Thankfully, he’s working on channeling his zany personality into a live spectacle called LeetUp for his and everyone else’s entertainment. Pereira is teaming up with video game culture-event specialists Iam8bit to put on this party-meets-variety-show mashup on March 1 at Club Nokia in downtown Los Angeles, Calif. Check out the website for ticket info and a list of confirmed talent (comedians, musicians, movie director Kevin Smith, etc.).

To learn more about LeetUp, I talked with Pereira over the phone recently. He told me about how they want the audience to play a big role during the night, what kind of influence Internet culture plays, the logistical hassle of trying to fire bacon out of a T-shirt cannon, and more.

Bitmob: What was the inspiration behind LeetUp? To start this...what would call it? A party or a show?

Kevin Pereira: Clusterfuck? Does that work? I have wanted to tour Attack of the Show for ages. I’ve always wanted to do a sort of live variety stage show and integrate elements of everything that I love. And it just, for a myriad of reasons, has never worked out.

I put that idea on the back burner, and for the past 10 years or so, I’ve been attending everything from CES [the Consumer Electronics Show] to E3 [Electronic Entertainment Expo] to Comic-Con. I’m a huge music fan, so I go to every concert that I feasibly can go to. And I kept seeing similar faces at all of these. I just thought, “You know what? Let’s see if we can take elements of those events, throw them under one roof, and have a big giant nerd carnival or really just a big party.” And that’s what we did.

The event could totally suck. I’ve always laughed and said this could be my Daikatana. This is the one where we go, “This is gonna be an awesome night!” Then we show up, and it’s a metal garbage can with flames. Everyone is going to have to huddle around it like hobos.

Bitmob: Who would you say the event is for?

KP: To be completely candid, the event is for me. It’s incredibly selfish [laughs]. To be completely honest, when I pitched this initially to Golden Voice and AEG and even to Iam8bit, I created a private Tumblr blog. It initially was just an HTML table laid out with a couple of images and a schedule of events. It said: This musician is going to play. And after that these people are going to come on stage, and I’m going to chat with them in a panel. Then another musician is going to go on. Then we’re going to chat with these guys. And while that is going on, this will, too -- and I just put images of arcades and people in cosplay outfits. If you don’t really care about this panel, go play some games or go have a drink; it’s going to be a giant party.

Everyone sort of looked at me, and they either loved the entire thing or loved certain aspects of it...enough to go, “Yeah, this is totally it.” Then, they all kind of blinked and said, “This is the show you can do?” And I lied right out of my asshole. I was like, “Yeah, of course I can do this event. Of course we’ll get Kevin Smith, Doug Hardwick, Felicia Day, and Doug Benson."

This has really been like, “If you build it, they will come.” So far I’ve been incredibly lucky. It’s happening.

This event is for me. I really sat down at that computer and said, “If I could do this, what would it be?” And I said well, I love VJs, I love podcasts, and I love cosplay. Let’s mash them up. And through AOTS and the response from some of the press we’ve done for it, people seem to be excited. So it’s also for like-minded individuals.

Bitmob: How will the podcasting segment work?

KP: It’s kind of like a roundtable. We’ll sit around and have a chat about various things, and then each segment will have some sort of on-stage stunt or element that gets the crowd involved. Sure, you can get “oohs” and “ahhs” or laughter, and that makes it feel like you’re at an event. But I want this to be the experience you have to see to get, in many ways. I want it to be a destination.

As we tour LeetUp, I don’t want someone to say, "Oh that’s cool, I’ll just watch the podcast later." I’m happy to release it later, that’s fine, but I really want it to be a “you had to be there” kind of thing.

It may involve bacon being thrown out on the crowd. I can’t say. There’s one great stunt that I’m really looking forward to, that’s really going to change someone’s life for at least several hours of the evening.

I don’t want to be boisterous about it, but we were all rolling and just laughing at the notion of one of the things that’s going to happen on stage to a couple members of the audience -- particularly those who Tweet the fastest. Whoever Tweets a certain phrase the quickest will get a chance to come out on stage. And what will happen will be very visceral, visual, and hilarious…and potentially detrimental to their face and clothing.

I can promise on the other end of that, they’re going to get a ton of prizes. And that’s one thing that we’re very keen on. Thankfully, myself and Iam8bit, we’ve both got great relationships with a bunch of companies, so I’m going be chumming the waters all night long with everything from video games to Roombas.  

Bitmob: Do you care about people recording the event?

KP: No. Have a fucking good time. If you want to snap a photo, you want to blog it, you want to remix or mash it up while you’re there, Instagram your Tweets! Whatever. I don’t care. Just try not to let the social aspects become too distracting -- because there will be things where we encourage people to Tweet out during the night to win prizes.

But I’ve been to so many events -- and I’m guilty of this as well -- where so many times people are so busy capturing a moment instead of living it. So we’ll never say there’s a rule, “Hey, don’t snap photos, or don’t shoot video,” because we want you to have a good time, and we don’t care. We’re putting on a show for you, and if you want to snap a photo of it, great.

But I would also advise to make sure you’re experiencing the moment. You can always Facebook or Tweet about it later.