PA Staff Trading Event

Keroan

I haven't been to a staff trading event since east 2014 (prime was my event for this year) so I had no conception of how popular it had gotten. After my bf left his badge in the hotel room and we had to go back and get it, we ended up being only about half an hour early and got shunted into an overflow room. I just wanted to thank Merch Mistress and all the enforcers who really tried to get us into the staff trading event (even if it didn't work out). And thanks for all the lovely people in the overflow room who were really fun to talk to and get to know!

Again, @merchmistress was totally amazing and helped us trade for all the staff busts we wanted (I was the one who attempted to trade with the pin box, whoops!). Thanks for being really patient with your fans. I know it must have been kinda stressful and exhausting

Spokane_SnowMan

This years was not set up very well. Too many of the staff members were doing gambling games which stalled the line out. It took me 20 minutes to get through the first 6 staff members just waiting for people to move on. After that I just said F*** it and forced my way through dropping pins, grabbing just the staff pins and I gtfo.

A large number of event staff and enforcers were displeased and said they would change it next year, likely eliminating the gaming portion, to try and get more people through.

Nope

Spokane_SnowMan wrote: »

A large number of event staff and enforcers were displeased and said they would change it next year, likely eliminating the gaming portion, to try and get more people through.

Hope they don't change it from how they did it at South, it worked really well at PAX South....though Khoo's game seemed very tricky.

Spokane_SnowMan

Nope wrote: »

Spokane_SnowMan wrote: »

A large number of event staff and enforcers were displeased and said they would change it next year, likely eliminating the gaming portion, to try and get more people through.

Hope they don't change it from how they did it at South, it worked really well at PAX South....though Khoo's game seemed very tricky.

It becomes a question of, do you create an event that is more enjoyable for 300 people or do you create an event that allows for 1,000 people to participate? At South it might still be more casual/less populated so the games could work there.

I couldn't tell you how many people I ran into on Monday who never made it into the pin panel even though they arrived about an hour early. We arrived about 80 minutes early and were about 3/4ths of the way back in line.

orthancstone

I'd be hesitant to say it worked well at South. I think it "worked" due to the crowd being smaller and manageable and the space being fairly open, not because the format was superior.

Keroan

Personally, though the games slow it down, they don't bother me. The point of pin trading for me is the interaction with strangers and staff. I like the memories the pins give me and if I have to wait for a later pax, that's okay.

silrn

Just for the record, they did DRASTICALLY scale back the number of games that could be played, and the complexity of the games. They were trying to avoid a significant slowdown in throughput. Even so, they had a tiny area in which to set up the trading space, and the room was shared with Markiplier, so that led to some challenges.

dchoy

I feel like I will miss trading events every year because I never want to leave the expo hall early. I mean it's good that the event takes place after the expo hall closes but if the line gets capped 1.5-2 hours before the event then I am sorta out of luck.

Hingo

Like everything at PAX, you have to prioritize. People will wait in line for the poly pin for 3 hours. Waiting 2 hours for the ONLY PA trading event shouldn't be considered that bad, and that's to be within the first 50 people. I choose the trading event over everything else at PAX, so I haven't ever missed one.

Clix

I went about 45 minutes early and the line was capped so they had started an overflow line in another room across the hall.

The only pin I was after was Mike Feh's first year head. Rather then wait for a chance to get into the event, with an even tinier chance of him still having the pin I needed, I just made a couple of quick trades with people in the overflow line (much to the delight of some other Pin Pals).

I wanted to hit up the Club PA meet up afterwards too, but I was just so exhausted at that point of the day. Plus I had other people in my group that weren't members, hadn't had dinner yet, and we still had to drive home. So the whole event was really a wash for me.