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RIP PAX South
Lasbrook
It takes a lot to make a stewWhen it comes to me and youRegistered User regular
It takes a lot to make a stewWhen it comes to me and youRegistered User regular
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How will I yell at @Houk the Namebringer about shots now?
I'm sorry for all those for whom this was a staple.
how will i know if he's stayed funny?
Like, a lot of people avoid GenCon because of how big it is. Origins is seen as the smaller, more chill venue, and is much more approachable while still being fairly big. There's a market for that. But just like anything else, the drive to always grow year over year sets unrealistic expectations...
South is the only one in a state that has made it impossible for them to require vaccines/masks.
Yeah. I suspect this is the real reason. Their reasons in the tweet are very handwavey but if they outright said it was Texas's fault there would be a shitstorm.
The impossibility of a vax mandate might tip the scales but at this point if it were one of the big cons it'd be back.
There was always SO much empty space in the expo hall, the biggest attraction was often whatever bullshit vr recruitment thing the army had
In a lot of ways that's what I liked about it, it was smaller and had more of an intimate vibe, but basically every year my impression was "either they're gonna figure out a way to massively expand this or else they're just gonna kill it." Early on they were kind of leaning on being the more tabletop-focused convention but then Pax unplugged kinda took that away. And then you lump covid in on top of everything else and, yeah. Super disappointing but really not at all surprising to me
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I don't think that's the right angle on things. I love PAX South, but I loved it because it allowed me to meet so many folks from the forums and have a great time with them each year. The convention itself dropped in quality each year that I attended - primarily because with each year there were fewer and fewer exhibitors and more and more of the big name exhibitors dropped out each time. After a while it made for a great chill weekend to play board games with friends and attend a few deeply silly panels, but the convention itself would not at all have been worth traveling for otherwise.
At some point I think it became a downward spiral where flat attendance caused exhibitors to pull out, leading to empty feeling exhibit halls which resulted in decreased attendance the following year, causing more exhibitors to pull out, and so on...
>:(
Seriously, this is a real bummer. As mentioned the con itself wasn't much to write home about but the hangouts were well worth the trip alone.
Hopefully we can still just like...do our own thing around the same time of year for a long weekend or whatever. Just get a giant house and fuck around for a few days, don't need a con to get drunk at 4pm on a Sunday!
The con itself was never really impressive, but it was in such a convenient spot with loads of stuff around it, compared to something like East which is located in the middle of nowhere (Well, as much as that is possible within a city)
speaking of (sorta) I keep meaning to reply to your PM but dang these last couple weeks have been crazy hectic. but i'll get back to you, promise!
Too late, I already burned an effigy of you in a symbolic destruction of our friendship.
Megan and I were just talking yesterday about how much we were looking forward to next year cause we missed everyone
It’s real hard for us to get all the way up to Seattle or Boston, so South was a joy; a few hours in the car vs. 28 hours in the car (or a real expensive plane ticket)
It was also the one time of year we got to play board games with “our people”
Fucking sucks y’all
I am disappoint.
I suppose not too surprised, tho. I did like some of the panels and would pick up stuff from vendors, but the con was mostly hanging out in tabletop for me; I grew up on small cons, so South was a good fit.
But yeah, people can still set up a mini-vacay in San Antonio and expand BoringPax; Austin is a good town, but I live there, so for me, San Antonio is chill and a nice change. Also, rocking karaoke and now food in one. I haven't checked how they're managing the plague, tho, admittedly. The landscape has surely altered.
Yeah, the smaller size was a definite plus in my book. Some people love the big crowds, but to me they're just stifling.
Even South was on the upper end of my comfort zone.
Sure, the shorter distance was nice, driving down from Colorado over a couple of days wasn't too harsh, but driving to Boston or Seattle? Not really in the books.
Shit, I was hoping to come back in '22 or '23. Had a much better time in PAX South than in PAX East.
Steam: pazython
And unfortunately I have the in on free hotelling for the latter after years and years of volunteering
Anyone know any cool conventions in early 2022? I know Magfest is Jan 6-9
Well if you come to PAX East, we can head over to Chinatown and get some ramen
If enough people agreed to meet up at the same time I'd still go hang out for a weekend
Like we were saying the convention itself hasn't really been a draw for years
http://www.audioentropy.com/
“PAX South hasn’t expanded and to some extent has remained the same show that it was when we opened it in 2015”
That’s a selling point for me. That makes me want to go back more.
It was great getting to go to PAX East every year from the first time and see how it grew, but it feels like it became unsustainable; it was so big I couldn’t go anymore because tickets were too hard to get, and hotels nearby were too hard to get, and even if I got both of those it was just a convention of WAITING IN LINES. So I had to stop trying.
And then South sprung up and had that “first time/smaller scale feel and it was like yeah… this is what I want.
I feel like it’s totally OK to have a smaller PAX.
I was really deliberating how comfortable I was for a future PAX and well, I guess the decision was made for me
Gonna be putting some work into planning a PAX North for June-ish, should anyone be craving some forumer hangs and require a reason for a passport update; we'll post about it soon
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
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The selling point to go to South every year was the inexpensive city, the excuse to wear cosplay, and the chill PAX where we had no option but to hang out for entertainment, for me
West and East both had so much shit going on that you couldn't really plan big group stuff as everyone had their own thing going on
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
It was a more relaxed PAX.