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PAX EAST 2012 SUGGESTIONS THREAD
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I worked at a computer camp in MA and was in charge of making sure we were up to code for health and safety regulations. I'm not "certified" in anything except red cross FirstAid/CPR, but I did have a massive handbook with a boatload of regulations we were supposed to be keeping track of. Typically for this type of event one would hire the services of an agency that specializes in group childcare for special events. If there were an organized group of parents to organize it and arrange for the space it would not be unreasonably difficult or expensive to arrange for a childcare area off-site, as long as it were a community thing, not an official PAX thing.
I don't think that we would want to have it it be a childcare area - we're simply looking for a PAX Parent's Lounge - where there would be space for folks with kids in tow to meet, rest, and let the kids play games together off the hectic show floor for a while. Having it staffed for actual child care would be a logistical/insurance issue presumably but having a place with bean bags, a few consoles and some board games seems completely possible.
My son will be 8 and basically surrounded by grownups all weekend - having a room where I could pop into occasionally to let him play with some kids his own age would be great. Having a few planned activities, like a movie time or a D&D encounter for kids would be great. But again, all things with a parent present the entire time, not a "childcare" situation at all.
Maybe he was dealing with a problem at the Hynes? You might not have all the information for raging.
edit: are you really giving me a lecture on when raging is appropriate?
Speaking as an Enforcer who stuffed those bags, we stop stuffing the bags when we run out of an item. Usually it's the MtG decks, this year it was the Rift DVDs. We still had plenty of MtG decks and empty bags at that point, but we were out of Rift. Also, at that point it was 8:30pm and most of us had been there stuffing the bags since 11am.
EDIT: Entrance to PC room was on the West side, level 1.
Actually, I think the best way to prove to the PAX organizers that something like this could work would be to do it as a community thing first. Like, as an un-official meetup in a designated department at a chosen time. For example, maybe have a Parents/Kids meetup in the handheld lounge at 2pm on Friday. Or in the Tabletop area at noon on Saturday.
It might actually work out better as a series of community-based meetups then as a dedicated room, anyway!
Personally i'd love to see swag bags given out in a spare out of the way room at the far end of a hallway (like way past the foodcourt) and punch the badges as they get one. That way only those that truly want one get one, we reduce people getting 2, and hopefully don't run out.
Programs and lanyards on the other hand are ideally handed out as many places as possible. Which is tricky at the morning 8am rush, but more doable after that. I know people are re-thinking how to do this, so hopefully it will improve.
I'd like to see the twitch.tv content streamed to the screens in the queue room, give the screens and the space some use later in the day.
I'd love to see a wall of monitors siting in one of the lobbies hooked up to the PC and Console tourney machines. That way those could be more spectator sports. Give Twitch.tv a chance to sponsor it, bet they would jump at the chance.
Friday morning I was working Info Booth and the "line to queue room" stretched back in and across the north lobby. I'm not sure what happened, if that line actually went to queue room or got shunted off early into the expo hall. I suspect a ton of confusion and not enough enforcers caused that situation, but knowing the Line Management managers like I do, I have faith if its solvable, it will be solved next year.
I won't excuse my fellow #E or myself not knowing things or giving contradictory information. That's something we can and will work on. However we had 200+ new enforcers this year (more then 1/3 new), some recruited just weeks before PAX, and its hard to make sure people know what they need for their assigned area, let alone where extra things like bag checks and shuttles are. Some enforcers signed up for enforcing without even attending first. Can you imagine absorbing all of PAX knowledge, and the extra stuff enforcers need to deal with, and then being able to spit it out to attendees at will.
Even with all the new enforcers, we were still understaffed and all area's had to stretch. As noted in this thread that caused issues with lines, confusion in process, general unpleasantness. Especially Friday, as the OMG I HAVE BEEN WAITING ALL YEAR rush flowed through the halls. PAX East is still growing, it had a ton of Prime enforcers fly over the first two years, but that gets expensive, as you all know, and we have fewer every year. We don't do this for the money, but we do need to be able to afford the trip, and like many attendees, many enforcers are college or entry level career age. It will get better, because many of you who are more local will join us next year, and hopefully we did not kill off all the new ones.
Childs Play Pins
Minecraft Marathon
Yes I am, cause people were raging at me at PAX for things I had no control over.
but obviously that elevator tech who had to cover two shows' issues just wanted to spite you and got stuck in traffic on purpose so moebro would be stuck in an elevator an extra ~20min
There have been Boston Conventions that have done this. I know Arisia does it, and has for a long time. It works well because I think that everyone involved is intelligent about it. Like if the kid looks scared to be left behind, the parents are smart enough not to do it. It is a much smaller con though..
This has been an ongoing complaint at every PAX for at least the past three years. If PA is willing to implement controversial stances like the Booth Babe policy, there must be some way to address this issue without losing sponsorship.
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agreed. the childcare aspect would likely be more complex than anyone wants to deal with, so i think it's safe to say that's out of the question for now. regarding scheduled meetups, i don't think that would accurately reflect interest in a dedicated space. it's hard to meet at a specified time, particularly with kids who might just decide they're too tired or hungry or whatever else when meetup time rolls around. it also would not provide some of the other bonuses--like kid-friendly games and activities--that would be a draw for a family room. also, meetups would only be known to the forum community (or wherever they are organized), whereas a dedicated room can be discovered and used by all pax attendees.
Which is exactly why we are saying it wouldn't be a childcare area - it would just be a parent's lounge to help with taking a break and getting off the busy show floor with a kid and meet up with other families in attendance. The last few pages of the thread have said exactly this, yet people continue to say "probably shouldn't be a daycare" and we repeat - nope, just a family room.
It would just be a room - a room with some kid friendly items/systems, some games for parents to play and a few whiteboards to put up some scheduled events or people to scrawl down impromptu get togethers. It seems like there must be some available space to do something like this, and the enforcer needs would be very limited as well - probably the same or less than the handheld lounge. There are noticeably more kids at PAX every year, as gamers we're getting older, and it would be great to have a space to visit.
1. swag bags. I was rooming with some random guys who each grabbed SIX swag bags, they got one each day, stuffed it in their bag and then grabbed another an hour or two later. I kinda chewed them out about it when I found out, especially since most of the stuff in those bags wasn't amazing. But if you know someone who got more than 1 of them, let them know that they are the reason you might not have one.
2. lines and crowding people. this is a complaint I've been seeing on a lot of forums, and when I was working on managing lines, I ran into people complaining about it. a lot of the time, most people were close together. however there would be a few people in a "line" inside a queue room who were standing 6 feet apart so that one line has 30 people in it and the next has 10 people. So, I would speak to the whole room and ask people to get closer, and of course the people who were already close thought I was talking to them, and people who were far apart kept trying to ignore me.
MCCA should get a WARNING that they dodged a bullet with our incident. 40 minutes is way too long. I dont wish PAX to be in the news that someone got hurt or worse due to incompetent handling, in my opinion. I work in NYC and have gotten stuck in an elevator and rescued by the NYFD, response time was less than 15 minutes. Thats counting the fact that NYFD puts stuck elevators on a lower priority.
That said to them, they (MCCA) should step it up.
Yeah PAX POTATO elevator 14 crew fun times. We kept our spirits up tho. :^)
As the builder of the ‘The Beast’, I have a few suggestions for next year’s BYOC.
1) This year’s location was poor at best. It was way too loud, the lighting was offal. I would recommend a smaller room or couple of rooms where BYOC and Free Play can exist together. The 1st year at the Hynes, we were in a room of our own. When we wanted to participate in the tourneys, we moved over to the free play systems. Only BYOC players were able to use the systems during that time. Also I was disappointed we had to wait until 10am on Saturday and Sunday to get to our systems.
2) Get better vendor participation. Get more vendors to come to the BYOC. It was great that Gunnar had presence and let us use the glasses. I think only a handful of the vendors even knew we were there. It would be nice to have more vendors bring their demos over or setup a special time when we could visit the booth without having to fight with 60k other people. Think about it, you have 300 hardcore gamers who are willing to bring in their rigs for 3 days. Who better to pander to?
3) Bandwidth was an issue this year and took a day to resolve. This made it difficult to even navigate the local network or get twitter updates. The steam server was helpful if you had the chance to connect to it. A schedule of BYOC events would be nice so that we could plan the days.
4) Passes, every year they seem to run out of the 3 day passes long before the BYOC fills its seats. If they are unwilling to create 1 pass that covers the PAX and BYOC, then they should at least set aside the same number of 3 day passes as there are BYOC seats. BYOC registration starts well after the general registration for PAX
More satelite booths. BioWare having their own room was ingenious - they were able to have plenty of people stop by, all while being away from the madness that is the show floor. I don't know how many of those rooms littered across the upper levels were free, but maybe there could be a partnership with the Westin as well where some devs can showcase in their conference rooms? It would help spread out the show a little bit and reduce clutter in certain areas.
Also, and maybe this is just pure coincidence, but please, by all means, try and spread out the big name titles! In 2011, LA Noire, Duke Nukem, Gears of War 3 and Brink were all directly across from each other, much like Max Payne 3, Spec Ops/Borderlands 2 and Assassin's Creed 3 were all pinned right next to eachother this year. This could help alleviate that clump that was right down the escalator heading into Expo.
The description of the panel made me even more interested, it read:
Now to you that would seem like you were going to talk about HOW they got where they were, but what ended up happening was they spent 95% of the panel talking about their game. I was a little annoyed by this but I am not rude and won't leave in the middle of the panel. The group was lucky enough to film and publish the panel so you too can see what they talked about. It wasn't until this point where someone brought up the fact that the description of the panel didn't match what was actually taking place. Then the marketing guy (who talked majority of the time) started to brush over little things about how they got to where they are.
If you want to watch the full panel you can watch it here
Now I was given a survey and I made sure I mentioned this and how frustrated I was with the panel and how they described it. It wasn't until today that I saw that the description on the East.paxsite.com page has changed to now this.
Which made me even more upset because this is what I saw on my Guidebook description which was their "Official" event guide
I didn't see if this was brought up before after PAX East but I just needed to bring this to people's attention because I felt that people were essentially tricked to see this panel and the recent events just proves it even more.
Thank you for your time.
It's possible the schedule changed on the official site during pax and wasn't pushed to the mobile app. The panelists provide the panel description, and they may have updated it last minute. That does suck, but the schedule can be fluid and doesn't update in all places at once (although it would be nice if it did).
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I thought that was the case, I don't have proof that the description was the same during PAX East but I remember looking at it and it was the same.