While doing the survey a few minor gripes just popped in my head.
ACAM and Strife were in handheld. I LOVE ACAM but I think they should been somewhere else. For one, having those rooms open cut down on wall space for sumos and I've been saying for a while I would really like it if the opened up those conference rooms for more lounge space.
I cannot even count how many times I heard this complaint during the Expo from the visitors to our room. There is no way to sugar-coat this... putting us with handheld did not work. It made sense on paper but not in execution. Believe me, we have heard what our visitors have told us during the show and we will take this feedback directly to the PAX-East staff.
Thank you for the support of ACAM. I am always pleased to hear from people that enjoy what we do at PAX-East.
While doing the survey a few minor gripes just popped in my head.
ACAM and Strife were in handheld. I LOVE ACAM but I think they should been somewhere else. For one, having those rooms open cut down on wall space for sumos and I've been saying for a while I would really like it if the opened up those conference rooms for more lounge space.
I cannot even count how many times I heard this complaint during the Expo from the visitors to our room. There is no way to sugar-coat this... putting us with handheld did not work. It made sense on paper but not in execution. Believe me, we have heard what our visitors have told us during the show and we will take this feedback directly to the PAX-East staff.
Thank you for the support of ACAM. I am always pleased to hear from people that enjoy what we do at PAX-East.
I will agree though that on paper it sounded like a good idea too. We only visited this area briefly (there is so much to see at PAX) and did not see any of the mentioned problems, but I can sympathize none the less.
Personally speaking I would still like to see the ACAM somewhere on the same side of the BCEC. It seems that this is the place where most people play games in the first place and it could provide for a well rounded experience for anyone who walks alongside that corridor. I always found that ACAM's previous location did not do it justice.
talk about a heinous waste of food, especially in these food insecure times for millions of people worldwide. I know that Penny Arcade is a gaming organization, and not one promoting any sort of social agenda, but any large organization should promote good general values on an institutional level. I saw SO much oatmeal on the floor and in the garbage. Having worked in the developing world for a long time, it almost made me cry to see that much food wasted. PAX has a hugely diverse attendance base, and watching young people toss food in the garbage......
It wasn't real oatmeal. At the Cards Against Humanity panel they even said something along the lines of "you probably shouldn't eat that shit"
talk about a heinous waste of food, especially in these food insecure times for millions of people worldwide. I know that Penny Arcade is a gaming organization, and not one promoting any sort of social agenda, but any large organization should promote good general values on an institutional level. I saw SO much oatmeal on the floor and in the garbage. Having worked in the developing world for a long time, it almost made me cry to see that much food wasted. PAX has a hugely diverse attendance base, and watching young people toss food in the garbage......
It wasn't real oatmeal. At the Cards Against Humanity panel they even said something along the lines of "you probably shouldn't eat that shit"
Understood, but that is semantics. Oats are a food product - you soak them and then eat them. Teaching young people to trash a food product - any food product - is just not good. CAH should be ashamed of themselves. They could have put confetti in there (still a waste of resources, but still). Again - I'm not saying PAX needs to be some sort of eco-warrior org, but basic environmental preservation efforts on an institutional level are just good business practices.
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KastorsKornerGaming EditorHard Hittin' New BritainRegistered Userregular
talk about a heinous waste of food, especially in these food insecure times for millions of people worldwide. I know that Penny Arcade is a gaming organization, and not one promoting any sort of social agenda, but any large organization should promote good general values on an institutional level. I saw SO much oatmeal on the floor and in the garbage. Having worked in the developing world for a long time, it almost made me cry to see that much food wasted. PAX has a hugely diverse attendance base, and watching young people toss food in the garbage......
It wasn't real oatmeal. At the Cards Against Humanity panel they even said something along the lines of "you probably shouldn't eat that shit"
Understood, but that is semantics. Oats are a food product - you soak them and then eat them. Teaching young people to trash a food product - any food product - is just not good. CAH should be ashamed of themselves. They could have put confetti in there (still a waste of resources, but still). Again - I'm not saying PAX needs to be some sort of eco-warrior org, but basic environmental preservation efforts on an institutional level are just good business practices.
It was a fun idea and nothing CAH should be ashamed of doing. You're talking about, collectively, a few pounds of wasted oats -- it's not like they stuffed cards inside of a cooked turkey. A single grocery store or restaurant throws away exponentially more food in the course of a day than what was thrown out at PAX East.
I think that has already been addressed, or did you not read the posts right after mine?
I read your posts it says nothing about the BCEC's minimum standard of behavior, if any.
Personally this was my worst PAX yet, but for a wide variety of reasons outside of PA's control. The BCEC staff was very rude and condescending. My suspicion is that their attitude is that we are a bunch of nerds that don't deserve any respect, and if we bitch others will be more than happy to buy passes. PAX has never not sold out, the leverage is ALL with the PA team and with the BCEC.
I think that has already been addressed, or did you not read the posts right after mine?
I read your posts it says nothing about the BCEC's minimum standard of behavior, if any.
Personally this was my worst PAX yet, but for a wide variety of reasons outside of PA's control. The BCEC staff was very rude and condescending. My suspicion is that their attitude is that we are a bunch of nerds that don't deserve any respect, and if we bitch others will be more than happy to buy passes. PAX has never not sold out, the leverage is ALL with the PA team and with the BCEC.
Your posts did not address those points at all
Ahhh, I thought you were referring to the bathroom situation. Sorry.
Understood, but that is semantics. Oats are a food product - you soak them and then eat them. Teaching young people to trash a food product - any food product - is just not good. CAH should be ashamed of themselves. They could have put confetti in there (still a waste of resources, but still). Again - I'm not saying PAX needs to be some sort of eco-warrior org, but basic environmental preservation efforts on an institutional level are just good business practices.
You do know you're talking about Cards Against Humanity, right?
Anyway, I'll put my voice into the fray of having an.. OK.. PAX this time around. I don't know what it was, but the vibe just felt different. Maybe it was seeing stuff like people standing around a trashcan just dumping swag bags on Friday (I was incredibly confused, because I didn't realize the CAH cards were in the Oatmeal until Sunday afternoon), maybe it was my own indifference to the majority of what was going on.. the parties I went to were fun, and the people I went with had a good time...
Anyway, I'll put my voice into the fray of having an.. OK.. PAX this time around. I don't know what it was, but the vibe just felt different. Maybe it was seeing stuff like people standing around a trashcan just dumping swag bags on Friday (I was incredibly confused, because I didn't realize the CAH cards were in the Oatmeal until Sunday afternoon), maybe it was my own indifference to the majority of what was going on.. the parties I went to were fun, and the people I went with had a good time...
Things just felt.. off..
I had a really great PAX, but I definitely felt weird until Saturday post make-a-strip. I know that PA and their panels do not factor into the PAX experience for a lot of people, and the decisions made around pulling the other Q&As and changing the format made sense and were successful. It just didn't really feel like PAX to me until after we hustled. I would suggest moving make-a-strip to Friday, if the single PA panel is a continuing thing, but I know that it has been a staple Saturday event for ages and also wouldn't want to change that.
Part of my off feeling was probably because I went the the NVIDIA panel on Friday. I know I should have known better, but I wanted to see some new tech since I hadn't attended that sort of a panel since East 2010. The attendee behavior in that panel was insane. People pushing other people over, standing on chairs, screaming into everyone's ears, just ugh. The same could be said of many swag-centric things on the expo floor. It's like a feeding frenzy. Enforcers had to be actively running all over the place just to attempt to maintain some sort of order. I did not envy them their job. The tech part of the panel was good though.
I'm a little late here but here is my perspective, as a person with a disability badge:
-/+/* = bad/good/neutral
+ Getting a disability badge was just as easy as previous years, thank you so much for making it unstressful!
+ Staying at the Westin this year was wonderful. I saw some people had rude staff but everyone we interacted with was awesome.
+ The D&D Next demo was amazing. I didn't really see if there was a pick-up RPG room this year (I vageuly remember there was one 2-3 years ago at least), but more of that style of short-ish, fun intro sessions to RP systems would be fantastic.
* Interestingly, since we're big table-top gamers and only ventured forth into the big expo hall to look at specific things, or to other floors to go to specific panels, the bathroom thing was never an issue. I think the women's bathroom on the bottom floor was dead center between the table-top and expo hall area and that was ok for me.
* More swag would be nice, yeah. But I understand companies may not have as much loose funds to make that a thing.
- I technically have this complaint every year but this is the first time I'm going to actually post it: the expo hall is almost entirely useless to me because my disability badge does nothing for me for the lines to play demos or get swag or whatever. It's a bit sad, IMO, that because of a medical condition I can't enjoy 30% of PAX that I would if I could (percent given is subjective, I know for some people it's actually higher). I know there is nothing that can be done about it with the way the booths are set up (sitting down on a chair in line is a no-no because you can't cram as many people in and it's distruptive, for instance), so this is just kind of an FYI in case some genius out there thinks of something that could change it.
- I went to one panel (the one about how to advance from a starting position in the gaming industry) and talked to the enforcer at the door, showed the badge, asked if I could sit on the window bench and maintain eye contact etc. like I always do... but then right before the panel started they had everyone in the actual line get up and cram tight so that there was no longer eye-contact between myself and the enforcer (there was also one other diability badge person with the same issue)... and then that enforcer vanished and the two others that replaced her were never told disability badge people were waiting and were being obscured by the line. They started to let people in and the two of us with disability badges had to try to get to the enforcers through the rush to get in. This is the first time this happened to me, so I wanted to make sure you made a friendly reminder to enforcers that if one of them knows about a disability badge person, that they have to tell all the other enforcers involved with the letting people in or it'll get lost in the rush to get people into the event.
- The lines for getting "real" (not ice cream) food at the BCEC were insane (like always). We resorted to eating a giant breakfast and having room service dinners (yes this was stupidly expensive) just so I could function because, again, disability badge does nothing for it. Is there any way to convert some more of the empty space in the "line" room to food carts with more varied food options like the food court? And to have these run until late?
- There was an interesting effect to the expo hall closing at 6pm. Some board games booths opted to be in there for greater exposure (I think) or maybe they were just placed there, I don't really know... but normally the board games are all outside and they therefore run until their booth managers drop. This meant some board game booths didn't see business past 6pm and I don't think that's great either for the folk interested in what they had to offer or for their sales numbers. Is there any way to keep just the board game bits of the expo hall running until late? Personally, I'd love for the expo hall to keep going until 10pm+ (maybe the demo lines would reduce somewhat?? XD), but I know that's pretty brutal. Don't know what can be done about this one.
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TopherRocksRockstar Beard GrowerKent, OH or Long Island, NYRegistered Userregular
edited April 2014
Good/bad/thoughts +/-/*
I've been to every PAX held at the BCEC and this one stands out as my least favorite of them all.
+The Roll for Diversity lounge was great. It was way better than I expected after seeing the fuss it caused months back when it was announced. I hope to see it grow in future years.
+Personal but my first time cosplaying was SUPER well received and got stopped for a ton of pictures. The devs at the Hotline Miami 2 and Devolver booths loved it! I wish more of the people who took pictures with me posted here, there's a few that I'm dying to see! (Sorry if I accidentally bopped anyone with the prop axe I was carrying in my backpack!)
+Cookie Brigade, you're awesome. Got lovely treat while hanging out in the handheld (hallway of beanbags and naptimes) lounge.
+Indie megabooth time and time again is proving to be the highlight of the floor for me.
+Loved the timing of the show this year. The weather was great! Quite the welcome change from last years flurries.
-Passes and hotel booking was a complete shitshow. I don't think anyone really disagrees on that.
-The big games got ridiculously crowded crazy fast. I was maybe 5th line in the queue room and tried to go straight for evolve one of the days and I was told it was capped already by an enforcer.
-The show feels like it's outgrowing its cage so to speak. I'm not bad with crowds but it feels more claustrophobic every year.
-I'm not one to try and double the size of my suitcase on the trip home but swag seemed to be lacking this year.
-Panels seemed to be a bit lacking to me. I'm not a big penny arcade person so I wasn't effected by the lessened presence of Mike and Jerry but it did seem like quality of the panels and the standout choices of previous years just weren't there this time.
-This may be personal bias but the Riot and twitch booths being as big as they are seems absolutely ridiculous to me. Riot felt like it was living up to its name any time I was within 100 feet of it.
-ACAM was in a terrible place this year. It felt so far out of the way. I never had an issue with the old location but this year just didn't work for them.
-The bathroom situation is stupid. You've all beaten the issue to death but as a guy, I've never had any issue with the bathrooms in the past.
-The shuttles were constantly packed out by the time they got to my hotel (we stayed at the Revere). On Sunday the morning shuttle stood us up for nearly an hour after it was scheduled to be there before it finally came.
-I noticed an bit of a decrease in courtesy and positivity that I'm used to at PAX. It felt like we've started to draw in a new breed of people with the event growing as big as it has. Before this year I could count the number of assholes I encountered from the 3 previous years on one hand, this year wasn't worth trying to keep count. It seemed like a quarter of the people at PAX this year had an attitude.
-I feel the need to echo the overall "meh" feeling that seems to be going around. I can't quite pin down what did it but it just didn't feel right compared to previous years. It felt less enjoyable overall.
*I didn't mind the bag checks, they were always polite and didn't slow things down much at all but it really did feel like it was just for show. I got a great reaction from the guy who did mine the first day since I was in my costume and had my pig mask on.
*I'm undecided about the whole announcing ticket sales the day before thing this year. It was a nice change rather than the frantic twitter watching that I get into post Prime every year but it also broke the internet.
I went to the Modern RPG Panel... This should have been labeled "Table Top" about 10 minutes in 25% of the crowd had left because they though they were there for RPG Videogames.. Secondly, people smell like complete ass. These people are smart enough to follow twitter feeds and get notifications that PAX tickets are on sale, can afford these badges... but cant bring themselves to put some 2 dollar old spice on?
Anyway, I'll put my voice into the fray of having an.. OK.. PAX this time around. I don't know what it was, but the vibe just felt different. Maybe it was seeing stuff like people standing around a trashcan just dumping swag bags on Friday (I was incredibly confused, because I didn't realize the CAH cards were in the Oatmeal until Sunday afternoon), maybe it was my own indifference to the majority of what was going on.. the parties I went to were fun, and the people I went with had a good time...
Things just felt.. off..
I had a really great PAX, but I definitely felt weird until Saturday post make-a-strip. I know that PA and their panels do not factor into the PAX experience for a lot of people, and the decisions made around pulling the other Q&As and changing the format made sense and were successful. It just didn't really feel like PAX to me until after we hustled. I would suggest moving make-a-strip to Friday, if the single PA panel is a continuing thing, but I know that it has been a staple Saturday event for ages and also wouldn't want to change that.
Part of my off feeling was probably because I went the the NVIDIA panel on Friday. I know I should have known better, but I wanted to see some new tech since I hadn't attended that sort of a panel since East 2010. The attendee behavior in that panel was insane. People pushing other people over, standing on chairs, screaming into everyone's ears, just ugh. The same could be said of many swag-centric things on the expo floor. It's like a feeding frenzy. Enforcers had to be actively running all over the place just to attempt to maintain some sort of order. I did not envy them their job. The tech part of the panel was good though.
Maybe some people (like myself) have been feeling off because the event does not feel like what it used to be. But then again, is that surprising? I think not. Does it mean PAX is rotting from the insides? Of course not!
There was a time when this event would not sell out, and if it did it would only take weeks. Most people who would attend where most likely members of the PA community, and so the vibe you would get from the crowd was very different. This may also explain why there used to be so many community driven events - Sure they are still around, but I feel like they have either changed or diminished in one way or another. None the less I feel like they are being drowned out by the growing masses.
PAX has grown as it tried to accommodate the demand, and by trying to make everyone happy, everyone will also see something they don't like. That's what happens when you aim for mass appeal. But that's not a bad thing. You want more people to come to PAX and enjoy it. Discontent is going to be a thing now, and we just have to learn how to deal with it. Some of it maybe valid, some less so.
It's also aging, and so some of us are getting harder to impress with each new event. This was my fifth PAX. There were less surprises for me this time around. On my first year (lime many) I was like a dear in headlights. On my third year, thanks to the prank, I ended up waiting on the back stage of the main theater (I remember realizing how unlikely that was, thanks to @Zerzhul and Moe and everyone else). Now I'm looking at event #6 with an almost exact idea of how much the trip will cost me to the cent, including conversion, because I've done it often enough.
Maybe, just maybe, people are focusing on some bad (yet minor) things because certain details are more easily identifiable than the more vague malaise that some people have started feeling as the event bloomed into one of the biggest gaming event there is. Food Waste. Bathroom gender reconfiguration. Waste of swag... Guys and girls, let's remember that for as long as we have booths and free play rooms, we are going to be golden - at least compared to many other geek events that only let you rub elbows with like minded people.
The real magic of PAX is, and hopefully always will be, the fact that you not only get to hang out with people who love the same stuff with the same level of passion - it's because they also let you enjoy said games with them.
You can concentrate on all the bad stuff you want, but I would ask that everyone at least try to focus on the good stuff too and remember why PAX stands out from the rest. A lot of effort is put into making sure everyone has the best possible time. Spilled oats should not diminish that.
Mike, Jerry, Robert and everyone else behind the PA Crew - Thanks for the great job and thanks for giving us a place to share our passions. I hope you guys don't get tired of our follies.
Thanks also goes out to the Enforcers. If I could I would buy all of you a drink, because damn you deserve them.
Thanks for putting up with us.
Keep on the constructive comments.
</Walloftext >
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ClixThis guy I knowSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Is there no official post-PAX survey this year? In the past I've always gotten an email with a link to the official survey. Is that not a thing anymore?
Is there no official post-PAX survey this year? In the past I've always gotten an email with a link to the official survey. Is that not a thing anymore?
There probably will be. You can always contact reed expo for a definite answer since they're the ones that send it out I think.
Interesting. I definitely did not get one. Maybe they messed up their email list? Waves could be an explanation but I don't remember waves for those in the past.
I got mine a couple of weeks ago. There's a good chance they might just be doing sampling, instead of reaching out to all of the attendees. Very common market research practice.
I got mine a couple of weeks ago. There's a good chance they might just be doing sampling, instead of reaching out to all of the attendees. Very common market research practice.
Indeed, and a good point. I guess I was just surprised since I've always received one
I never received one when I went as Media for a couple years.. I have received one the last two years when I went as a normal attendee. I received mine for this year's PAX around 2 weeks ago.
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surettekill the switchBoston, MARegistered Userregular
Yeah, can confirm I also got the survey a couple weeks ago. Always assumed every attendee got it, since I've gotten it every other year I've been.
Posts
I cannot even count how many times I heard this complaint during the Expo from the visitors to our room. There is no way to sugar-coat this... putting us with handheld did not work. It made sense on paper but not in execution. Believe me, we have heard what our visitors have told us during the show and we will take this feedback directly to the PAX-East staff.
Thank you for the support of ACAM. I am always pleased to hear from people that enjoy what we do at PAX-East.
I will agree though that on paper it sounded like a good idea too. We only visited this area briefly (there is so much to see at PAX) and did not see any of the mentioned problems, but I can sympathize none the less.
Personally speaking I would still like to see the ACAM somewhere on the same side of the BCEC. It seems that this is the place where most people play games in the first place and it could provide for a well rounded experience for anyone who walks alongside that corridor. I always found that ACAM's previous location did not do it justice.
It wasn't real oatmeal. At the Cards Against Humanity panel they even said something along the lines of "you probably shouldn't eat that shit"
Understood, but that is semantics. Oats are a food product - you soak them and then eat them. Teaching young people to trash a food product - any food product - is just not good. CAH should be ashamed of themselves. They could have put confetti in there (still a waste of resources, but still). Again - I'm not saying PAX needs to be some sort of eco-warrior org, but basic environmental preservation efforts on an institutional level are just good business practices.
It was a fun idea and nothing CAH should be ashamed of doing. You're talking about, collectively, a few pounds of wasted oats -- it's not like they stuffed cards inside of a cooked turkey. A single grocery store or restaurant throws away exponentially more food in the course of a day than what was thrown out at PAX East.
I read your posts it says nothing about the BCEC's minimum standard of behavior, if any.
Personally this was my worst PAX yet, but for a wide variety of reasons outside of PA's control. The BCEC staff was very rude and condescending. My suspicion is that their attitude is that we are a bunch of nerds that don't deserve any respect, and if we bitch others will be more than happy to buy passes. PAX has never not sold out, the leverage is ALL with the PA team and with the BCEC.
Your posts did not address those points at all
You do know you're talking about Cards Against Humanity, right?
Anyway, I'll put my voice into the fray of having an.. OK.. PAX this time around. I don't know what it was, but the vibe just felt different. Maybe it was seeing stuff like people standing around a trashcan just dumping swag bags on Friday (I was incredibly confused, because I didn't realize the CAH cards were in the Oatmeal until Sunday afternoon), maybe it was my own indifference to the majority of what was going on.. the parties I went to were fun, and the people I went with had a good time...
Things just felt.. off..
Ex-Agent to the Stars, ex a lot of other things too.
Pax East 2011, 2012 Veteran. 2014 now loading.
Part of my off feeling was probably because I went the the NVIDIA panel on Friday. I know I should have known better, but I wanted to see some new tech since I hadn't attended that sort of a panel since East 2010. The attendee behavior in that panel was insane. People pushing other people over, standing on chairs, screaming into everyone's ears, just ugh. The same could be said of many swag-centric things on the expo floor. It's like a feeding frenzy. Enforcers had to be actively running all over the place just to attempt to maintain some sort of order. I did not envy them their job. The tech part of the panel was good though.
-/+/* = bad/good/neutral
+ Getting a disability badge was just as easy as previous years, thank you so much for making it unstressful!
+ Staying at the Westin this year was wonderful. I saw some people had rude staff but everyone we interacted with was awesome.
+ The D&D Next demo was amazing. I didn't really see if there was a pick-up RPG room this year (I vageuly remember there was one 2-3 years ago at least), but more of that style of short-ish, fun intro sessions to RP systems would be fantastic.
* Interestingly, since we're big table-top gamers and only ventured forth into the big expo hall to look at specific things, or to other floors to go to specific panels, the bathroom thing was never an issue. I think the women's bathroom on the bottom floor was dead center between the table-top and expo hall area and that was ok for me.
* More swag would be nice, yeah. But I understand companies may not have as much loose funds to make that a thing.
- I technically have this complaint every year but this is the first time I'm going to actually post it: the expo hall is almost entirely useless to me because my disability badge does nothing for me for the lines to play demos or get swag or whatever. It's a bit sad, IMO, that because of a medical condition I can't enjoy 30% of PAX that I would if I could (percent given is subjective, I know for some people it's actually higher). I know there is nothing that can be done about it with the way the booths are set up (sitting down on a chair in line is a no-no because you can't cram as many people in and it's distruptive, for instance), so this is just kind of an FYI in case some genius out there thinks of something that could change it.
- I went to one panel (the one about how to advance from a starting position in the gaming industry) and talked to the enforcer at the door, showed the badge, asked if I could sit on the window bench and maintain eye contact etc. like I always do... but then right before the panel started they had everyone in the actual line get up and cram tight so that there was no longer eye-contact between myself and the enforcer (there was also one other diability badge person with the same issue)... and then that enforcer vanished and the two others that replaced her were never told disability badge people were waiting and were being obscured by the line. They started to let people in and the two of us with disability badges had to try to get to the enforcers through the rush to get in. This is the first time this happened to me, so I wanted to make sure you made a friendly reminder to enforcers that if one of them knows about a disability badge person, that they have to tell all the other enforcers involved with the letting people in or it'll get lost in the rush to get people into the event.
- The lines for getting "real" (not ice cream) food at the BCEC were insane (like always). We resorted to eating a giant breakfast and having room service dinners (yes this was stupidly expensive) just so I could function because, again, disability badge does nothing for it. Is there any way to convert some more of the empty space in the "line" room to food carts with more varied food options like the food court? And to have these run until late?
- There was an interesting effect to the expo hall closing at 6pm. Some board games booths opted to be in there for greater exposure (I think) or maybe they were just placed there, I don't really know... but normally the board games are all outside and they therefore run until their booth managers drop. This meant some board game booths didn't see business past 6pm and I don't think that's great either for the folk interested in what they had to offer or for their sales numbers. Is there any way to keep just the board game bits of the expo hall running until late? Personally, I'd love for the expo hall to keep going until 10pm+ (maybe the demo lines would reduce somewhat?? XD), but I know that's pretty brutal. Don't know what can be done about this one.
I've been to every PAX held at the BCEC and this one stands out as my least favorite of them all.
+The Roll for Diversity lounge was great. It was way better than I expected after seeing the fuss it caused months back when it was announced. I hope to see it grow in future years.
+Personal but my first time cosplaying was SUPER well received and got stopped for a ton of pictures. The devs at the Hotline Miami 2 and Devolver booths loved it! I wish more of the people who took pictures with me posted here, there's a few that I'm dying to see! (Sorry if I accidentally bopped anyone with the prop axe I was carrying in my backpack!)
+Cookie Brigade, you're awesome. Got lovely treat while hanging out in the handheld (hallway of beanbags and naptimes) lounge.
+Indie megabooth time and time again is proving to be the highlight of the floor for me.
+Loved the timing of the show this year. The weather was great! Quite the welcome change from last years flurries.
-Passes and hotel booking was a complete shitshow. I don't think anyone really disagrees on that.
-The big games got ridiculously crowded crazy fast. I was maybe 5th line in the queue room and tried to go straight for evolve one of the days and I was told it was capped already by an enforcer.
-The show feels like it's outgrowing its cage so to speak. I'm not bad with crowds but it feels more claustrophobic every year.
-I'm not one to try and double the size of my suitcase on the trip home but swag seemed to be lacking this year.
-Panels seemed to be a bit lacking to me. I'm not a big penny arcade person so I wasn't effected by the lessened presence of Mike and Jerry but it did seem like quality of the panels and the standout choices of previous years just weren't there this time.
-This may be personal bias but the Riot and twitch booths being as big as they are seems absolutely ridiculous to me. Riot felt like it was living up to its name any time I was within 100 feet of it.
-ACAM was in a terrible place this year. It felt so far out of the way. I never had an issue with the old location but this year just didn't work for them.
-The bathroom situation is stupid. You've all beaten the issue to death but as a guy, I've never had any issue with the bathrooms in the past.
-The shuttles were constantly packed out by the time they got to my hotel (we stayed at the Revere). On Sunday the morning shuttle stood us up for nearly an hour after it was scheduled to be there before it finally came.
-I noticed an bit of a decrease in courtesy and positivity that I'm used to at PAX. It felt like we've started to draw in a new breed of people with the event growing as big as it has. Before this year I could count the number of assholes I encountered from the 3 previous years on one hand, this year wasn't worth trying to keep count. It seemed like a quarter of the people at PAX this year had an attitude.
-I feel the need to echo the overall "meh" feeling that seems to be going around. I can't quite pin down what did it but it just didn't feel right compared to previous years. It felt less enjoyable overall.
*I didn't mind the bag checks, they were always polite and didn't slow things down much at all but it really did feel like it was just for show. I got a great reaction from the guy who did mine the first day since I was in my costume and had my pig mask on.
*I'm undecided about the whole announcing ticket sales the day before thing this year. It was a nice change rather than the frantic twitter watching that I get into post Prime every year but it also broke the internet.
https://allmylinks.com/topherxbeads
Maybe some people (like myself) have been feeling off because the event does not feel like what it used to be. But then again, is that surprising? I think not. Does it mean PAX is rotting from the insides? Of course not!
There was a time when this event would not sell out, and if it did it would only take weeks. Most people who would attend where most likely members of the PA community, and so the vibe you would get from the crowd was very different. This may also explain why there used to be so many community driven events - Sure they are still around, but I feel like they have either changed or diminished in one way or another. None the less I feel like they are being drowned out by the growing masses.
PAX has grown as it tried to accommodate the demand, and by trying to make everyone happy, everyone will also see something they don't like. That's what happens when you aim for mass appeal. But that's not a bad thing. You want more people to come to PAX and enjoy it. Discontent is going to be a thing now, and we just have to learn how to deal with it. Some of it maybe valid, some less so.
It's also aging, and so some of us are getting harder to impress with each new event. This was my fifth PAX. There were less surprises for me this time around. On my first year (lime many) I was like a dear in headlights. On my third year, thanks to the prank, I ended up waiting on the back stage of the main theater (I remember realizing how unlikely that was, thanks to @Zerzhul and Moe and everyone else). Now I'm looking at event #6 with an almost exact idea of how much the trip will cost me to the cent, including conversion, because I've done it often enough.
Maybe, just maybe, people are focusing on some bad (yet minor) things because certain details are more easily identifiable than the more vague malaise that some people have started feeling as the event bloomed into one of the biggest gaming event there is. Food Waste. Bathroom gender reconfiguration. Waste of swag... Guys and girls, let's remember that for as long as we have booths and free play rooms, we are going to be golden - at least compared to many other geek events that only let you rub elbows with like minded people.
The real magic of PAX is, and hopefully always will be, the fact that you not only get to hang out with people who love the same stuff with the same level of passion - it's because they also let you enjoy said games with them.
You can concentrate on all the bad stuff you want, but I would ask that everyone at least try to focus on the good stuff too and remember why PAX stands out from the rest. A lot of effort is put into making sure everyone has the best possible time. Spilled oats should not diminish that.
Mike, Jerry, Robert and everyone else behind the PA Crew - Thanks for the great job and thanks for giving us a place to share our passions. I hope you guys don't get tired of our follies.
Thanks also goes out to the Enforcers. If I could I would buy all of you a drink, because damn you deserve them.
Thanks for putting up with us.
Keep on the constructive comments.
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Attended: East 14, 15 and West 16
Attending West 2019