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PAX PRIME 2012 Information and FAQ (READ THIS FIRST, THEN ASK ALL QUESTIONS HERE)
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There's already a PAX rate, which is the big group discount. I don't believe that OnPeak gives any additional discounts after that. The easiest thing to do is to simply call OnPeak once the hotels are out and work it out over the phone.
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I'm really looking forward to Prime. I've been trying to go for 3 or 4 years now, but every time my family's vacation plans got in the way. Thankfully, I was able to make sure nothing would get in the way this year.
The hotels aren't sold out. They are blocked off by OnPeak for PAX bookings. When the site goes live, you'll be able to book at the nearby hotels at the PAX rate.
Last year I compared the PAX rate with the going rate of several of the other hotels across several time points (I'm sure many first timers do this, right? You're all price obssessed? I've been checking flight costs about 1-2x/week.) I'll spare you the trouble, the PAX rate is remarkably good. You're not going to get a better rate short of opaque bidding sites (and even that I'm not sure you would.) Even access to other things (special rates for AAA, priority rewards club, government, etc.) didn't come close.
That being the case, IMHO, (and this is just MHO) I'd let people fend for themselves for rooms (i.e. break down in to whatever small groups works best and natuarally happens), otherwise you could end up holding the bag for a lot of hotel rooms.
That being said, Onepeak has a pretty liberal cancellation policy (2 weeks IIRC?), so there's that I suppose. But who would want to be that guy holding a bunch of rooms while we all wail and gnash teeth trying to get them.
One more note, Last year the wife and I decided to stay an extra night in downtown Seattle, we had originally planned to crash at a friends (Paging @Cybit, who will undoubtedly see this and jump in because he knows when I'm talking about him) but were too freaken exhausted to go back to Bellevue (yes, that tired.) The Hyatt did extend our stay, at the group rate even! (Thanks Hyatt!) but there was a scary 36 or so hours where it was "we have to see if someone cancels, we're 95% sure you'll get a room but..." So yeah, planning is good. (Thanks BTW to whoever canceled and/or didn't show up, we really loved our room that last night, it allowed us to grab dinner with another set of friends and then immediately crash sans driving back.)
OnPeak transfers the reservations to the hotels about 2 weeks-ish before pax, but you still have up to 72 hours before the check-in date to cancel with the hotel in most cases.
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Ahh yes, that's it, I always get those two numbers mixed up. In any case, liberal cancellation policy (all things considered. The last 4 hotels I booked with to get a decent rate I had to use the "No cancellations" option.)
There's no one that's "not a great fit for jamspace." Anyone is welcome to come in. If you're not one of the officially scheduled jamspace acts, your whole group can still hop on for 10 or 15 minutes during open jam time.
Yeah, ^^ this. Headliner bands have played jamspace in the past. Jamspace is for everyone!
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$15 savings per day on parking is pretty good. Thanks for that find.
Also I'm confused, maybe I misread, but the hotels are or are not up for reservation? Are they just blocked off already, but we are still waiting for them to be available to us?
The Hotel registration is not up for us yet. Right now OnPeak has placed a large block hold on the hotel rooms and will be putting them up for us to register soon™. Once the hotels go up on the website the hotels that seem to go the fastest are the Sheraton & Homewood suites. If you want either of those you need to be quick.
Oooh trust me, I'm always booked on the first day. But I just wanted to make sure there wasn't some early accessing thing I missed bc someone said East got early access to the hotels or something.
Being the first to hit the Expo floor, if that's an important thing to you. You can also avoid some of the expo lines (although you would have had to be in the GIANT LINE first...). Personally I don't stand in it anymore because there's no real advantage that I know of unless you just want to be first.
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My Backloggery
My Goodreads. Like a Backloggery for books.
FWIW, the wife and I didn't figure this out until someone told us (so I figured I'd share the love early) but you don't actually have to wait in the Expo hall line to get a swag bag (you would think this is obvious, but for us n00bs it wasn't.) If they do it like that did last year the bags were in the same place as the line (hence our confusion.)
FWIW, I don't plan on waiting in the Expohall line this year (we waited in the HaloFest line last year.) We may still get up early-ish (prior to the floor opening) and just wander the open areas of the expo hall (get oru map, get oriented, get breakfast, etc.) Word was last year even waiting in the big line didn't necessarily net you much if you weren't right up front and had the floor map memorized to get to the AAA stuff fastest.
The line can be a lot of fun if you're in the mood to hang out with people, play games, and generally chill out. There's also silly line entertainment stuff going on which is always a good laugh
Otherwise, by 10:30/10:45 you should be able to get in without having to go through the line. There's a benefit to being in the line if you want to get to something that will be super popular/long waits, but you need to get there early in order to make it worthwhile. Otherwise you'll have 5000 people ahead of you with the same thing in mind.
PAX will be awesome no matter what you do
In order:
Bus system with an expanding light rail system that for now will only help you get between the airport and downtown where the convention is.
It's not super dangerous, but still use common sense.
None of the hotels are far enough away to warrant shuttle service. I don't remember all of the official PAX hotels, but I don't think any are more than a half-mile out, compared to 5-6 miles for some of the East hotels.
Odds are if you're walking out from the concerts, there will be other people heading your direction as well.
do you know the name of the bus system? Trying to find out routes
You're more likely to get bumped if you don't use OnPeak than if you do use OnPeak, no matter when you book a hotel. The only thing would be if suddenly it was not available because you didn't jump on the OnPeak system fast enough. You can do a search for last year's hotel thread and find last year's hotels. It will likely be mostly the same.
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Been looking around for some insight on this and not able to find much, is there much of a difference in the 3 different PAX expos? I know different locations but does one focus on different things than another? I have never been to any of the conventions and I am planning on going next year (2013). Any help or a point in the right direction would be great, thanks =D
There are only really 2 PAXen. PAX Dev is really a pre-PAX Prime developer conference for industry professionals, and it's not really related to PAX Prime and PAX East other than the name. PAX is PAX though, the major differences are the locations and the buildings in which they are housed. There have been lots of threads about this in the past, maybe search around the forums a bit.
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@mfcx: If that is what you meant, PAX Dev is an industry event meant for game developers only (lots of technical talks). Between East and Prime, besides specific panels and concert acts, the two shows are pretty much the same.
EDIT : Is there a size difference? I am sure some developers will present at both, but do more AAA companies go to east than prime? Main reason I ask is I feel I have seen more coverage of PAX east in the past (and no not just recently, yes I know PAX east just happened).
Thanks again!
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It depends on what the developers have to show. East is larger than Prime now in all aspects (attendees, building space, expo space, theater space, tabletop/freeplay space). Sometimes this translates into East getting some cool stuff, sometimes it doesn't. Prime is closer to a lot of the Seattle devs, so it's easier for places to get to Seattle sometimes. It's all about what's new and ready to show. East often gets whatever people showed at GDC, and Prime often gets whatever people showed at E3. Sometimes they get exclusive new things.
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Will OnPeak have any of the Suites available at the Sheraton? If not, anyone have any other ideas on the closer hotels from the previous years?
[ ] PAX Coin Ordered/Reserved
Try emailing pax@onpeakevents.com. They should be able to answer your question.
Alternatively, you can try http://www.airbnb.com/. You might be able to rent an apartment for Prime!
Twitter: @MrArcys
and with that cost, your group may be better off just booking 2 rooms
I'm just wanting to try & get everything organized for when registration opens up, that way we won't miss out on getting what we want.
[ ] PAX Coin Ordered/Reserved
Since they were not available for booking, I wondered if they were reserved for PAX.
[ ] PAX Coin Ordered/Reserved
perhaps for VIPs or something? Not sure. Give the Hyatt, Olive 8 or the Westin a call.
From WSCC door to hotel elevator, hyatt is closer... by like 15 paces