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PAX PRIME 2012 Information and FAQ (READ THIS FIRST, THEN ASK ALL QUESTIONS HERE)
Posts
I'm sure they've though of the possibility of all sorts of things. Khoo is a genius and Gabe and Tycho are dreamers.
There are a lot of problems with that idea, however, and they're reasons why pretty much nobody does it... except for the World Cup, Olympics, and Worldcon.
Let's look at Worldcon as an example. It doesn't have exact parity: they never get over 8k attendees, and often get less.
Worldcon works much like the Olympics: cities will put in bids, which will be evaluated by the worldcon committee. Then the fan community of that city does the bulk of the organization, and Worldcon coordinates with them. This is sort-of-possible for a convention of 2-10,000 people, but would be less feasible for a PAX-scale undertaking. Worldcon draws upon clusters of smofs* all across the world, most of whom have been running science fiction cons since before we were born. In many cases, these are people who have put on conventions before and this year put on a Worldcon in addition (or instead).
*smof: secret masters of fandom, the code name for the conrunners and zinerunners in SciFi fandom.
The first con in a city where you, personally, have not run a con before is always the hardest. Everyone you work with is skeptical, you don't know who is going to be reliable and who isn't, there are always unforseen complications relating to the layout of a new city, vendors there, etc. For the Olympics, this is offset by the fact that the city itself is paying for most of this stuff to happen, and the success of the event is a matter of international pride. For Worldcon, you always have a group of committed fans in a city who have probably run a convention of a similar size in the city before, so they have these relationships already. I've heard from smofs I know that the first con in a given town takes three to five times longer to plan and has a 50% higher chance of being a failure than any subsequent con in that same town. Moving cons from town to town is a big risk for relatively little reward/payoff, which is why pretty much nobody does it.
If PAX were primarily a con-running business, then yeah, they could make a lot of money by starting 2-4 more cons, scattered across the earth. But most corporate cons are slightly soulless in comparison to PAX, which manages to bridge the gap between a corporate con and a fan-run convention. I don't think PA is likely to transition from a jpeg and design company to a con-running company any time soon, which is probably a good thing. (Not that I think them becoming a con-running company would cause PAX to start sucking... but it's their unique situation that has made PAX what it is.)
In conclusion: it sounds like a dream to have a PAX in a bunch of new cities, but it's not plausible. If you want something like PAX to happen in your town, maybe try to find some smofs there, and see if you can put together a gaming con in your area. One way to get more cons like PAX is to have more people who care about gaming and know about con-running try to run something like PAX.
Triwizard Drinking Tournament - '09 !Hufflepuff unofficial conscript, '10 !Gryffindor
Nerd blog at culturalgeekgirl.com
Part of me is pretty sure that if Mr. Khoo wasn't so tied up with Penny Arcade stuff 24/7 the Earth would already have an orbiting death-laser.
I have enough faith in the PA community to be able to pull off all kinds of ridiculous feats, and the core team seems really effective when it comes to finding the right person for the job, whatever it may be that needs doing; even if they developed a branch dedicated solely to cons I know that Jerry, Mike et al would still be left to focus on other things, and the cons would always be put together well, I'm sure. My biggest actual concern would be how much stress the cons obviously are for the stars of the show already. The 'no jet-lag' factor and Mike's post yesterday (Friday, May 4) citing the double-bottleneck of fire-code limitations and the amount of available accommodation in Seattle (plus my own personal greed, admittedly) is why I was asking about the possibility of Van. Basically, I was hoping that if that idea got batted around by enough people someone higher up would catch wind & think, "Yeah, that seems to make sense."
But, as you pointed out, I've never been on a team that put anything that massive together, so I have only a hazy idea of what'd actually be involved beyond talent burn-out. They've probably got people checking out alternate locations in Seattle - where it's also easiest for PA staff to check out first-hand - all the time, & I'll just have to wait until they decide to expand the Washington State Convention Center (even though Van already has two convention centers side by side;).
I guess I have the Romulan expansion for Fleet Captains to look forward to...
Electronic composer for hire.
I did email pax_questions@paxsite.com, but haven't received a reply (4 days ago). I would really like to get a helpful response from someone at pax.
Try emailing them again. They have an /incredibly/ high volume of emails to get through, and I'm also not sure that they work the weekends. the pax_questions email is the best way to get an /official/ response from the folks who run pax.
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Can you tell me when they get shipped, the Pax Prime passes that is?
Thanks
They wont be shipped until a few weeks before the event.
A little bit before PAX, About a week or 2 before, right zerzhul?
Then how are scalpers already selling them on eBay and Craig's list?
Oh and how can I edit my avatar/profile?
Thanks
They aren't selling the actual pass, yet.
1. They bought them (or not!), and are posting listings online, but they don't have the physical copies of the tickets yet.
2. Click your name near the top-right corner of the page, click edit my profile near the right hand side on the new page, then click change my picture on the left. Then just choose a file from your computer and upload it!
what's with all the hate on MC Chris? i heard about him cancelling on PAX a few years ago but has he never been allowed back?
also, it seems as though the other artists that do get invited to PAX seem to look down on chris, why is that?
examples:
As far as MC Chris and PAX go, it has been said before by one of the folks that runs the show (I don't remember who said it exactly so I don't want to put words in mouths) that MC Chris has not been asked to play PAX again because PAX needs to be 100% sure that the acts they schedule will show up. Canceling one one PAX brought that into question, and they don't want to take the chance that it would happen again. I would bet that if any of the other acts canceled on PAX, they would also not be asked to return for the same reason.
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PAX 2013 STATUS - Badges: PURCHASED Hotel: RESERVED Vacation: Awaiting approval Plane Tickets: Waiting on vacation approval.
There will likely be a tabletop gaming thread in this forum sometime closer to PAX... there has been one here every other year, at any rate, so I'd expect to see one again.
If you don't see anything specific that strikes your fancy there, I believe that Wizards usually runs a number of events specifically targeted towards new players. Again, keep an eye on this forum, though WotC may also announce things like that on their main site. If you end up going the Wizards-run game thing, make sure to be proactive about signing up.
Good luck!
Triwizard Drinking Tournament - '09 !Hufflepuff unofficial conscript, '10 !Gryffindor
Nerd blog at culturalgeekgirl.com
There are already dedicated departments for both console free play and tournaments. I don't know how successful you'll be but you can always try pax_questions@paxsite.com
Thanks for the reply SmallLady. We actually did see that there are dedicated departments and tournaments set-up for Prime, however, we did not see the games we would like to host on the list of dedicated tournaments. We think these games would be awesome to add to the list. We have sent emails out to the pax_questions and though we know they are extremely busy, have not received a response from anyone yet. We will be hosting this event in Seattle on September 1st but would love to do so inside Prime.
I don't think any of the tournaments have been announced for this year at all. Not sure where you're getting your information from for the tournaments set up for prime.
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Some where in the information on the website we saw some information that talked about dedicated tournaments and there were a few "PAST PRIME" tournament games mentioned is all. I'm sure there are A LOT more tournaments that have been held, however, in the past tournament information that we did find, we did not see these games listed as one. We have not seen an "OFFICIAL" tournament list though.
"We know that the moment we slip, it will be taken away... and so it is of the utmost importance to be worthy of it constantly."
PAX will always be held on the best weekend for PAX. Sometimes that will be a bad weekend for you; I'm sorry.
jaberwockynmt, we would absolutely do our tournament just for fun. We would also bring along some things to give away as well, like our custom controllers, BigCity T-shirts and some other things as well. Thanks for the information and we will continue to look into this as we are extremely interested in getting involved.
For East it was much closer than this. I want to say 3 weeks or so??
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Attendee: ♥ Prime '12, '13 ..♥ East '12
Your ever-awesome Frog-Backpack Girl.
No. Often counterfeiters will order one or more "real" badged in order to fake more up. That's how they know what the counterfeit should look like.
When you get to the convention, I believe there will be a "badge verification station" where you can bring anyone who is selling a badge to get it checked out (there was one at East, anyway), other than that there's no way to be sure.
Triwizard Drinking Tournament - '09 !Hufflepuff unofficial conscript, '10 !Gryffindor
Nerd blog at culturalgeekgirl.com
Not necessarily. The only way to be 100% sure of a badge's authenticity is to have the physical badge checked by an Enforcer or a PAX Employee at a badge checking station at PAX.
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I'm not sure there's a good answer to that that doesn't start with "How risk averse are you?" or "How well do you know said person." Even if I knew of a way that was 99% likely to be a good verfication source, it'd really really suck if the D100 came up 1.
who's doing the flying?
I think if you're willing to take the chance it's fake and just be a tourist in Seattle then sure why not?
But the reality is, we can't help you lessen your risk. There are no good "tells" or signs if a 2nd hand badge is fake or not. This is why we don't do pass selling on the forums anymore. There is NO good way to tell until you have your badge in hand and are at PAX to have it checked.
Im not sure that I will get a answer but here goes,
How many single day passes were sold altogether?
I bought a extra friday pass because missed the deadline for the Saturday pass so Im hoping to trade my Friday for a Saturday pass once Im down there.
Those numbers are not released.
Oh well I've tried. Im sure there will be alot of traders out there once PAX is near.