One more thing!
Forgot to list this in my cons, but it seemed like all the badges this year possessed some strange magic that made them always face backwards. All of my photos of people have the badges facing backwards. It's uncanny. Next year I might use double-sided tape, I don't know.
This only stopped happening to me when I got a flag to stick to the bottom of mine from the Steve Jackson Games booth. Otherwise I was constantly flipping it over. I guess that little hologram sticker really carries some weight.
One more thing!
Forgot to list this in my cons, but it seemed like all the badges this year possessed some strange magic that made them always face backwards. All of my photos of people have the badges facing backwards. It's uncanny. Next year I might use double-sided tape, I don't know.
I always have my 3/4-day and my BYOC badge facing opposite directions and it seems like it's always facing the BYOC side when I need to display my normal PAX badge and facing the normal badge when I need to show my BYOC.
My apologies to one of the user's above me, but I much preferred Screwattack's arcade to the one last year. Screw Attack seemed to have brought more fighting game (or it felt that way due to their tourneys), more pinball machines, and my absolute favorite arcade game, racing machines.
I was one (of many) who preferred ACAM over ScrewAttack, but I think everyone is totally behind the notion that it'd be great to have more street fighter/fighting game tourneys. Thing is: I thought that'd be more appropriate in the console tournament room. In that sense, I didn't feel like ScrewAttack added anything different to the show, it became a slightly differently-skinned console tournament room that focused mainly on street fighter, whereas ACAM provided a retro 1980's video arcade. Screw Attack didn't add anything PAX didn't already have, whereas ACAM most certainly did.
For me, the problem was also that ScrewAttack brought mostly fighting games. While it was nice to have, the variety of games ACAM brought made it special and more inviting to me. Having the extremely rare Fix-It Felix game last year was a true treat (and my nostalgia for games like Bosconian and other shooters). I agree, many of the fighting games are nice to see, but not really too far off from what are available now on consoles.
That said, an original Street Fighter with those big pressure buttons (not the 6 button standard version) would have been great to see since most people never got to see it.
I think ACAM had 2-3 pinball machines last year, so about on par (since Star Wars was down when I dropped by).
Now that I think of it, the ACAM room also felt like the old 80's arcades with the floor lighting and lasers on the walls and even the projected displays.
On swag bags: What has been in swag bags in previous years that wasn't in them this year other than a pound of garbage advertisements?
Oatmeal CAH cards.
I nearly threw mine out last year. I'm super allergic to oatmeal so I instantly rejected the packets. Thankfully my friend wanted them and was letdown to find cards inside.
On swag bags: What has been in swag bags in previous years that wasn't in them this year other than a pound of garbage advertisements?
Perhaps the best year was...2012, I think? A free copy of Rift and Magicka.
This year it was just the League skin, unless you need another thirty-card starter deck of Magic cards. Honestly I think companies would rather entice you to visit their booth, so a lot of skin codes and goodies go there instead.
This was my 6th PAX East and overall ti was a good experience (Though my group was all cranky at various points of the weekend- not PAX's fault, I think the weather and time of the year was getting to us).
Pros:
-Expo floor layout. WAY better. There was a LOT of people, but it didn't feel like the massive press of humanity like it has in previous years.
-Excellent panels overall. I'm a AAA guy, so the relative lack of them this year forced me to checked out indie games and panels more than I usually do.
-The people were universally awesome.
-The Enforcers: NO bad experiences with enforcers. All universally pleasant and helpful. Plus, while waiting in line for Freezepop, I snagged an orcs must die scarf from the line entertainment crew for doing a 'thing' (in my case, pushups!)
-The final round of the Omegathon FINALLY hit the right sweet spot of length and crowd participation. The game (Pac Man Battle Royale) was fast-paced, didn't drag, simple and kept the crowd entertained. PRevious years (Crokinole (sp?), Cornhole and Space Team) all dragged, either due to the nature of the game, or technical difficulties. The crowd flags after about a half hour of the Omegathon- keep shrot, to the point games like this, and you're golden.
-I finally got to see Freezepop! Always meant to see them, and we snagged front row spots!
-Overall con management- this was the smoothest-run PAX I've seen yet. Lineups were very well managed. Incidents were minimal it was....smooth.
Cons
-Lack of AAA titles- this is definitely due to the timing- 6 weeks after south, the same week as GDC. I'd have liked a couple more of the big publishers.
-Timing. I'm from Montreal, so i'm used to winter...but it was too early this year- too cold, too much snow, just...bleh. you could kinda feel it in the air. Plus, well...daylight savings time was the same week .that always sucks.
-Coat check. Didn't use it, 'cause I couldn't find an empty one.
-Tabletop layout this year was...wonky. Hard to navigate compared to previous years.
-Vending machines. This is a bit more of a personal issue, but I saw it echoed a couple of other times in this thread. I gave up caffeine for Lent (I know, I'm crazy). The vending machines had nothing but Pepsi, Dew and that juice-based Dew energy drink. NOTHING without caffeine. Just some 7-up or Crush or something in there would be ideal.
As an aside: you only begin to realize how well PAX is run until you attend other cons that aren't so well-run (which is to say: most of them). Little details like maps showing where you are and where the different theatres/locations are, people pointing out where the ends of lines are, little things like that help immensely.
Ok, so longtime lurker but first time forum poster. I felt compelled to participate here because I was discussing exactly this with my friends...
I've been to PAX 6 times now, since they started PAX East, and this was both the best AND worst year so far.
Many of the problems were, upon reflection, NOT the fault of PAX/Reed. But I'm going to mention them anyway, and leave it at that.
Pros:
Tabletop gets better and better. So many great games. Maybe it's because I'm getting back into tabletop... Management of it is another story (see cons).
Condoms against humanity. 'Nuff said.
Lots of different vendors, especially in the tabletop area. I now own an AMAZING Koa-wood dice box, and some dice made of jade.
No more Riot stadium. (See cons)
TONS of amazing indie games. So good!
Food trucks! Not sure if this was intentional or opportunistic, but it was GREAT nonetheless.
No AAA games. Means more indie for me!
Dedicated arena area for competitive gaming. What a great idea!
Queue area breaking up the floor. Good call. But do we even need it?
Cons:
Tabletop gets worse and worse... managed. The Magic area was huge and underfilled... and there wasn't the easy access of "hey my 9 year old wants to learn to play" sponsored events running 24/7 like in previous years. (My older son attended this at his first PAX and was hooked!)
Food was worse than ever. Lines were hugely long. Total lack of choices at the satellite stations, and the main food court was packed all day every day. This is pretty crazy. The amount of food was probably the same, but the junk food was outrageous. What happened to the "hey a quick chicken sandwich or burger" area? I know, it was razed to add more unused Magic tables...
Décor was off. One of the best parts of PAX for me and my kids each year is walking in the front door and being like "WHOA LOOK AT THE TRIBES DROP TROOPERS HANGING FROM THE CEILING" or "OMG A LIFESIZED SONGBIRD". Actually this is probably an overall convention reorganization issue - there was no PopCap booth up top, no extra merch, no roving Borderlands vending machines, really just a lot less fun spontaneous stuff.
Was there a Cards Against Humanity deck this year? Seems like they were just signing stuff. And giving out condoms.
No more Riot stadium. I know, this is a pro right? But it also means that there was a LOT less LoL cosplay on the floor.
Less cosplay in general. More restrictive cosplay rules, too.
OMG WHY NO ARCADE I AM SO SAD THIS WAS WHERE I WENT AFTER 6PM.
Lines. Lines for relatively small things. This is probably due to the lack of AAA titles, but when I arrived AT THE OPENING BELL on Sunday I didn't expect a 3 hour wait for the Behemoth game. WTF?
Lack of AAA titles. This is both good and bad.
Why oh why the same weekend as DST and GDC? This is terrible in all ways.
Crazy floor raffles that suck. It's one thing if the raffles are fun and awesome, but if they are full of smelly angry people shouting obscenities at the announcers and being mean to other attendees, they need to go.
Raffles in general if they are going to take up more room than the AAA games they displaced.
How about NOT queueing inside? This may not be possible, of course. BCEC rules might prohibit putting 50,000 nerds in the main halls before opening. Or in the front. But it seems like they could spread out the showfloor, sell more booths, or bring back more seating if they cut down this queue size.
WHY ARE THERE NO PLACES TO SIT DOWN EVER UNLESS YOU ARE PLAYING MAGIC?
Where was the D&D booth? It was my 9 year old's first PAX and there was no giant Dragon or Lloth for him to gawk at.
Lousy swag. LITERALLY just a Magic Deck, a LoL skin, and a card. That's IT. Ick.
Overall, I had a BLAST. I played more/better games than ever, I played more tabletop, and had a great time. But it FELT lame in comparison to previous years. That bummed me out. I'm hoping next year with its April date will be better.
I wont break mine down into simple pros and cons but instead will identify things I think could use improvement along with a basic idea on how to do just that when I can.
I have been to all 6 PAX East events and this one was good and bad.
First off:
Lines: They are long and if you keep them capped like there were the whole time all you are doing is pissing people off. There needs to be a system in place so if you cap you don't just have people hovering the area for hours waiting for it. The enforcers telling people to go away does not work! They want to do the event and at the rate you cap it if they do not hover they will never get a chance. There should be some type of system maybe with tickets that if a line is capped but I am willing to wait till the next day or even just later that I can return. There are the downsides with that sure. People coming later will not be able to play. But at least you wont have helicopter attendees trying to jump in line. Or maybe make use of the queue hall? Have enforcers that keep certain booths capped completely and then have enforcers stationed in the queue hall who will form lines there and then move them into the booth when it is open. You can easily mark a persons hand or badge or use a ticket to indicate they were in line as well to avoid people trying to hop in while moving those people to the booth.
Booths: I swear to god the Twitch booth and Polaris booth were having a competition on who could be the loudest and bring the biggest line. RIGHT NEXT to the escalators. I mean seriously? Move big name booths away from the entrance and exit points and don't put them next to each other like that!
Food: I loved the food this year. I would like to see more places to sit but either way food was awesome! Here is to you Chicken and rice guys!
Swag: Was a decent setup this year. The actual items were not great but the setup is a push in the right direction.
Tabletop: Magic area needed to be much smaller and free play expanded. I went Saturday night and almost half the magic tables were empty while there was no room in free play. If you need to make a change after a certain time that opens some of the magic area to free play.
Time of event: I know PAX has a contract with the MCCA until like 2023 or something like that but please think about changing when the event takes place when you renegotiate the event. We get screwed by the fact PAX South is now just before us and we happen right around GDC and E3.
Enforcer training: On Friday my fiancee cut the heel of her foot decently and was bleeding. We asked an enforcer where the first aid station was yet he was completely unable to answer that. If fact he spent 10 minutes in front of us on his phone looking at guidebook trying to figure it out. I eventually just left him and went to another enforcer who is a friend of mine that was able to help us right of the bat. That is a question EVERY enforcer should know off the top of their head. I know they are volunteers however if they can not supply help then you need different ones actually willing to learn.
Panels: Overall a normally good experience. The NVIDIA panel was a let down and I think there should have been more of an announcement that it got canceled. While I know it was more of a last minute thing there should still have been even a tweet about it from the official PAX twitter.
Raffles: While they shouldn't be banned outright the pulling of the winners at the booth needs to be. Make a rule that says you can have a raffle but the winner must only be announced electronically. Having booths announce their winner publicly while is good for their publicity since it draws many people is bad for PAX. It stops the flow of foot traffic and takes up enforcer time by having to monitor it.
Hours: It would be nice to see the expo hall open longer even if by only an hour. Or if again back to my line issue if there was a ticket system in place that allowed some of the booths to have their overflow come "after" the hall had closed. There is so much to do and the lines can be killer adding an hour to it would make a big difference. Also if there was a ticket system for only certain booths you could still cut back on the enforcers. Have just enough to make sure people didn't go to other booths.
Layout: Certain booths attract bigger crowds. The bigger booths should be moved to the outside and the smaller booths brought more in. This would allow people the freedom of movement in the middle of the hall and should create a better overall flow as people move to the larger booths outside. It would also allow lines to not make such a difference to the paths as they would be forming on the outer edges.
AFK room: This room was amazing. I normally have no problem with the event and in fact wasn't having an issue with it I just went to the room to check it out. I ended up spending about 15 min in there just relaxing. There is just so much background noise at PAX that you get use to it and when it's gone it is so relaxing. I loved this room!
Bag check: While it was yet again not a problem I feel it is such a waste of time. It is not actually security. It is security theater. Unless you are wanding everyone or putting up metal detectors it is worthless. They do a quick check of your bag and completely ignore you. I could have walked in with a small arsenal on my person and no one would have known so please explain what the point is?
-I was worried about this. The pax merch booth was badly set up. I only saw one enforcer over there. And she was by the line telling people where to go. I was telling my friend that anyone could pick up a shirt (or whatever else) and just walk out with it without paying for it. She said it was based mostly on the honors system. I know most people there would pay for the stuff they got, but you always have those people who take advantage of that and just walk away without paying.
-I would say put everything behind the registers and people can ask for the things they want. Yes, it would probably go slower, but there wouldn't be theft.
This was my first PAX. I could only get passes for Friday and Sunday. Overall, it was pretty good.
Pros:
•People were nice.
•Lines actually weren't as bad as I expected.
•A good amount of indie games and they were actually pretty good.
•The layout of the expo hall was nice.
•I loved the little buttons you could get at each booth.
•Bag check at the front was fast.
•I liked the lanyards with this kind of clip
Cons:
•Please. PLEASE don't do PAX East in March again. At least not early March. It's too cold.
•I understand the whole line capping thing, but it was so annoying. "Circle around and come back and you'll be good" yeah no. Couldn't get in that line.
•Split up the Twitch booth and the Polaris booth next time. It was hard to hear what was going on in each booth. Plus you couldn't even move between them. They had one enforcer over there just screaming at us to move. Plus you had both of the booths talking and playing so it was hard to hear the enforcer.
•Have more places to sit down and eat
•Finding the different panel rooms was hard. Even with guidebook. Pax needs to put big signs around saying "Bumblebee theater that way --->" or whatever. the convention center doesn't have the same names for the theater as pax does.
•Have better panels. Only two out of all three days interested me.
Passes:
Put names on them or something. That makes it easier for people to get them. We wouldn't have to worry about scalpers. It would make security go slower, but it would be worth it. Just do something with them so that scalpers won't buy them and they won't go as fast.
This was my first PAX. I could only get passes for Friday and Sunday. Overall, it was pretty good.
Passes:
Put names on them or something. That makes it easier for people to get them. We wouldn't have to worry about scalpers. It would make security go slower, but it would be worth it. Just do something with them so that scalpers won't buy them and they won't go as fast.
Oh it's not scalpers which cause it to sell out so fast. Short of making the event so expensive or unattractive people decide not to go, it's going to sell out almost instantly no matter what you do. They posted something before about how only 3% (or some very small number) of people bought the maximum number of tickets tickets. It also screws over people going in groups when you have to know ahead of time who is going. The group line up changes when you sell passes almost a half year ahead of time.
This was my first PAX. I could only get passes for Friday and Sunday. Overall, it was pretty good.
Passes:
Put names on them or something. That makes it easier for people to get them. We wouldn't have to worry about scalpers. It would make security go slower, but it would be worth it. Just do something with them so that scalpers won't buy them and they won't go as fast.
Oh it's not scalpers which cause it to sell out so fast. Short of making the event so expensive or unattractive people decide not to go, it's going to sell out almost instantly no matter what you do. They posted something before about how only 3% (or some very small number) of people bought the maximum number of tickets tickets. It also screws over people going in groups when you have to know ahead of time who is going. The group line up changes when you sell passes almost a half year ahead of time.
It would also screw panelists. I buy a badge but then submit a panel (panelists are given badges). By the time I learn whether the panel is approved or not, it's too late to refund the badge. I generally sell it to a friend, or online.
Also, can you imagine the chaos of carding 100,000 people at the door? Scalpers suck but the problem here isn't scalpers, it is that lots of people want to go to PAX but the BCEC is only so big.
-I was worried about this. The pax merch booth was badly set up. I only saw one enforcer over there. And she was by the line telling people where to go. I was telling my friend that anyone could pick up a shirt (or whatever else) and just walk out with it without paying for it. She said it was based mostly on the honors system. I know most people there would pay for the stuff they got, but you always have those people who take advantage of that and just walk away without paying.
-I would say put everything behind the registers and people can ask for the things they want. Yes, it would probably go slower, but there wouldn't be theft.
Theft sucks and people shouldn't do it. That said, the PA staff are VERY experienced convention merch sellers and I would be shocked if "shrinkage" wasn't a line item on their budgets. It may actually be more profitable to lose a few shirts to thieves in exchange for a faster line that sells more things with a smaller staff. All retailers balance speed vs security to maximize overall profits (and comfort) -- otherwise every store would be a vending machine under armed guard.
As usual, the number of attendees is out of hand. Start charging more for badges and limit the amount of people. For the very few AAA games that were there, the lines were capped at all times. "Come back in 40 minutes" was bullshit - would have been better off just saying "you'll never get in this line so stop trying."
There NEEDS to be better line management. I tried all day for two days to get into the Oculus line this year and last year, but it was always "full."
Problem 1: People sneak into the middle of the line
- If the front of the line is moving every 7 minutes, but the back of the line hasn't moved an inch in two hours, there is something wrong. A good portion of the PAX attendees are not going to stop someone from cutting in, as long as it doesn't directly hurt them, so self-policing does not work.
Problem 2: When the line is closed/full, there needs to be a better way to get into the line.
- When a line re-opens, whoever happens to be there that second gets in. With this system, someone can waste the whole day trying to get into the one line they want to get into, but never get in. It is very frustrating to try all day only to never get in.
Problem 3: Demo staff/enforcers lie about when a line will open. I understand that many are just going on the best information available, but some are outright deceitful. It is much better to know you will never get in than to continue a pointless struggle.
Possible Solutions:
- Some lines use physical queuing line barriers, while some just use tape on the ground. It is much harder to sneak in if there is a physical barrier to cross.
- Instruct enforcers to be more vigilant about this problem.
- Implement a deli ticket like system to get into the lines, or have a separate queue to get into the main queue. (NOTE: since 4G/wireless is essentially useless inside the convention center due to the tremendous load, do not make this phone-related).
I say this every year, but cut down on demo times. 20, 30, 40 minutes to try a game is absolutely outrageous. I rather stand in a 30 minute line and play for like 10 minutes than have to wait 4 hours. The Halo 5 booth DID THIS RIGHT. Halo 5 had 3 games going at a time and the game types were each around 10 minutes long - this line moved so fast I actually got to play it multiple times.
There are only X number of hours in the convention, so shorter demo times = more demo users. If I like the demo, I will buy the game. If I can't try the demo because the line is too long, I will NOT buy the game.
Demo times should be capped. 10 minutes is more than enough to get a feel of most games.
Lack of non-indie games? The Xbox and Gigantic booth were my favorite things on the show floor (and then Oculus and Overwatch, but they were impossible to ever get into so they don't count), everything else felt like non-gaming companies (NewEgg, YouTube, etc) or developers that had these big awesome booths with nothing except a few TVs to watch game play, nothing playable. No Ubisoft, Bethesda, Riot, 2k, RockStar, etc that have awesome booths and games. I really wish PAX East wasn't right before E3, we get shafted because of it.
I generally come to PAX to demo AAA games so I can decide if I will pre-order them or not. Getting something the general population can't have is what makes PAX special. If there aren't any AAA games, or if the games are already released, why go? If the game is released, I would prefer to buy a game to try it than pay to go to PAX and waste 3 hours in line to try it. However, if there were more AAA titles, the balance would shift, since I am far less likely to buy 4 AAA games just to try them then I am 1.
I apologize for going after some of the cons that people are putting up, but the title of this thread is "constructive feedback" and there isn't anything constructive about complaining over lines and BO.
I disagree. Just because PAX doesn't have direct control over something, doesn't mean they shouldn't try to influence it. They want to have the best PAX possible and they need to know where to focus their efforts. And just because something is hard, doesn't mean it's impossible.
BO: They can ask people to shower/use deodorant
Lines: Yes, there will always be lines. At the same time, lines can be managed better. If they know lines are a problem, they can try ways to make it better. Ignoring the problem will guarantee the lines will be just as bad or worse as last year.
I've been to every PAX East so far, and this was one of the better showings, with a few notable exceptions:
Cons
-Tabletop got squished to make room for everything else on the floor. The fact that PC and Magic got such HUGE portions of the floor meant it was damn near impossible to find a seat, and in years past it was already hard to find a seat, even when tables stretched from wall to wall.
-Swag bags. These have been getting worse every year, but this year was just laughable, and a waste of paper and plastic.
-The arcade was run by a different company, and the gMes they brought were underwhelming. They were the type of games I'd expect to see in an airport. Please find a way to get the old crew back.
-Lack of tournament organization. I played in a Towerfall and Ticket to Ride tournament, and both were poorly run. Match ups were done by where you signed up on the sheet, which meant I was playing against my friend. The Towerfall event in particular...the Enforcer calling out names had trouble being heard, even with a mike.
Pros
-Indies everywhere! Every year I find the indie, small publisher stuff the most interesting, and this year they took over the Expo Hall and blew off the fucking roof. So many awesome games (Affordable Space Adventures, Move or Die, Speed Runners, motherfuckin' Keep Talking and Nobody Dies!, Downwell, 5 Star Wrestling, so many others I'm forgetting) with the developers right there asking for feedback. THAT'S a big reason I keep coming back to PAX. Fuck the AAA guys. They can stay at E3 for all I care.
-Mahou Shojo. Game of the show for me. Played it Friday, and went and backed the Kickstarter that night in my hotel room.
Just to play devils advocate, is there a convention that manages lines better than PAX East and if so how do they do it?
My only experience with conventions is PAX East and local comic cons.
We were discussing this over on the Pin Podcast tonight. The truth is there simply isn't a good fix for queues. Popular booths will get swarmed, and there is only so much space for queues. But the true underlying problem isn't the long waits. If people are willing to wait for it, they will. The problem is the inherent unfairness of queue capping.
When a queue is capped, everyone who turns up is told to come back later and then they are moved away. But when the queue is opened again, it's to those in the immediate vicinity. Because fairness is a big factor in our brains, we don't like seeing people who turned up after us be allowed to go before us. It's innate, built-in, and frustrating.
Problem is, there isn't an easy fix. People say "Fast Pass" a lot. But then you would have to queue for that, and you need a unique identifier. (Disney use your ticket, to prevent people hoarding Fast Passes.) Building that infrastructure (unique ID's on badges, database, network, software, badge readers) could be done, but it's a big cost for a minimal gain.
There are two things that I can see that need to happen. One can be done by ReedExpo and PAX. The other is up to the vendors.
Vendors need better booth design. Whoever you are, you need to increase your demo station count. At East, it's Blizzard and the Overwatch booth. Whilst it was an eye-catching design, it wasn't an efficient use of space. Make better use of the space to put more demo stations in, and you increase your throughput. More eyeballs on your game, more potential sales. So why do booths still insist on such large amounts of wasted space? I'm blaming E3 for rotting designers brains with an instilled need for "funky" design to grab the eye of photographers. You don't need that at PAX. You need to run huge amounts of people through the booth so they play your game and get a chance to decide they like it.
PAX: Make signs that say "About 30/60/90/120 minutes from this point". How do you know where to put them? Ask the vendors how long the demo is. Count the number of booths. Work out how many bodies they will get through in 30/60/90/120 minutes. Rough estimates are about 15-18" of queue length per person. Adjust as necessary. Put the signs up.
Why would the signs help? Because human brains are dumb. Say you are willing to wait up to 60 minutes in a queue. Any sign that tells you the wait is longer will make you go somewhere else until the queue dies down. Every person has a different number, but the distribution is a bell-curve. Most people will not wait 120 minutes if they see a sign. But what really makes human brains dumb is that if you join a queue with no sign and wait past your personal threshold, you are almost guaranteed to stay in the queue because you see the time already spent waiting as "invested" and you don't want to "waste" it. Even if you are then told the wait time from where you are is beyond your threshold, you will stay. And that is how queue capping is born. There is limited space for bodies, and because people don't know if it is going to be past their threshold, they wait.
Remember, the vendors are the ones who can affect the throughput. All ReedExpo and PAX can do is make the waiting fairer. And by putting up signs that discourage long lines, they prevent queue capping which is the cause of unfairness.
My 6th PAXEast and it was great as always. Some things were better this year and some were worse but overall it was a huge success for me. I will address a couple of the more popular issues and give my opinion on them.
Food - It's a convention at a professional convention center. The food is not going to be great and it's going to be overpriced, I highly doubt there is anything Penny Arcade can do about that. However I didn't hear about the food trucks until after I ate on Saturday, so having more word of that reaching the community would have helped.
Lines - Again, it's a huge convention, chances are if you want to see something so do a lot of other people. However, I agree that limiting demo time and better line organization and enforcement is possible, but this requires buy in from Penny Arcade and the booth operators. Things such as "end of line" signs, barriers, and tickets could all help. For instance, Bass Pro Shops does free pictures with Santa every year. When you show up they give you a pass that says to come back at X:XX time and then when you show up you wait in that line (which is considerably shorter). This way the booth stays busy without people having to waste their entire day standing in line. It's not a fast pass or a personal ticket, it's a simple solution to a big problem.
Table Top Freeplay - Believe it or not the area was pretty much on par with years past, however it is becoming a more popular part of PAXEast. Therefore it would be nice to see the area grow even more in the coming years.
Children - PAX is not a place for children under 6 years of age (maybe even older). Especially not the expo hall floor. I am a parent, and seeing the amount of terrified and confused kids being dragged around by their parents (or carried in those harness things) was shocking and disturbing. I know Penny Arcade can't tell people how to raise their kids but maybe have something like a recommended age or height restriction for the show floor.
Pros
Venue - not that the location is a subject of any dispute, but man, BCEC is an impressive place.
Panel lines - I thought the enforcers did a very good job managing the lines for the panels.
Bioware Lounge - was brilliant! I hope more companies do stuff like this.
Indies - The indies just KILLED IT. Played so many sweet games, not to mention creative booths and awesome devs!
ScrewAttack arcade - Ahhh, so many of my favorite fighting games! I could've easily spent a day here if there wasn't so many other things to do. I did get to play in one of the tournaments which was a lot of fun.
E-sports arena - very cool; first time I've gotten to see 'e-sports' live.
Cons
Tabletop - Tabletop wants to expand! Please let it! I saw tables full all the time, people waiting for tables, playing games on the floor, and worse than that, I fear some just decided not to play.
Queue area - it hurt my soul to see this much space go to waste every day, especially considering the aforementioned item. To me, it looks like these dividers could be put into a pile and some tables brought in. Am I wrong? Another idea that somebody else proposed but made a lot of sense, was to use the queue area as secondary lines for the AAA demos. Yes, the enforcers would have to do some wrangling, but, really I think that might have been preferable to the constant chaos that the line capping created for them.
PC freeplay - Would have liked to seen some fresher titles on the PCs. Minor quibble.
Comments
E3 - I have seen several people complain that the date was too close to E3, which is like... what?? E3 is three months away! The farthest you could possibly be from E3 is six months and that would put PAX East in the dead of winter. E3 will always undermine PAX East to some extent, but that can't change; if anything the three-month gap this year is MORE than what will be typical. The bigger concern this year was certainly the direct overlap with GDC. And of course it's been well explained why PAX has limited control over the dates to begin with.
Twitch/Polaris - It's great that people are excited and showing up in droves to see Twitch and Polaris personalities, but, does it belong on an exhibition floor, when nothing is really been exhibited? Not really sure where I stand on this yet, just a thought.
+1
PedroAsaniBrotherhood of the Squirrel[Prime]Registered Userregular
Children - PAX is not a place for children under 6 years of age (maybe even older). Especially not the expo hall floor. I am a parent, and seeing the amount of terrified and confused kids being dragged around by their parents (or carried in those harness things) was shocking and disturbing. I know Penny Arcade can't tell people how to raise their kids but maybe have something like a recommended age or height restriction for the show floor.
My friends had their kids at East. The 10 year old chose his own panels. They both played games and enjoyed themselves. So no, don't have age restrictions for entering the expo.
A height restriction? No. Just stop and think about how many problems that would cause.
Bass Pro Shops does free pictures with Santa every year. When you show up they give you a pass that says to come back at X:XX time and then when you show up you wait in that line (which is considerably shorter). This way the booth stays busy without people having to waste their entire day standing in line. It's not a fast pass or a personal ticket, it's a simple solution to a big problem.
Actually that is exactly how Fast Pass works.
Problem #1: You are just going to have to queue to get that pass. Just as many people want to play the game, and now they believe they can cut their waiting time by getting the pass.
Likely outcome: the queue has moved locations. People arriving at the booth who don't know will be frustrated they have to walk somewhere then walk back to the booth.
Best case scenario: you can relocate big queues to the queue room, and have allocation of these passes start prior to 10am.
Problem #2: How do you prevent people from "farming" these passes? Any kind of unique identifier requires the infrastructure in my earlier post. Your example has the built-in assumption that people only want one photo. Here, there is a non-zero number of people who will either (a) want to play the game multiple times without waiting or (b) see the value in getting lots of these passes and selling them to people. So you have created the PAX Ticket Scalper problem for yourself, a popular item with resale value in excess of the face value (in this case, $0.00).
Likely outcome: your "pass" goes from a slip of paper with writing on it to either an app on a phone or indelible ink handstamps, either of which is still open to abuse by the inventive.
Best case scenario: you pour time and money into implementing an electronic version of Fast Pass.
Problem #3: Assuming you have done your throughput calculations correctly, and you give out all your passes without problems of farming, reselling, etc. Your booth is still popular and you run out of these passes long before everyone has one. But some people will have a pass and not use it, so you have the regular queue to fill in for when less than 100% of the pass allocation show up.
Likely outcome: That regular queue is still huge because people are desperate to try the game. They are now moving slower than previously because of the pass system.
Best case scenario: You now have people who queue all day every day to try your game, and are turned away at 5:30 because your pass allocations showed up and you have no spare slots. Despite this, none of them murder you in the hotel bar later that night.
Just like the PAX Prime Ticket Problem, it's a simple one of Supply being far short of the Demand. The Supply in this instance is the throughput of the booth. The Demand are the attendees queuing to try the game. You have only two ways to solve this. Increase Supply or reduce Demand. Increasing the throughput of the booth is the only way to increase Supply. Reducing Demand is usually unwanted, because Obviously.
All PAX can do is manage the queue, and by marking the wait times they will activate the stupid chemical-bag we haul around in our heads so that the queuing is at least Fair, no matter how long the wait might be.
If you are still haunted by the vision that Slips Of Paper Solve Everything, try this: the Best Case to problem #1 is that the queue has moved out of the expo and into the queue room, which is a bigger space. At least now they can fulfil the queuing dream of "First Come, First Served" rather than the nightmare of "First Come? F You!" that queue capping brings. The head of the queue has a ticket machine, like you see at a busy deli counter or the DMV. You get to the head of the line, get your ticket, and go over to the booth. They have a "Now Serving XXX" sign, and you join the queue in the order of your ticket.
What problems are there in this? Well, you still need Queue Management, only now in two places, one team to manage the Queue Room Queue, another to check tickets at the booth Queue. Infrastructure cost is small (a ticket machine, rolls of tickets and a Now Serving sign) but non-zero, and to a company that matters. After all, "First Come? F You!" is free.
No, you can't distribute these tickets hours in advance without some kind of system to prevent farming. This is the simple, low-cost version. No identity management beyond hoping the Queue Management recognise a face in a sea of faces (hint: they can't.)
PAX can only do Queue Management. So whilst the "Approx. 30/60/90/120 minutes from this point" signs will help things somewhat, they key is to get booth designers to increase Throughput. If you care that much, you need to find them and tell them that More Demo Stations is the most important design feature.
There are two things that I can see that need to happen. One can be done by ReedExpo and PAX. The other is up to the vendors.
Vendors need better booth design. Whoever you are, you need to increase your demo station count. At East, it's Blizzard and the Overwatch booth. Whilst it was an eye-catching design, it wasn't an efficient use of space. Make better use of the space to put more demo stations in, and you increase your throughput. More eyeballs on your game, more potential sales. So why do booths still insist on such large amounts of wasted space? I'm blaming E3 for rotting designers brains with an instilled need for "funky" design to grab the eye of photographers. You don't need that at PAX. You need to run huge amounts of people through the booth so they play your game and get a chance to decide they like it.
Remember, the vendors are the ones who can affect the throughput. All ReedExpo and PAX can do is make the waiting fairer. And by putting up signs that discourage long lines, they prevent queue capping which is the cause of unfairness.
I agree; the booth designs created by the exhibitors play a huge role in how the line ends up.
I'll use Blizzard for example again. First thing I want to say is, for those of y'all who didn't go through the Overwatch line, it was suuuuuper long. Not even time-wise, but capacity-wise. The line started at one corner, then looped forward to the midpoint of the aisle and back, then went all the way around to the kitty corner of the booth, then looped back again to the same midpoint of the aisle, curved inside the booth, and looped back and forth a few times in there. It was crazy long for the amount of perimeter it took up.
Honestly, I think the line design itself was fine. The Enforcers stationed at Blizzard were requesting that people fill in as much space as possible so they could fit more attendees in line. The space was used efficiently, contrary to popular belief. Even then, it wasn't the length of the line that fucked people over; it was the sheer number of attendees that wanted to demo the game COMBINED with the amount of demo time Blizz was giving. I got a chance to play Overwatch at East and let me tell you, that demo felt hella generous in terms of time. They gave two full gameplay rounds per demo which meant 15+ minutes per group if both teams were at least somewhat decent. Blizzard could've easily cut their line time in half by only giving each group one round of combat rather than two. Part of me thinks they realized this and decided not to change it because let's be honest: thousands of people would still flood to their booth no matter what and they'd prefer to give a "full" experience to some people rather than a "partial" experience to many.
Still, the point is that adding more demo stations and cutting the demo in half would've meant a way shorter wait time, and those were all factors dependent on the exhibitor, not ReedPOP, nor PAX, nor the MCCA. A lot of attendees were getting pissed at the line-capping Enforcers for not letting everyone in, but the matter of fact is that when the line uncaps with room for 20 people and there are 50 people standing there waiting to get a spot, a lot of them are going to have to walk away unhappy, and that anger is something Blizzard could've prevented.
Children - PAX is not a place for children under 6 years of age (maybe even older). Especially not the expo hall floor. I am a parent, and seeing the amount of terrified and confused kids being dragged around by their parents (or carried in those harness things) was shocking and disturbing.
I agree; the booth designs created by the exhibitors play a huge role in how the line ends up.
I'll use Blizzard for example again. First thing I want to say is, for those of y'all who didn't go through the Overwatch line, it was suuuuuper long. Not even time-wise, but capacity-wise. The line started at one corner, then looped forward to the midpoint of the aisle and back, then went all the way around to the kitty corner of the booth, then looped back again to the same midpoint of the aisle, curved inside the booth, and looped back and forth a few times in there. It was crazy long for the amount of perimeter it took up.
Honestly, I think the line design itself was fine. The Enforcers stationed at Blizzard were requesting that people fill in as much space as possible so they could fit more attendees in line. The space was used efficiently, contrary to popular belief. Even then, it wasn't the length of the line that fucked people over; it was the sheer number of attendees that wanted to demo the game COMBINED with the amount of demo time Blizz was giving. I got a chance to play Overwatch at East and let me tell you, that demo felt hella generous in terms of time. They gave two full gameplay rounds per demo which meant 15+ minutes per group if both teams were at least somewhat decent. Blizzard could've easily cut their line time in half by only giving each group one round of combat rather than two. Part of me thinks they realized this and decided not to change it because let's be honest: thousands of people would still flood to their booth no matter what and they'd prefer to give a "full" experience to some people rather than a "partial" experience to many.
Still, the point is that adding more demo stations and cutting the demo in half would've meant a way shorter wait time, and those were all factors dependent on the exhibitor, not ReedPOP, nor PAX, nor the MCCA. A lot of attendees were getting pissed at the line-capping Enforcers for not letting everyone in, but the matter of fact is that when the line uncaps with room for 20 people and there are 50 people standing there waiting to get a spot, a lot of them are going to have to walk away unhappy, and that anger is something Blizzard could've prevented.
Really, the demo needed to be two rounds so that each group had a chance to be on offense or defense. And yes, the queue was huge once you were in it. But it wasn't big enough, because it got capped, and capping leads to unfairness, and that makes people frustrated. For all of the booth space dedicated to queues, more demo stations would have made a massive difference to the throughput. Halving the demo time would mean a 7-8 minute demo for hours of waiting. They are always going to have hours of waiting, so the demo should be substantial. But they need to serve more attendees throughout the weekend.
Children - PAX is not a place for children under 6 years of age (maybe even older). Especially not the expo hall floor. I am a parent, and seeing the amount of terrified and confused kids being dragged around by their parents (or carried in those harness things) was shocking and disturbing.
There are two things that I can see that need to happen. One can be done by ReedExpo and PAX. The other is up to the vendors.
I agree; the booth designs created by the exhibitors play a huge role in how the line ends up.
You both have some great points, and I agree the biggest and simplest first step is booth design, followed by demo time. Some games require a longer demo to get the real feel of the game, and in that case your booth should have the maximum number of stations possible. Let's face it, most people don't walk out of a con talking about booth design, they are talking about the games.
Children - PAX is not a place for children under 6 years of age (maybe even older). Especially not the expo hall floor. I am a parent, and seeing the amount of terrified and confused kids being dragged around by their parents (or carried in those harness things) was shocking and disturbing.
My friends had their kids at East. The 10 year old chose his own panels. They both played games and enjoyed themselves. So no, don't have age restrictions for entering the expo.
Every kid is different and it's up to the parents. All I can say is that for myself, and everyone I asked, seeing toddlers and infants in such a crowded and busy place made us uncomfortable. Adding in the lights and sound (which I applaud you for having hearing protection on your child) just doesn't seem like an appropriate place.
On the topic of lines, it needs to be considered that lines basically function as "people sinks". If all the people who are waiting in line were out doing other things until a few minutes before their time, overcrowding complaints about everything else would be far worse.
Jamspace was where I found my "worth the price of admission" this year. I skipped all other panels I was planning on going to and saw Brentalfloss and the Dancing Mario, the Busking Keyboard Player (part of Super Soul Bros) arranging a great collection of musicians to play with him including an awesome ocarina player who went over a half an hour over their established time that was completely worth it, and on Sunday listened to some really tight freeplay including this great female trained Jazz singer that showed up for a song. If MAGfest hadn't happened a month and a half earlier than PAX East, I'd of looked for a ticket by the end of the weekend.
Having to choose between the forum someone is doing, or getting signatures from that person is cruel. There should be enough separation that the signing lineup is not open while the forum is happening. This happened to us more than once. Fortunately, the second time, I wised up and convinced my wife to stand in the signing lineup.
I personally was not impressed with the concert line up and for the first time ever, only went for an hour total and left. Of course, that's a personal preference thing, so your mileage *will* vary.
It seemed as if game companies were weary of having anything to show for PAX, perhaps there's too many of them? The swag was noticeably poor this year.
I would also eliminate swag bags entirely. This year's was so bad I think enforcers would do better not bothering.
I had no idea that PAX did not buy lanyards and was also disappointed no PAX branded lanyards were available. It's a small thing, but if PAX can't get backers for it, perhaps print your own (might be easier to simply require that each booth pay by the square inch for the lanyards in exchange for some advertising on the lanyard).
The bag checks went fine, but are totally pointless and unnecessary. It would be nice if the PAX leadership would show that each year they attempt to get rid of that nuisance and are rebuffed by the police or whoever else requires it.
After 4 years of PAX, I've decided based on the current PAX, I'll be skipping next years and watching the results of it (and future PAXs) to see if it improves. This time while PAX was enjoyable, the overall cost for me has ballooned to $2500 after exchange, and while PAX is good, it's just wasn't one week Caribbean cruise for three good. If I were in the Boston area, I'd go for it because it would keep the costs far more reasonable, but it is simply a full priced vacation when you're coming from Ontario.
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PedroAsaniBrotherhood of the Squirrel[Prime]Registered Userregular
Having to choose between the forum someone is doing, or getting signatures from that person is cruel. There should be enough separation that the signing lineup is not open while the forum is happening. This happened to us more than once. Fortunately, the second time, I wised up and convinced my wife to stand in the signing lineup.
I had no idea that PAX did not buy lanyards and was also disappointed no PAX branded lanyards were available. It's a small thing, but if PAX can't get backers for it, perhaps print your own (might be easier to simply require that each booth pay by the square inch for the lanyards in exchange for some advertising on the lanyard).
The bag checks went fine, but are totally pointless and unnecessary. It would be nice if the PAX leadership would show that each year they attempt to get rid of that nuisance and are rebuffed by the police or whoever else requires it.
I think the entire point of the signings and panel schedule is to allow as many people as possible access to those people. When the demand is so high that you can fill a panel and still have a long queue for the signing whilst the panel is happening, it's going to come down to time. That person is going 60 or 90 minutes speaking, then another 60 to 120 minutes signing. They can't be expected to be available all day, so someone is going to lose out.
PAX typically has the lanyards "sponsored" by an exhibitor. I use the Pin trading lanyards, so I didn't notice who it was this year. I do, however, have a fuzzy memory of people saying that they were glad the clips were the U style rather than alligator style, which was a big plus. Maybe you just didn't notice where they were given out? There was Lanyard Hula-Skirt Girl (who is a favourite of many PAX people) giving them away, and various other Enforcers doing the same.
Bag checks aren't up to PAX. They are part of BCEC.
Tabletop - Tabletop wants to expand! Please let it! I saw tables full all the time, people waiting for tables, playing games on the floor, and worse than that, I fear some just decided not to play.
I remember when people were all like "Oh, they have a tabletop section?". But the past two years the lending library lines have been insane the closer you get to the expo floor closing, and table space has become something you'd defend to the death (we ate in shifts).
It's the only thing I really do at PAX so I'm prepared to invest heavily in it, but if I was just dropping by to check it out I would probably just keep walking.
I'm not sure what to do to fix it besides add more volunteers and tables... I'm not quite sure it's "broken" but it clearly is getting more popular and would reward some investment.
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PedroAsaniBrotherhood of the Squirrel[Prime]Registered Userregular
Tabletop - Tabletop wants to expand! Please let it! I saw tables full all the time, people waiting for tables, playing games on the floor, and worse than that, I fear some just decided not to play.
I remember when people were all like "Oh, they have a tabletop section?". But the past two years the lending library lines have been insane the closer you get to the expo floor closing, and table space has become something you'd defend to the death (we ate in shifts).
It's the only thing I really do at PAX so I'm prepared to invest heavily in it, but if I was just dropping by to check it out I would probably just keep walking.
I'm not sure what to do to fix it besides add more volunteers and tables... I'm not quite sure it's "broken" but it clearly is getting more popular and would reward some investment.
Converting the Queue Hall into Tabletop after noon or even slightly later would help. It would mean you need Enforcers setting up tables (and then putting them away ready for the Queue Hall in the morning) but I would expect most to be okay with that. It means you only have mega-sized TT for the afternoon and evening, but that should be enough.
I would pay money for an extra ticket to get more mainstream music there. Also, something you guys should really do is get a stand up comedian for one of the "concert" times. I'm not sure how many other people like to watch stand-up, but I would think it would be awesome.
I would also offer a bit more on Sunday. I spent my last 15 min or so there just sitting around with the person I went with and finally we called for our ride. Offer more! It felt like such a depressing day
There is a comedy club right inside the westin this year they did not do it but last year they had a video game comedy improv group on friday and saturday night
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This only stopped happening to me when I got a flag to stick to the bottom of mine from the Steve Jackson Games booth. Otherwise I was constantly flipping it over. I guess that little hologram sticker really carries some weight.
https://allmylinks.com/topherxbeads
I always have my 3/4-day and my BYOC badge facing opposite directions and it seems like it's always facing the BYOC side when I need to display my normal PAX badge and facing the normal badge when I need to show my BYOC.
For me, the problem was also that ScrewAttack brought mostly fighting games. While it was nice to have, the variety of games ACAM brought made it special and more inviting to me. Having the extremely rare Fix-It Felix game last year was a true treat (and my nostalgia for games like Bosconian and other shooters). I agree, many of the fighting games are nice to see, but not really too far off from what are available now on consoles.
That said, an original Street Fighter with those big pressure buttons (not the 6 button standard version) would have been great to see since most people never got to see it.
I think ACAM had 2-3 pinball machines last year, so about on par (since Star Wars was down when I dropped by).
Now that I think of it, the ACAM room also felt like the old 80's arcades with the floor lighting and lasers on the walls and even the projected displays.
I know those depend on third parties to fill, but I feel like they were the worse ever.
Oatmeal CAH cards.
I nearly threw mine out last year. I'm super allergic to oatmeal so I instantly rejected the packets. Thankfully my friend wanted them and was letdown to find cards inside.
https://allmylinks.com/topherxbeads
This year it was just the League skin, unless you need another thirty-card starter deck of Magic cards. Honestly I think companies would rather entice you to visit their booth, so a lot of skin codes and goodies go there instead.
Pros:
-Expo floor layout. WAY better. There was a LOT of people, but it didn't feel like the massive press of humanity like it has in previous years.
-Excellent panels overall. I'm a AAA guy, so the relative lack of them this year forced me to checked out indie games and panels more than I usually do.
-The people were universally awesome.
-The Enforcers: NO bad experiences with enforcers. All universally pleasant and helpful. Plus, while waiting in line for Freezepop, I snagged an orcs must die scarf from the line entertainment crew for doing a 'thing' (in my case, pushups!)
-The final round of the Omegathon FINALLY hit the right sweet spot of length and crowd participation. The game (Pac Man Battle Royale) was fast-paced, didn't drag, simple and kept the crowd entertained. PRevious years (Crokinole (sp?), Cornhole and Space Team) all dragged, either due to the nature of the game, or technical difficulties. The crowd flags after about a half hour of the Omegathon- keep shrot, to the point games like this, and you're golden.
-I finally got to see Freezepop! Always meant to see them, and we snagged front row spots!
-Overall con management- this was the smoothest-run PAX I've seen yet. Lineups were very well managed. Incidents were minimal it was....smooth.
Cons
-Lack of AAA titles- this is definitely due to the timing- 6 weeks after south, the same week as GDC. I'd have liked a couple more of the big publishers.
-Timing. I'm from Montreal, so i'm used to winter...but it was too early this year- too cold, too much snow, just...bleh. you could kinda feel it in the air. Plus, well...daylight savings time was the same week .that always sucks.
-Coat check. Didn't use it, 'cause I couldn't find an empty one.
-Tabletop layout this year was...wonky. Hard to navigate compared to previous years.
-Vending machines. This is a bit more of a personal issue, but I saw it echoed a couple of other times in this thread. I gave up caffeine for Lent (I know, I'm crazy). The vending machines had nothing but Pepsi, Dew and that juice-based Dew energy drink. NOTHING without caffeine. Just some 7-up or Crush or something in there would be ideal.
As an aside: you only begin to realize how well PAX is run until you attend other cons that aren't so well-run (which is to say: most of them). Little details like maps showing where you are and where the different theatres/locations are, people pointing out where the ends of lines are, little things like that help immensely.
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I've been to PAX 6 times now, since they started PAX East, and this was both the best AND worst year so far.
Many of the problems were, upon reflection, NOT the fault of PAX/Reed. But I'm going to mention them anyway, and leave it at that.
Pros:
Cons:
Overall, I had a BLAST. I played more/better games than ever, I played more tabletop, and had a great time. But it FELT lame in comparison to previous years. That bummed me out. I'm hoping next year with its April date will be better.
I have been to all 6 PAX East events and this one was good and bad.
First off:
Lines: They are long and if you keep them capped like there were the whole time all you are doing is pissing people off. There needs to be a system in place so if you cap you don't just have people hovering the area for hours waiting for it. The enforcers telling people to go away does not work! They want to do the event and at the rate you cap it if they do not hover they will never get a chance. There should be some type of system maybe with tickets that if a line is capped but I am willing to wait till the next day or even just later that I can return. There are the downsides with that sure. People coming later will not be able to play. But at least you wont have helicopter attendees trying to jump in line. Or maybe make use of the queue hall? Have enforcers that keep certain booths capped completely and then have enforcers stationed in the queue hall who will form lines there and then move them into the booth when it is open. You can easily mark a persons hand or badge or use a ticket to indicate they were in line as well to avoid people trying to hop in while moving those people to the booth.
Booths: I swear to god the Twitch booth and Polaris booth were having a competition on who could be the loudest and bring the biggest line. RIGHT NEXT to the escalators. I mean seriously? Move big name booths away from the entrance and exit points and don't put them next to each other like that!
Food: I loved the food this year. I would like to see more places to sit but either way food was awesome! Here is to you Chicken and rice guys!
Swag: Was a decent setup this year. The actual items were not great but the setup is a push in the right direction.
Tabletop: Magic area needed to be much smaller and free play expanded. I went Saturday night and almost half the magic tables were empty while there was no room in free play. If you need to make a change after a certain time that opens some of the magic area to free play.
Time of event: I know PAX has a contract with the MCCA until like 2023 or something like that but please think about changing when the event takes place when you renegotiate the event. We get screwed by the fact PAX South is now just before us and we happen right around GDC and E3.
Enforcer training: On Friday my fiancee cut the heel of her foot decently and was bleeding. We asked an enforcer where the first aid station was yet he was completely unable to answer that. If fact he spent 10 minutes in front of us on his phone looking at guidebook trying to figure it out. I eventually just left him and went to another enforcer who is a friend of mine that was able to help us right of the bat. That is a question EVERY enforcer should know off the top of their head. I know they are volunteers however if they can not supply help then you need different ones actually willing to learn.
Panels: Overall a normally good experience. The NVIDIA panel was a let down and I think there should have been more of an announcement that it got canceled. While I know it was more of a last minute thing there should still have been even a tweet about it from the official PAX twitter.
Raffles: While they shouldn't be banned outright the pulling of the winners at the booth needs to be. Make a rule that says you can have a raffle but the winner must only be announced electronically. Having booths announce their winner publicly while is good for their publicity since it draws many people is bad for PAX. It stops the flow of foot traffic and takes up enforcer time by having to monitor it.
Hours: It would be nice to see the expo hall open longer even if by only an hour. Or if again back to my line issue if there was a ticket system in place that allowed some of the booths to have their overflow come "after" the hall had closed. There is so much to do and the lines can be killer adding an hour to it would make a big difference. Also if there was a ticket system for only certain booths you could still cut back on the enforcers. Have just enough to make sure people didn't go to other booths.
Layout: Certain booths attract bigger crowds. The bigger booths should be moved to the outside and the smaller booths brought more in. This would allow people the freedom of movement in the middle of the hall and should create a better overall flow as people move to the larger booths outside. It would also allow lines to not make such a difference to the paths as they would be forming on the outer edges.
AFK room: This room was amazing. I normally have no problem with the event and in fact wasn't having an issue with it I just went to the room to check it out. I ended up spending about 15 min in there just relaxing. There is just so much background noise at PAX that you get use to it and when it's gone it is so relaxing. I loved this room!
Bag check: While it was yet again not a problem I feel it is such a waste of time. It is not actually security. It is security theater. Unless you are wanding everyone or putting up metal detectors it is worthless. They do a quick check of your bag and completely ignore you. I could have walked in with a small arsenal on my person and no one would have known so please explain what the point is?
-I was worried about this. The pax merch booth was badly set up. I only saw one enforcer over there. And she was by the line telling people where to go. I was telling my friend that anyone could pick up a shirt (or whatever else) and just walk out with it without paying for it. She said it was based mostly on the honors system. I know most people there would pay for the stuff they got, but you always have those people who take advantage of that and just walk away without paying.
-I would say put everything behind the registers and people can ask for the things they want. Yes, it would probably go slower, but there wouldn't be theft.
Pros:
•People were nice.
•Lines actually weren't as bad as I expected.
•A good amount of indie games and they were actually pretty good.
•The layout of the expo hall was nice.
•I loved the little buttons you could get at each booth.
•Bag check at the front was fast.
•I liked the lanyards with this kind of clip
Cons:
•Please. PLEASE don't do PAX East in March again. At least not early March. It's too cold.
•I understand the whole line capping thing, but it was so annoying. "Circle around and come back and you'll be good" yeah no. Couldn't get in that line.
•Split up the Twitch booth and the Polaris booth next time. It was hard to hear what was going on in each booth. Plus you couldn't even move between them. They had one enforcer over there just screaming at us to move. Plus you had both of the booths talking and playing so it was hard to hear the enforcer.
•Have more places to sit down and eat
•Finding the different panel rooms was hard. Even with guidebook. Pax needs to put big signs around saying "Bumblebee theater that way --->" or whatever. the convention center doesn't have the same names for the theater as pax does.
•Have better panels. Only two out of all three days interested me.
Passes:
Put names on them or something. That makes it easier for people to get them. We wouldn't have to worry about scalpers. It would make security go slower, but it would be worth it. Just do something with them so that scalpers won't buy them and they won't go as fast.
Oh it's not scalpers which cause it to sell out so fast. Short of making the event so expensive or unattractive people decide not to go, it's going to sell out almost instantly no matter what you do. They posted something before about how only 3% (or some very small number) of people bought the maximum number of tickets tickets. It also screws over people going in groups when you have to know ahead of time who is going. The group line up changes when you sell passes almost a half year ahead of time.
It would also screw panelists. I buy a badge but then submit a panel (panelists are given badges). By the time I learn whether the panel is approved or not, it's too late to refund the badge. I generally sell it to a friend, or online.
Also, can you imagine the chaos of carding 100,000 people at the door? Scalpers suck but the problem here isn't scalpers, it is that lots of people want to go to PAX but the BCEC is only so big.
Theft sucks and people shouldn't do it. That said, the PA staff are VERY experienced convention merch sellers and I would be shocked if "shrinkage" wasn't a line item on their budgets. It may actually be more profitable to lose a few shirts to thieves in exchange for a faster line that sells more things with a smaller staff. All retailers balance speed vs security to maximize overall profits (and comfort) -- otherwise every store would be a vending machine under armed guard.
There NEEDS to be better line management. I tried all day for two days to get into the Oculus line this year and last year, but it was always "full."
Problem 1: People sneak into the middle of the line
- If the front of the line is moving every 7 minutes, but the back of the line hasn't moved an inch in two hours, there is something wrong. A good portion of the PAX attendees are not going to stop someone from cutting in, as long as it doesn't directly hurt them, so self-policing does not work.
Problem 2: When the line is closed/full, there needs to be a better way to get into the line.
- When a line re-opens, whoever happens to be there that second gets in. With this system, someone can waste the whole day trying to get into the one line they want to get into, but never get in. It is very frustrating to try all day only to never get in.
Problem 3: Demo staff/enforcers lie about when a line will open. I understand that many are just going on the best information available, but some are outright deceitful. It is much better to know you will never get in than to continue a pointless struggle.
Possible Solutions:
- Some lines use physical queuing line barriers, while some just use tape on the ground. It is much harder to sneak in if there is a physical barrier to cross.
- Instruct enforcers to be more vigilant about this problem.
- Implement a deli ticket like system to get into the lines, or have a separate queue to get into the main queue. (NOTE: since 4G/wireless is essentially useless inside the convention center due to the tremendous load, do not make this phone-related).
There are only X number of hours in the convention, so shorter demo times = more demo users. If I like the demo, I will buy the game. If I can't try the demo because the line is too long, I will NOT buy the game.
Demo times should be capped. 10 minutes is more than enough to get a feel of most games.
I generally come to PAX to demo AAA games so I can decide if I will pre-order them or not. Getting something the general population can't have is what makes PAX special. If there aren't any AAA games, or if the games are already released, why go? If the game is released, I would prefer to buy a game to try it than pay to go to PAX and waste 3 hours in line to try it. However, if there were more AAA titles, the balance would shift, since I am far less likely to buy 4 AAA games just to try them then I am 1.
I disagree. Just because PAX doesn't have direct control over something, doesn't mean they shouldn't try to influence it. They want to have the best PAX possible and they need to know where to focus their efforts. And just because something is hard, doesn't mean it's impossible.
BO: They can ask people to shower/use deodorant
Lines: Yes, there will always be lines. At the same time, lines can be managed better. If they know lines are a problem, they can try ways to make it better. Ignoring the problem will guarantee the lines will be just as bad or worse as last year.
My only experience with conventions is PAX East and local comic cons.
PAX East 2019!
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Cons
-Tabletop got squished to make room for everything else on the floor. The fact that PC and Magic got such HUGE portions of the floor meant it was damn near impossible to find a seat, and in years past it was already hard to find a seat, even when tables stretched from wall to wall.
-Swag bags. These have been getting worse every year, but this year was just laughable, and a waste of paper and plastic.
-The arcade was run by a different company, and the gMes they brought were underwhelming. They were the type of games I'd expect to see in an airport. Please find a way to get the old crew back.
-Lack of tournament organization. I played in a Towerfall and Ticket to Ride tournament, and both were poorly run. Match ups were done by where you signed up on the sheet, which meant I was playing against my friend. The Towerfall event in particular...the Enforcer calling out names had trouble being heard, even with a mike.
Pros
-Indies everywhere! Every year I find the indie, small publisher stuff the most interesting, and this year they took over the Expo Hall and blew off the fucking roof. So many awesome games (Affordable Space Adventures, Move or Die, Speed Runners, motherfuckin' Keep Talking and Nobody Dies!, Downwell, 5 Star Wrestling, so many others I'm forgetting) with the developers right there asking for feedback. THAT'S a big reason I keep coming back to PAX. Fuck the AAA guys. They can stay at E3 for all I care.
-Mahou Shojo. Game of the show for me. Played it Friday, and went and backed the Kickstarter that night in my hotel room.
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We were discussing this over on the Pin Podcast tonight. The truth is there simply isn't a good fix for queues. Popular booths will get swarmed, and there is only so much space for queues. But the true underlying problem isn't the long waits. If people are willing to wait for it, they will. The problem is the inherent unfairness of queue capping.
When a queue is capped, everyone who turns up is told to come back later and then they are moved away. But when the queue is opened again, it's to those in the immediate vicinity. Because fairness is a big factor in our brains, we don't like seeing people who turned up after us be allowed to go before us. It's innate, built-in, and frustrating.
Problem is, there isn't an easy fix. People say "Fast Pass" a lot. But then you would have to queue for that, and you need a unique identifier. (Disney use your ticket, to prevent people hoarding Fast Passes.) Building that infrastructure (unique ID's on badges, database, network, software, badge readers) could be done, but it's a big cost for a minimal gain.
There are two things that I can see that need to happen. One can be done by ReedExpo and PAX. The other is up to the vendors.
Vendors need better booth design. Whoever you are, you need to increase your demo station count. At East, it's Blizzard and the Overwatch booth. Whilst it was an eye-catching design, it wasn't an efficient use of space. Make better use of the space to put more demo stations in, and you increase your throughput. More eyeballs on your game, more potential sales. So why do booths still insist on such large amounts of wasted space? I'm blaming E3 for rotting designers brains with an instilled need for "funky" design to grab the eye of photographers. You don't need that at PAX. You need to run huge amounts of people through the booth so they play your game and get a chance to decide they like it.
PAX: Make signs that say "About 30/60/90/120 minutes from this point". How do you know where to put them? Ask the vendors how long the demo is. Count the number of booths. Work out how many bodies they will get through in 30/60/90/120 minutes. Rough estimates are about 15-18" of queue length per person. Adjust as necessary. Put the signs up.
Why would the signs help? Because human brains are dumb. Say you are willing to wait up to 60 minutes in a queue. Any sign that tells you the wait is longer will make you go somewhere else until the queue dies down. Every person has a different number, but the distribution is a bell-curve. Most people will not wait 120 minutes if they see a sign. But what really makes human brains dumb is that if you join a queue with no sign and wait past your personal threshold, you are almost guaranteed to stay in the queue because you see the time already spent waiting as "invested" and you don't want to "waste" it. Even if you are then told the wait time from where you are is beyond your threshold, you will stay. And that is how queue capping is born. There is limited space for bodies, and because people don't know if it is going to be past their threshold, they wait.
Remember, the vendors are the ones who can affect the throughput. All ReedExpo and PAX can do is make the waiting fairer. And by putting up signs that discourage long lines, they prevent queue capping which is the cause of unfairness.
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Food - It's a convention at a professional convention center. The food is not going to be great and it's going to be overpriced, I highly doubt there is anything Penny Arcade can do about that. However I didn't hear about the food trucks until after I ate on Saturday, so having more word of that reaching the community would have helped.
Lines - Again, it's a huge convention, chances are if you want to see something so do a lot of other people. However, I agree that limiting demo time and better line organization and enforcement is possible, but this requires buy in from Penny Arcade and the booth operators. Things such as "end of line" signs, barriers, and tickets could all help. For instance, Bass Pro Shops does free pictures with Santa every year. When you show up they give you a pass that says to come back at X:XX time and then when you show up you wait in that line (which is considerably shorter). This way the booth stays busy without people having to waste their entire day standing in line. It's not a fast pass or a personal ticket, it's a simple solution to a big problem.
Table Top Freeplay - Believe it or not the area was pretty much on par with years past, however it is becoming a more popular part of PAXEast. Therefore it would be nice to see the area grow even more in the coming years.
Children - PAX is not a place for children under 6 years of age (maybe even older). Especially not the expo hall floor. I am a parent, and seeing the amount of terrified and confused kids being dragged around by their parents (or carried in those harness things) was shocking and disturbing. I know Penny Arcade can't tell people how to raise their kids but maybe have something like a recommended age or height restriction for the show floor.
Pros
Venue - not that the location is a subject of any dispute, but man, BCEC is an impressive place.
Panel lines - I thought the enforcers did a very good job managing the lines for the panels.
Bioware Lounge - was brilliant! I hope more companies do stuff like this.
Indies - The indies just KILLED IT. Played so many sweet games, not to mention creative booths and awesome devs!
ScrewAttack arcade - Ahhh, so many of my favorite fighting games! I could've easily spent a day here if there wasn't so many other things to do. I did get to play in one of the tournaments which was a lot of fun.
E-sports arena - very cool; first time I've gotten to see 'e-sports' live.
Cons
Tabletop - Tabletop wants to expand! Please let it! I saw tables full all the time, people waiting for tables, playing games on the floor, and worse than that, I fear some just decided not to play.
Queue area - it hurt my soul to see this much space go to waste every day, especially considering the aforementioned item. To me, it looks like these dividers could be put into a pile and some tables brought in. Am I wrong? Another idea that somebody else proposed but made a lot of sense, was to use the queue area as secondary lines for the AAA demos. Yes, the enforcers would have to do some wrangling, but, really I think that might have been preferable to the constant chaos that the line capping created for them.
PC freeplay - Would have liked to seen some fresher titles on the PCs. Minor quibble.
Comments
E3 - I have seen several people complain that the date was too close to E3, which is like... what?? E3 is three months away! The farthest you could possibly be from E3 is six months and that would put PAX East in the dead of winter. E3 will always undermine PAX East to some extent, but that can't change; if anything the three-month gap this year is MORE than what will be typical. The bigger concern this year was certainly the direct overlap with GDC. And of course it's been well explained why PAX has limited control over the dates to begin with.
Twitch/Polaris - It's great that people are excited and showing up in droves to see Twitch and Polaris personalities, but, does it belong on an exhibition floor, when nothing is really been exhibited? Not really sure where I stand on this yet, just a thought.
My friends had their kids at East. The 10 year old chose his own panels. They both played games and enjoyed themselves. So no, don't have age restrictions for entering the expo.
A height restriction? No. Just stop and think about how many problems that would cause.
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Actually that is exactly how Fast Pass works.
Problem #1: You are just going to have to queue to get that pass. Just as many people want to play the game, and now they believe they can cut their waiting time by getting the pass.
Likely outcome: the queue has moved locations. People arriving at the booth who don't know will be frustrated they have to walk somewhere then walk back to the booth.
Best case scenario: you can relocate big queues to the queue room, and have allocation of these passes start prior to 10am.
Problem #2: How do you prevent people from "farming" these passes? Any kind of unique identifier requires the infrastructure in my earlier post. Your example has the built-in assumption that people only want one photo. Here, there is a non-zero number of people who will either (a) want to play the game multiple times without waiting or (b) see the value in getting lots of these passes and selling them to people. So you have created the PAX Ticket Scalper problem for yourself, a popular item with resale value in excess of the face value (in this case, $0.00).
Likely outcome: your "pass" goes from a slip of paper with writing on it to either an app on a phone or indelible ink handstamps, either of which is still open to abuse by the inventive.
Best case scenario: you pour time and money into implementing an electronic version of Fast Pass.
Problem #3: Assuming you have done your throughput calculations correctly, and you give out all your passes without problems of farming, reselling, etc. Your booth is still popular and you run out of these passes long before everyone has one. But some people will have a pass and not use it, so you have the regular queue to fill in for when less than 100% of the pass allocation show up.
Likely outcome: That regular queue is still huge because people are desperate to try the game. They are now moving slower than previously because of the pass system.
Best case scenario: You now have people who queue all day every day to try your game, and are turned away at 5:30 because your pass allocations showed up and you have no spare slots. Despite this, none of them murder you in the hotel bar later that night.
Just like the PAX Prime Ticket Problem, it's a simple one of Supply being far short of the Demand. The Supply in this instance is the throughput of the booth. The Demand are the attendees queuing to try the game. You have only two ways to solve this. Increase Supply or reduce Demand. Increasing the throughput of the booth is the only way to increase Supply. Reducing Demand is usually unwanted, because Obviously.
All PAX can do is manage the queue, and by marking the wait times they will activate the stupid chemical-bag we haul around in our heads so that the queuing is at least Fair, no matter how long the wait might be.
If you are still haunted by the vision that Slips Of Paper Solve Everything, try this: the Best Case to problem #1 is that the queue has moved out of the expo and into the queue room, which is a bigger space. At least now they can fulfil the queuing dream of "First Come, First Served" rather than the nightmare of "First Come? F You!" that queue capping brings. The head of the queue has a ticket machine, like you see at a busy deli counter or the DMV. You get to the head of the line, get your ticket, and go over to the booth. They have a "Now Serving XXX" sign, and you join the queue in the order of your ticket.
What problems are there in this? Well, you still need Queue Management, only now in two places, one team to manage the Queue Room Queue, another to check tickets at the booth Queue. Infrastructure cost is small (a ticket machine, rolls of tickets and a Now Serving sign) but non-zero, and to a company that matters. After all, "First Come? F You!" is free.
No, you can't distribute these tickets hours in advance without some kind of system to prevent farming. This is the simple, low-cost version. No identity management beyond hoping the Queue Management recognise a face in a sea of faces (hint: they can't.)
PAX can only do Queue Management. So whilst the "Approx. 30/60/90/120 minutes from this point" signs will help things somewhat, they key is to get booth designers to increase Throughput. If you care that much, you need to find them and tell them that More Demo Stations is the most important design feature.
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I'll use Blizzard for example again. First thing I want to say is, for those of y'all who didn't go through the Overwatch line, it was suuuuuper long. Not even time-wise, but capacity-wise. The line started at one corner, then looped forward to the midpoint of the aisle and back, then went all the way around to the kitty corner of the booth, then looped back again to the same midpoint of the aisle, curved inside the booth, and looped back and forth a few times in there. It was crazy long for the amount of perimeter it took up.
Honestly, I think the line design itself was fine. The Enforcers stationed at Blizzard were requesting that people fill in as much space as possible so they could fit more attendees in line. The space was used efficiently, contrary to popular belief. Even then, it wasn't the length of the line that fucked people over; it was the sheer number of attendees that wanted to demo the game COMBINED with the amount of demo time Blizz was giving. I got a chance to play Overwatch at East and let me tell you, that demo felt hella generous in terms of time. They gave two full gameplay rounds per demo which meant 15+ minutes per group if both teams were at least somewhat decent. Blizzard could've easily cut their line time in half by only giving each group one round of combat rather than two. Part of me thinks they realized this and decided not to change it because let's be honest: thousands of people would still flood to their booth no matter what and they'd prefer to give a "full" experience to some people rather than a "partial" experience to many.
Still, the point is that adding more demo stations and cutting the demo in half would've meant a way shorter wait time, and those were all factors dependent on the exhibitor, not ReedPOP, nor PAX, nor the MCCA. A lot of attendees were getting pissed at the line-capping Enforcers for not letting everyone in, but the matter of fact is that when the line uncaps with room for 20 people and there are 50 people standing there waiting to get a spot, a lot of them are going to have to walk away unhappy, and that anger is something Blizzard could've prevented.
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Disturbing indeed.
Really, the demo needed to be two rounds so that each group had a chance to be on offense or defense. And yes, the queue was huge once you were in it. But it wasn't big enough, because it got capped, and capping leads to unfairness, and that makes people frustrated. For all of the booth space dedicated to queues, more demo stations would have made a massive difference to the throughput. Halving the demo time would mean a 7-8 minute demo for hours of waiting. They are always going to have hours of waiting, so the demo should be substantial. But they need to serve more attendees throughout the weekend.
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Damnit, I hate kids but that's friggin adorable.
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You both have some great points, and I agree the biggest and simplest first step is booth design, followed by demo time. Some games require a longer demo to get the real feel of the game, and in that case your booth should have the maximum number of stations possible. Let's face it, most people don't walk out of a con talking about booth design, they are talking about the games.
Every kid is different and it's up to the parents. All I can say is that for myself, and everyone I asked, seeing toddlers and infants in such a crowded and busy place made us uncomfortable. Adding in the lights and sound (which I applaud you for having hearing protection on your child) just doesn't seem like an appropriate place.
I love kids, and I agree with you Topher.
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I personally was not impressed with the concert line up and for the first time ever, only went for an hour total and left. Of course, that's a personal preference thing, so your mileage *will* vary.
It seemed as if game companies were weary of having anything to show for PAX, perhaps there's too many of them? The swag was noticeably poor this year.
I would also eliminate swag bags entirely. This year's was so bad I think enforcers would do better not bothering.
I had no idea that PAX did not buy lanyards and was also disappointed no PAX branded lanyards were available. It's a small thing, but if PAX can't get backers for it, perhaps print your own (might be easier to simply require that each booth pay by the square inch for the lanyards in exchange for some advertising on the lanyard).
The bag checks went fine, but are totally pointless and unnecessary. It would be nice if the PAX leadership would show that each year they attempt to get rid of that nuisance and are rebuffed by the police or whoever else requires it.
After 4 years of PAX, I've decided based on the current PAX, I'll be skipping next years and watching the results of it (and future PAXs) to see if it improves. This time while PAX was enjoyable, the overall cost for me has ballooned to $2500 after exchange, and while PAX is good, it's just wasn't one week Caribbean cruise for three good. If I were in the Boston area, I'd go for it because it would keep the costs far more reasonable, but it is simply a full priced vacation when you're coming from Ontario.
I think the entire point of the signings and panel schedule is to allow as many people as possible access to those people. When the demand is so high that you can fill a panel and still have a long queue for the signing whilst the panel is happening, it's going to come down to time. That person is going 60 or 90 minutes speaking, then another 60 to 120 minutes signing. They can't be expected to be available all day, so someone is going to lose out.
PAX typically has the lanyards "sponsored" by an exhibitor. I use the Pin trading lanyards, so I didn't notice who it was this year. I do, however, have a fuzzy memory of people saying that they were glad the clips were the U style rather than alligator style, which was a big plus. Maybe you just didn't notice where they were given out? There was Lanyard Hula-Skirt Girl (who is a favourite of many PAX people) giving them away, and various other Enforcers doing the same.
Bag checks aren't up to PAX. They are part of BCEC.
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I remember when people were all like "Oh, they have a tabletop section?". But the past two years the lending library lines have been insane the closer you get to the expo floor closing, and table space has become something you'd defend to the death (we ate in shifts).
It's the only thing I really do at PAX so I'm prepared to invest heavily in it, but if I was just dropping by to check it out I would probably just keep walking.
I'm not sure what to do to fix it besides add more volunteers and tables... I'm not quite sure it's "broken" but it clearly is getting more popular and would reward some investment.
Converting the Queue Hall into Tabletop after noon or even slightly later would help. It would mean you need Enforcers setting up tables (and then putting them away ready for the Queue Hall in the morning) but I would expect most to be okay with that. It means you only have mega-sized TT for the afternoon and evening, but that should be enough.
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I would pay money for an extra ticket to get more mainstream music there. Also, something you guys should really do is get a stand up comedian for one of the "concert" times. I'm not sure how many other people like to watch stand-up, but I would think it would be awesome.
I would also offer a bit more on Sunday. I spent my last 15 min or so there just sitting around with the person I went with and finally we called for our ride. Offer more! It felt like such a depressing day