Geoff Keighley gets stage rushed again, this time at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023

A stage invader and Geoff Keighley on stage at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023
(Image credit: Opening Night Live)

A video games showcase or event hosted by Geoff Keighley has been subject to stage invaders once again - for the second time in less than a year.

During last night's Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023 - the 'grand opening' of the wider event - two people came onto the stage and interrupted Geoff Keighley mid-flow. The stage invader who got closest to Keighley seemed to say "Bill Clinton wants to play GTA 6" before mentioning GTA 6 several times again along with his stage-invading companion. This seems to be in reference to the previous stage invasion that occurred at last year's Game Awards, where a prankster sidled up with the Elden Ring team and spoke nonsense about Bill Clinton, among other things.

The interruption came just after Starfield composer Inon Zur had done a live performance from the soundtrack on the piano, and just before the director of Bethesda Game Studios, Todd Howard, joined Keighley on stage. You can see it play out below from the official YouTube video of the show, starting just before the disruption occurs.

Security personnel deployed among the crowd moved quickly to remove the invaders, who didn't receive too much airtime in the end. Keighley avoided any confrontation but said: “That’s just so disappointing. This is such a special night for so many developers, it’s really disappointing to see someone act that way.”

However, as this isn't the first time that someone has made it onto the stage at one of Keighley's events, eyebrows might be raised by onlookers and, importantly, those folks who agree to go on stage at such events.

As for who the invaders actually were, Dexerto has reported that it may have been the same person who interrupted a German football show on TV to try and talk about GTA - but this is unconfirmed.

A host of updates and reveals were part of Opening Night Live, including action-packed reveals including a Little Nightmares 3 trailer, a look at Crimson Desert, and a gory Killing Floor 3 reveal.

Rob Dwiar
Managing Editor, TechRadar Gaming

Rob is the Managing Editor of TechRadar Gaming, a video games journalist, critic, editor, and writer, and has years of experience gained from multiple publications. Prior to being TechRadar Gaming's Managing Editor, he was TRG's Deputy Editor, and a longstanding member of GamesRadar+, being the Commissioning Editor for Hardware there for years, while also squeezing in a short stint as Gaming Editor at WePC just before joining TechRadar Gaming. He is also a writer on tech, gaming hardware, and video games but also gardens and landscapes, combining the two areas in an upcoming book on video game landscapes that you can back and pre-order now.