swag bag sizes

thegh0sts

With the thought of going to PAX and getting free schwag intriguing me what's a good carrying capacity for a swag bag?

Alazull

Should be the size of a regular backpack or messenger bag, depending on your preferences. Just make sure it's something you can carry without it getting in everyone's way.

Also, it's not a bad idea to unload swag on trips to your hotel room.

SecCom

Alright my suggestion is that you always need to grab a free swag bag. This year was disappointing because it took me a long ass time to find a good bag. I have a pretty big messenger bag, but it won't fit all the t-shirts and posters that I aquire over the course of the event. The one they gave at pirate publishing (is this right?) was huge and would hold just about everything, so I think that was perfect.

But in conclusion, bring a bag with your important stuff and a place to store things that you've bought at the con, but always grab a free swag bag for t-shirts and other junk

Kwisatz Haderach

As big as you can find on the show floor, or bring from a previous year - that Horde/Warmachine bag was fanTASTic, even beat out the Nexon bag from last year in sheer carrying capacity. Will definitely be saving those for next year.

thegh0sts

I bought a maxpedition monsoon gearslinger (part messenger bag part back pack) earlier in the year and so i'm hoping that 1600 cubic inches (or 26.2 litres/kg for those using metric system) will be plenty.

adester

I would suggest a backpack to fold then roll the shirt in and store all the passes etc in.
Bring a poster tube with you for the posters. If you want you put string through it so you can carry it on your back.

thegh0sts

adester wrote: »

I would suggest a backpack to fold then roll the shirt in and store all the passes etc in.
Bring a poster tube with you for the posters. If you want you put string through it so you can carry it on your back.

I'll grab a mailing tube when I'm there then when i collect enough i can just mail it back home. My maxpedition gearslinger should have enough space to fit any swag, passport/documentation, PAX passes, and one of those hydration bladders....been meaning to get one of those too.

Xarthan

I had a pretty big backpack with a carboard tube stuffed inside for posters. I was amazed that the end of each day it was full of SWAG goodness and tshirts.

RoyceSraphim

I brought one of these to wear with one of these in about 1L for my gameboy an nick nacks. The Killzone messenger bag secured to the front of my backpack and worked pretty well to hold the Guild Wars 2 cards (boo! No artbook this year!) and other stuff I needed to whip out quickly. Wish I had gotten it the first day.

I got those bags from temp work at Cascade designs. Brutal late night work with some of the other temps being the very definition of silly geese but teh amount of free and slightly burned gear was well worth it.

DTJAAAAM

Both of the other major conventions I visited this year (E3 and Comic-Con) offered gigantic shoulder bags like these as swag bags:



I'd hoped to see them here, too. After dealing with a bunch of wimpy bags and ripping my poor DQIX slime bag, I simply brought my Comic-Con and E3 bags on the last two days to save me the trouble.

karmacappa

I'll tell you honestly from my experience in Europe. The best possible bag is about a dollar at IKEA. IKEA makes these really big bags that are pretty much impossible to damage. SWAG, moving to another house, carrying huge rocks around, whatever you need to do with it, that IKEA bag can probably handle. In Scandanavia, these things are ubiquitous.

FRAKTA

omerome

I really did underestimate my first PAX. Needless to say that I was pretty surprised that I fit everything I wanted to keep in a regular bookbag.

My goal was to come with two carry on bags and an empty bookbag. I left with the two carry on bags and the stuff from my bookbag inside of my carry ons. Sorry if it sounds kind of confusing lol.

World as Myth

pax has always had the big bags at one booth or another in previous years

but this year the biggest ones I saw were the torchlight 2 totes, which were pretty small

MTSonic11

I also put my vote in for backpack. I bought an Ogio backpack last year for around $40-50 for the sole purpose of PAX East and didn't regret it. I carried my netbook with me (to unload video from our Flip HD camera when needed) and all of my swag, as well as snacks and water.

They had fantastic padded shoulder straps and of course evenly distributed weight, so I was never aggravated with it or in pain. As long as you're mindful of your extra size and not smashing into people, it shouldn't be an issue maneuvering yourself.

I'm not a huge fan of normal bags because after while they agitate your hands/wrists/elbows. You don't really think about it but after walking around for 8-10 hours, you will. Plus, you need your hands free and not hurting to experience all the goodness.

MarySue

DTJAAAAM wrote: »

Both of the other major conventions I visited this year (E3 and Comic-Con) offered gigantic shoulder bags like these as swag bags:

Oooh, I saw you walking around with that and got all excited, took me a while to figure out it wasn't swag at THIS con.

Jenny_Spaghetti

I think it was Privateer Press that had the big bags this year.

I totally failed on this front cause the bag I brought looked way bigger in Vancouver than it did in Seattle. Damned exchange rates! Plus, I just bought way too much stuff. I ended up with ripped plastic bags and a few tears shed.

Kwisatz Haderach

MarySue wrote: »

DTJAAAAM wrote: »

Both of the other major conventions I visited this year (E3 and Comic-Con) offered gigantic shoulder bags like these as swag bags:

Oooh, I saw you walking around with that and got all excited, took me a while to figure out it wasn't swag at THIS con.

Ditto on that, I was 0.005 seconds away from walking up and asking you where on EARTH you got such an awesome bag, when the big "Comic-Con" logo whacked me upside the eyes and crushed my spirits. Definitely gonna have to make it there at some point.

feitocomfruta

I would have to agree that taking a swag bag break is a good idea. Let's face it, PAX is awesome with a capital AWE. But even then you need to take a break and go back to your hotel room, if for nothing more than doing a swag drop. But while you're in your hotel room, switch socks, sit down and stretch, take a Mexican shower (does anyone else call it that?), nom on a sammich, and other things.

For me, I think I'll try to work a swag bag into my Professor Layton costume. If my crafting skills were better, I'd attempt to make the Diabolical box into a backpack, but I may go with the tea set into a messenger bag.

ravemonger

This year I carried this bag around with me. You can wear it as a backpack or messenger bag, nice for when it gets really loaded up and you want to carry the load on two shoulders. Additionally I had one of these bags tucked away inside for extra carrying capacity in case I couldn't unload at the hotel soon enough.

Typically though I make frequent trips back to the hotel to unload, rest for a bit and get some food.

thegh0sts

thanks for the advice. can't wait to go in september