For the second time in under a year, a Geoff Keighley videogame show has been interrupted by a stage crasher.
Today’s incident (clipped on YouTube here) occurred at Opening Night Live, an annual showcase which sees Keighley kick off German gaming convention Gamescom with trailers and announcements. Following a Starfield musical performance, Keighley began to introduce a segment on the game when two men suddenly appeared in frame.
One of the stage crashers, wearing an “Austin 3:16” shirt, said something along the lines of “Bill Clinton wants to play GTA 6” as he approached Keighley, referencing the nonsense phrase spoken by last year’s Game Awards stage crasher, who hid behind a group of Elden Ring developers as they accepted their Game of the Year Award.
As Austin 3:16 shirt guy closed in on Keighley in an attempt to speak into his mic, repeating “GTA 6,” the host quickly caught on and turned away from the man. The other stage crasher walked in front of them presenting a t-shirt promoting TikTok and YouTube pages.
“Thank you very much. Thank you very much guys,” Keighley said as a handful of audience members seemed to boo the stage crashers. “Really disappointed. That’s just so disappointing.”
Show security staff, positioned in the general seating area but not at the immediate front of the stage, hustled onstage and escorted the men away. The incident lasted about 15 seconds from beginning to resolution.
Keighley, startled only a little, gracefully transitioned from the interruption.
“This is such a special night for so many developers, and it’s really disappointing to see someone act that way, but we’re going to move right on with the show, we’ve got a lot of great games to show you,” continued Keighley to applause from the audience. “Really, it’s just so sad to me to see something like that happen on a night when we’re here to celebrate games and this community and how much they mean to us.”
A composed Keighley resumed introducing the show’s first guest, Todd Howard.