When it comes to swag being handed out at booths, i was a little disappointed at first because in 2013 i came out with like 10 new shirts. However, i like the idea of cutting back on swag or handing it out differently to keep people who only want swag from taking away spots in the demo line. Maybe having some sort of swag ticket given to attendees that they could get punched or turn in at the booths they wanted swag from? So if you wanted to play a game but didn't care about the shirt you wouldn't have to get one. But if you wanted a shirt but weren't interested in the demo you could just turn in your ticket and go?
RE7 kind of did this. If you got in early enough to get an official demo ticket you'd get a shirt when you showed up and completed your scheduled demo. They punched the ticket first when you arrived then again when you left with your shirt. If you just waited in their standby line you could still eventually play the demo as people failed to show up but you didn't get a shirt. I hadn't known there was a difference and certainly didn't rush it for the swag but having the scheduled appointment was pretty nice, though you still had to wait a little bit for them to clear the groups before you.
I liked this system for the most part but didn't care for how it still forced you to rush first thing to get your ticket rather than getting in line. No real way around it unless they staggered ticket releases throughout the day rather than giving them all out first thing in the morning. At least their standby line moved at a pretty decent pace, and it helped their demo was only maybe 5 min long.
RE: BYOC - This was my first PAX and I plan to return. I attended with my 10 year old son, who was completely stoked the whole time (me too). The big thing for us was BYOC. We are builders and LAN-party enthusiasts. We had a good time, but the mood wasn't what we are told it usually is at BYOC. Very little attention, prizes or sponsorship. They had to scrape together prizes for the contests (like seriously), and I was told that previously there were a couple of hundred prizes, so you had a really good chance of winning something if you did BYOC. Enforcers seemed like figuring something out to even have BYOC was kind of thrust upon them at the last minute. They did the best they could (and a great job). It's such an awesome thing, I'd like to see it grow not shrink, it seemed light on attendance. I don't understand this, it's THE most rad thing to have a place (your own personal space) at the con! Also, i was told you used to be able to get into BYOC early and line up earlier for expo (in the annex), meaning that if you showed up and did BYOC you could basically be some of the first folks on the floor each day as a perk (freaking awesome perk). After all, folks who haul 150lbs of gaming gear with them to the con are the staunch backbone of the gaming community who support all (a lot of) that stuff that's going on at the expo floor. I heard a rumor that Intel pulled their usual sponsorship and this was the reason. If that's true, dumb move Intel, i hope you course correct, but there should be plenty of other companies motivated to help out. My advice is make BYOC bigger and better, it's the shiz.
RE: BYOC - This was my first PAX and I plan to return. I attended with my 10 year old son, who was completely stoked the whole time (me too). The big thing for us was BYOC. We are builders and LAN-party enthusiasts. We had a good time, but the mood wasn't what we are told it usually is at BYOC. Very little attention, prizes or sponsorship. They had to scrape together prizes for the contests (like seriously), and I was told that previously there were a couple of hundred prizes, so you had a really good chance of winning something if you did BYOC. Enforcers seemed like figuring something out to even have BYOC was kind of thrust upon them at the last minute. They did the best they could (and a great job). It's such an awesome thing, I'd like to see it grow not shrink, it seemed light on attendance. I don't understand this, it's THE most rad thing to have a place (your own personal space) at the con! Also, i was told you used to be able to get into BYOC early and line up earlier for expo (in the annex), meaning that if you showed up and did BYOC you could basically be some of the first folks on the floor each day as a perk (freaking awesome perk). After all, folks who haul 150lbs of gaming gear with them to the con are the staunch backbone of the gaming community who support all (a lot of) that stuff that's going on at the expo floor. I heard a rumor that Intel pulled their usual sponsorship and this was the reason. If that's true, dumb move Intel, i hope you course correct, but there should be plenty of other companies motivated to help out. My advice is make BYOC bigger and better, it's the shiz.
I think one big hit to BYOC was single-day attendance...BYOC used to be limited to 3/4-day pass holders, so you knew people were (theoretically) there all weekend. Now I see quite a few BYOC folks that area clearly only there for 2, 3 days tops. I think that hurts sponsorship, and attendance as a whole. I still maintain there needs to be some sort of way to allow BYOC attendance all four days, regardless of what passes you have for PAX.
RE: BYOC - This was my first PAX and I plan to return. I attended with my 10 year old son, who was completely stoked the whole time (me too). The big thing for us was BYOC. We are builders and LAN-party enthusiasts. We had a good time, but the mood wasn't what we are told it usually is at BYOC. Very little attention, prizes or sponsorship. They had to scrape together prizes for the contests (like seriously), and I was told that previously there were a couple of hundred prizes, so you had a really good chance of winning something if you did BYOC. Enforcers seemed like figuring something out to even have BYOC was kind of thrust upon them at the last minute. They did the best they could (and a great job). It's such an awesome thing, I'd like to see it grow not shrink, it seemed light on attendance. I don't understand this, it's THE most rad thing to have a place (your own personal space) at the con! Also, i was told you used to be able to get into BYOC early and line up earlier for expo (in the annex), meaning that if you showed up and did BYOC you could basically be some of the first folks on the floor each day as a perk (freaking awesome perk). After all, folks who haul 150lbs of gaming gear with them to the con are the staunch backbone of the gaming community who support all (a lot of) that stuff that's going on at the expo floor. I heard a rumor that Intel pulled their usual sponsorship and this was the reason. If that's true, dumb move Intel, i hope you course correct, but there should be plenty of other companies motivated to help out. My advice is make BYOC bigger and better, it's the shiz.
I think one big hit to BYOC was single-day attendance...BYOC used to be limited to 3/4-day pass holders, so you knew people were (theoretically) there all weekend. Now I see quite a few BYOC folks that area clearly only there for 2, 3 days tops. I think that hurts sponsorship, and attendance as a whole. I still maintain there needs to be some sort of way to allow BYOC attendance all four days, regardless of what passes you have for PAX.
I kind of agree, but 4 days passes didnt exist in 2015 either, and it was the same as the other 2 years I got into the BYOC.
I think perhaps their planning was disturbed by the loss of one R.Khoo.
RE: BYOC - This was my first PAX and I plan to return. I attended with my 10 year old son, who was completely stoked the whole time (me too). The big thing for us was BYOC. We are builders and LAN-party enthusiasts. We had a good time, but the mood wasn't what we are told it usually is at BYOC. Very little attention, prizes or sponsorship. They had to scrape together prizes for the contests (like seriously), and I was told that previously there were a couple of hundred prizes, so you had a really good chance of winning something if you did BYOC. Enforcers seemed like figuring something out to even have BYOC was kind of thrust upon them at the last minute. They did the best they could (and a great job). It's such an awesome thing, I'd like to see it grow not shrink, it seemed light on attendance. I don't understand this, it's THE most rad thing to have a place (your own personal space) at the con! Also, i was told you used to be able to get into BYOC early and line up earlier for expo (in the annex), meaning that if you showed up and did BYOC you could basically be some of the first folks on the floor each day as a perk (freaking awesome perk). After all, folks who haul 150lbs of gaming gear with them to the con are the staunch backbone of the gaming community who support all (a lot of) that stuff that's going on at the expo floor. I heard a rumor that Intel pulled their usual sponsorship and this was the reason. If that's true, dumb move Intel, i hope you course correct, but there should be plenty of other companies motivated to help out. My advice is make BYOC bigger and better, it's the shiz.
I think one big hit to BYOC was single-day attendance...BYOC used to be limited to 3/4-day pass holders, so you knew people were (theoretically) there all weekend. Now I see quite a few BYOC folks that area clearly only there for 2, 3 days tops. I think that hurts sponsorship, and attendance as a whole. I still maintain there needs to be some sort of way to allow BYOC attendance all four days, regardless of what passes you have for PAX.
I kind of agree, but 4 days passes didnt exist in 2015 either, and it was the same as the other 2 years I got into the BYOC.
I think perhaps their planning was disturbed by the loss of one R.Khoo.
I would doubt that. As big as PAX has gotten I'm sure most if not all the planning is pretty much cemented months if not a year in advance, at least for big repeated events like BYOC. And he left during what, the middle of the summer? After tickets had sold at least I think. By then I'm sure most everything was already squared away.
I would guess that BYOC/LAN attendance in general is simply down everywhere. To me it honestly comes across as a bit of a dated concept, especially now that most games do their multiplayer online rather via LAN. Even my friends who host a couple of personal LANs a year don't do BYOC because they go to PAX to try out new stuff, not just play the same games they could at home. I get that a lot of times it's more fun to play with people in-person, but given everything else that's going at PAX it's gotta be hard for them to compete for people's attention. If BYOC has gotten as bad as people keep saying it has I wouldn't be surprised if they start re-using some of that space for something else. BYOCers weren't the only ones who noticed that whole section of the annex was pretty much empty the whole con.
Well yeah, it's mostly empty during con hours, people are at the con! But yeah, attendance could have been better it looked like to me, still a lot of folks there though. Lots of people just get spots and don't spend much time there. It's a sweet place to have a spot even if you don't hang out there all the time. Dated, maybe, awesome yes. People who had attended prior years just said it used to be better. Seems like something that could be turned back around to me. I stand by my earlier statement, people who haul their gear are hardcore supporters of gaming and support those companies up on the con floor. But if we need the space for more XBOXes, then well I'm not interested.
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The GeekOh-Two Crew, OmeganautRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I know booths are designed by the exhibitors, but encouraging them to have better accessibility for those in wheelchairs and other issues would be greatly appreciated.
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I liked this system for the most part but didn't care for how it still forced you to rush first thing to get your ticket rather than getting in line. No real way around it unless they staggered ticket releases throughout the day rather than giving them all out first thing in the morning. At least their standby line moved at a pretty decent pace, and it helped their demo was only maybe 5 min long.
I think one big hit to BYOC was single-day attendance...BYOC used to be limited to 3/4-day pass holders, so you knew people were (theoretically) there all weekend. Now I see quite a few BYOC folks that area clearly only there for 2, 3 days tops. I think that hurts sponsorship, and attendance as a whole. I still maintain there needs to be some sort of way to allow BYOC attendance all four days, regardless of what passes you have for PAX.
I kind of agree, but 4 days passes didnt exist in 2015 either, and it was the same as the other 2 years I got into the BYOC.
I think perhaps their planning was disturbed by the loss of one R.Khoo.
I would guess that BYOC/LAN attendance in general is simply down everywhere. To me it honestly comes across as a bit of a dated concept, especially now that most games do their multiplayer online rather via LAN. Even my friends who host a couple of personal LANs a year don't do BYOC because they go to PAX to try out new stuff, not just play the same games they could at home. I get that a lot of times it's more fun to play with people in-person, but given everything else that's going at PAX it's gotta be hard for them to compete for people's attention. If BYOC has gotten as bad as people keep saying it has I wouldn't be surprised if they start re-using some of that space for something else. BYOCers weren't the only ones who noticed that whole section of the annex was pretty much empty the whole con.