I liked all the space for tabletop. I wonder if the locations could be swapped, with the expo in the back area? Solves the problem of reaching/leaving tabletop, after Expo Hall closes.
There were a lot of map banners, but I could never effectively use them to find stuff, as I often couldn't discern where I was on the map.
It might be better to include the real names of locations, or specialize the map banners into direction signage instead.
Something like
X...
Y...
Z...
Theaters ahead
With directional arrows. Placed along/near walls facing the escalators. Cheap 24x36 or even 18x24 coroplasts would be sufficient.
The map in the schedule was hard to find too. A less wordy version of the map on pgs (24+25), could have fit on a page in the front or back of the 56 pg book.
3rd floor map is lacking. Size of falcon theater and console area are unimportant, folk just need to visualize how to get there.
A lot can be helped by color coding the connected escalator arrows and increasing font size/decreasing the text characters, while positioning that area relative to it's 2nd floor position.
The digits (1 2 & 3) are also too small to quickly discern.
For example
._UP._.....__....instead of._... UP TO
LVL 2._.....__......__......__..... LEVEL 2
Well I took a couple days to think about it and gather my thoughts about the very first Pax South. There were many factors that made this Pax great for me. Keep in mind that my only other Pax was East 2013 so there will be a lot of comparing between the two of them. Here are my thoughts.
1. Expo Hall- I would give the layout a solid A. There was never a point where I felt congested in the expo hall. I really had fun playing the indie games there. I would have liked to see a couple more AAA games on the show floor to 1) give more options for the attendees and 2) keep the indie lines shorter . There weren't too many game vendors there but that is ok since they are usually well overpriced. I get why they have those prices but it still stinks a little. Overall, I would have liked to see a few more booths between devs and vendors but I'm sure that will come as Pax South grows.
2. Handheld Lounge- I hardly spent any time there because of the location. It was right in the middle of a traffic lane which takes away a bit from the atmosphere of the handheld lounge. I love the set up at East where it was in a large corner a bit away from the majority of the action where people could play games and relax (they are bean bags after all). I understand that you only have so much pace to work with though. Maybe it could be improved on when the expansion is complete late next year.
3. Console Freeplay- Aces in my book. The staff was friendly and very efficient. I got to try out Shadows of Mordor among other games. Having two dedicated set ups for 8-man Smash was geneous. It would have been nice to see folks following the sign and switching players after two rounds but it wasn't a big issue. My only question is were did they get all of those gamecube adapters because those things are rare lol.
4. Console Tournaments- Again it was a blast. I must have played in half a dozen tournys at least. I didn't make the sign ups for Mario Kart 64 but apparently I probably would have been in if showed up at 4 anyway since every tournament I played in had no shows. My only gripe was how the Mario Kart 8 Part 1 tournament went. I know that these are run by volunteers but there was little organization. The tournament was scheduled for 4-6 but I don't think the first race started until almost 4:40. At that point we had to do one race instead of a grand prix. Maybe setting up the brackets after sign ups were filled would have made things smoother. Also, putting what system the games being played were on the guide would have helped since some games could have been on either PS3 or 360.
But again, I applaud all the enforcers for running the tournaments. It isn't easy but they did their best. I wish I knew they only had two Smash Bros 64 game cartridges because I would have gladly loaned out mine for a couple hours. I would suggest that maybe for future Pax's they could look picking a video game for a team tournament. 2 on 2 NBA Jam or Smash could be cool.
5. Food- I know that this is 99% up to the convention but they did alright. The prices were moderately acceptable for typical convention prices and they actually tasted like food. Also, who ever decided to put a huge food stand outside the console freeplay/tournament area deserves a promotion. I'm just saying.
6. Arcade- Again, I'm sure this is beyond Penny Aracde's control but I'll give my two cents. I love the atmosphere in the room but I wish they had a bigger space. I'm sure logistics played a factor but a few more games would hurt. Right? I'm guessing Screw Attack was footing that bill so props to them. By the way, does anyone know how far that guy with the Mortal Kombat 2 streak went? I watched until 60. I think I was win 57.
7. Enforcers- Awesome. I can't thank them enough. I thought about joining the ranks next year but I have a few questions about the job. That would be for a different thread though. Also, the convention staff was very friendly as well.
8. The downtown area- All the hotels and food was practically on the front drive way of the convention center and that was awesome. I loved the atmosphere compared to Boston. The weather was great on the weekend! My only grip was the lack of a convenient store that was open after midnight. I wanted to pick up some pop and snacks for the hotel room but I was out of luck. I should plan better for next year I suppose.
9. The attendees- Everyone was fantastic. Never met a rude person.
Suggestion- Since the tabletop area was tough to get to after hours, my suggestion would be to switch the tabletop area with the queue room. In order to keep the Expo Hall off limits you could have everyone walk down a makeshift hallway against the wall past the expo hall every morning and lead us towards the waiting area. It would make the table top area more accessible the whole time for those who were interested in it.
As long as the dates work out for me, I plan on being a permanent Pax South attendee.
The first sponsor to put a free bottle of water or empty bottle into the swag bag will get all the love possible in the world. Slap your sticker on the side of a 10 cent bottle and I will buy your product out of sheer gratitude.
I've been to Prime 4 times before going to this PAX. First I have some constructive feedback for all PAX's and the rest is about just South.
Line management is a problem every PAX has. Here are 2 options that don't contradict each other:
1-More stations with games and some shorter play times would be great. Have your big (and yes, awesome) displays with one game going on the big screen. That one can be longer, and people can choose to wait in that line for a more complete experience. But most of us just want to know if a wait like that is worth it, so you have a bunch of other stations set up with short play times.
2-My first PAX was 2007. That year many PC exhibitors had their games available in PC freeplay! I checked out World in Conflict at their booth, for example, and then later played it in console freeplay and I was hooked. I bought it right after PAX. I played other great games there that were in the expo hall. That is now (almost) unheard of. Now I can go to PC freeplay and play pretty much all the games everyone has had for 10 years.
--Believe it or not, someone at PAX South put their game in PC Freeplay! Yes, Next Car Game: Wreckfest was available there. My brother and I played about 3 hours total of it and were happy to get back in line for it. It was a blast, and I'm going to buy it now because of the experience I had!
---They're going to need to expand PC Freeplay, but that's doable.
PAX SOUTH
Pros:
San Antonio is great for hosting a PAX. We never used our car except to enter and exit the city on our first and last days, everything was in easy walking distance, including the Alamo.
Freeplay areas/panels/setups like Bioware Base and Gigantic/etc were all great, I loved the layout. Everything was easy to find and a lot of the non-expo hall stuff had its own great areas.
Loved having everything in the same building, especially since the building clearly has enough space for growth. I mean, there was another convention going on... just saying.
The content of the expo hall, and the awesomeness of the exhibitors. As always, great people showing off great work.
Cons:
Remember that I'm comparing this to several PAX Primes
There weren't enough AAA titles in the expo hall. We saw everything day 1 and wondered what to do between other planned panels and tournaments after that. I expected that but I didn't expect it to be, what, a fourth of the two main expo halls of Prime? And that's with cramming in the indie games that would largely be above the main halls in their own area, with only some in one of the main halls.
Verdict:
PAX South was awesome. The fact that the only problem I really had with South was that there weren't enough big games is amazing. It's not something that would keep me from not coming again.
PS And sorry friends, but swag bags have been awful for years
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PedroAsaniBrotherhood of the Squirrel[Prime]Registered Userregular
I really didn't like that some of the contests were either switched out randomly or, say with the Grey Goo tournament, put on at the same time as Gearbox's event in the Main Theatre.
I was disappointed that I had to wait an hour plus in line to find out the LE pins had sold out. I don't understand why there isn't some sort of ticket-like system for this. Have some sort of side line queue at open for those buying a LE pin when they first enter the line, give them a plastic sort of ticket that they take up to the front and buy the pin (reuse per Saturday and Sunday), then people aren't waiting in line and getting frustrated when they can't get the LE pin. It may not be the best idea, but surely there is some sort of better way to do this.
I would have liked if the PAX Lines Twitter was actually more updated with most of the panels, instead of just the big ones. It was frustrating to go 45-60 minutes early to certain panels I thought would be smaller and intimate only to find them having just reached 100% capacity, while there were others that didn't fill up even 10 minutes before the panel started.
No bathroom in the BYOC. It was a fair bit annoying walking in and down a few hundred feet to a bathroom and back, especially if you have a backpack/messenger bag for swag. This became frustrating being put into a situation where we were asked for/that Enforcers had to ask about people's bags as they could easily appear as if they were stealing equipment when they're just trying to relieve themselves.
Lots of stuff will be going on at the same time. You can't be everywhere at once.
LE Pins will be bought first thing in the morning. You should be in the queue early if you want one. Assume 1 person buying two Pins, so if you aren't one of the first 300 people you are out for that day.
Not done BYOC, but it sounds like it would benefit from lockers.
•Food and Beverage Vendors and the lack there of. While I assume most, if not all, concessions are dictated by the convention I would have liked to have seen a better distribution and variety of food and drink for purchase. While we all love Mountain Dew and Mini Pizzas, spending three days at an event makes even the most staple of nerd diet foods unappealing.
•Pre and Post Events where somewhat lacking. I understand that Penny Arcade is obviously focusing, very successfully I might add, at running a massive convention, but I would have liked to see more events like the Pub Crawl on Thursday. My friends and I had a blast at the crawl, and I think more breakfast, lunch, or dinner type events would have been cool. The best time to meet people is obviously in the convention, but it’s awkward asking another bearded dude to come chill in your hotel room without coming off as creepy.
•The Smell was unimaginable. I had heard many jokes from my buddies as we drove down, but dear sweet 8lb 6oz baby Jesus was that awful. If there is any way that Penny Arcade would be able to rope AXE or Old Spice in as a sponsor it would make things significantly better.
Bigger variety of food outside the convention, but did you try the small Shitty Food Cart near Bandland? Different stuff every morning and afternoon, and oh my god every day was so good. Pulled Pork with BBQ sauce, Ham and Swiss Melt, Sausage and Egg Burritos. $2 for breakfast, $6 for lunch. SFC you were awesome.
Pre and Post events are organised by the community. You are part of that community. Don't think there are enough events? Make one. It's pretty cool.
Con Funk is caused by room sharing, I am convinced. Cram 6 people into a hotel room designed for 2 and it takes too long to shower all those bodies in the morning. Solution? Penny Arcade branded Jet Wash machines in the Queue Room. Anyone failing the sniff test from 6 feet gets hosed down with soap and water. Or they could just get up a little earlier and organise themselves. "I don't shower in the morning, I do it at night" Do it in the morning, for the sake of the rest of us.
My biggest complaint was from Friday. Why wasn't the main theater cleared out between panels? It was frustrating trying to find seats for the RT panel and my friends and I were given the run around, mostly due to lack of communication between the Enforcers inside the theater and those outside in the lobby, not to them being jerks. Next year if you guys could please clear the theater between panels please?
And not a complaint but more of a curiosity, because all the Law Enforcement personal in the expo hall were super nice, a few asked for pics of my cosplay(s), but why were there so many police officers on site?
Clearing the Main is usually only done for the big stuff like Acquisitions Inc. For example, Mike and Jerry's Q&A ran almost straight on from Storytime. Clearing would have been a huge hassle and most people want to see both. A lot stayed between Q&A and RT. What I think they might need is better management of the flow. Have people exiting from one side and filling from the other rather than running each other over.
Cops on-site may have just been a Texas thing, or possibly a gun thing. There were a few people talking in the subreddit the day before PAX about whether they were allowed to bring guns into the convention. Being told no didn't seem to sink in.
~ The first sponsor to put a free bottle of water or empty bottle into the swag bag will get all the love possible in the world. Slap your sticker on the side of a 10 cent bottle and I will buy your product out of sheer gratitude.
omg yes complete agreement with you there. On the plus side if 5 companies do bottles of water at once I don't see someone trying to grab a bunch of swag bags at once. Now I wonder what the nickname would if for this kind of promotion
Loved the Pax experience. My only complaint was the internet being booty. I know that's more of a convention center thing instead of PAX, but if they could get that done or if Pax would invest on making the "better" internet public for the event that would be awesome.
Come check out my channel for ALL your Pokemon and Nintendo coverage.
MrAGeezie - www.youtube.com/MrAGeezie
I do want to chime in agree with suggestions to improve the LFG in the Tabletop area. Next year I may plan to hit the forums and drum up some D&D 5th edition interest. I stopped walking around with my Player's Handbook because I did not see anyone in tabletop playing RPG, but I know there were folks there interested in and\or wanting to play 5th.
I will make a commitment to improve this myself next year. 8-)
Overall, had a great time. This PAX reminded me a lot of the early PAXes in the Meydenbauer Center, which I liked. I've only been back for one PAX in the Seattle convention center as it felt like an unwieldy beast. Not that it isn't a great event in its own right, but I enjoy the "medium-sized" expos; large enough to have interesting events and vendors, small enough to feel community-run. PAX South was still on the upper edge of "medium," which is awesome. I don't know if I'll be so lucky next year, but it would be great if each PAX develops its own personality, such that folks can go to the one that works best for them, rather than becoming 3-4 events to blitz each and every year.
I will point out that I had a bad experience turned into a good one by the Enforcer running the Tony Hawk tournament. When I wasn't correctly marked as winning my first round, I was basically disqualified accidentally. By the time we figured out what had happened, another whole round had been played and I was out if luck. While I regret venting my frustration at the Enforcer who made the mistake (since it was an honest error,) he was understanding and apologetic. Not content to let me storm around the expo the rest of the day feeling snubbed, he bought me something to eat after the tournament. He didn't have to do that, but it is the kind of thing people do for each other at PAX, and I appreciated it.
Although I didn't get my shot to win that tourney medal, the actual winner can't use his to buy a sandwich! So I figure it turned out okay.
Thanks to the whole PA gang for putting on another excellent show!
Edit: My sentence structure and grammar are atrocious. I apologize.
In general, I will say this was my first PAX, and it was fantastic. I will absolutely get tickets the instant they go on sale next year (assuming the durn things don't sell out in 2 minutes).
This is my first large video game convention of any type, and there were a great many things that I thought were well done (forgive me if some of these are a "common" item). The queue room is a fantastic thing. The checkin/checkout of tabletop games is great. The food was standard fare, but this being downtown San Antonio, there's 25 places to eat in 10 minutes of walk time, so that shouldn't be an issue.
The Enforcers, wow. You people make it. I have never seen a friendlier, happier, more willing to help bunch of staff out there. I chatted with one of them for a while (god bless me I cant' remember her name, but she hung around the merch area) and learned a lot. What a swell group of people.
The attendees. My only complaint is a few cases of BO. Other than that, everyone is friendly, willing to chat, has a DS or a Vita, and generally just good folk.
I think this being a first time, all expectations were exceeded. A lot of people have posted small items that could have been better that I won't go over. I'm just in general gushing over the entire convention. When I feel comfortable enough to fall asleep on a beanbag chair, you have done well.
I'm going to talk about the panels that I saw some, as no one else has commented on them.
Alright
404ing It: Breaking (Down) the Internet. It was ok, wasn't as funny as I thought it would be
Good
The Giant Bomb San Antonio whatever whatever. I was with a friend who wanted to see this as I'm not a Giant Bomb listener so I had no expectation level?
Confessions of a Troll: Human Nature Online - Obviously the goal was to have some fun while talking about some serious human aspects. Unfortunately some of the serious aspects they were trying to get across while educating were weakened by the constant interruptions of each other and poking fun, because I know they were trying to make points about there being a line. Otherwise it was quite entertaining.
Great
Firaxis Game Megapanel - not so much a megapanel as a promo for Starships, but that worked for me, as I'm a big Sid Meier fan.
Pillars of Eternity with Obsidian - Exactly what I expected to see, gameplay and Q&A (and a ton of people yelling LOOT LOOT).
Turning Up the Heat: Women Working in Games - I was interested to see what would be talked about. The panel talked about STEM initiatives, what we can do to get young women interested in the industry, and how to educate and train them, so that they can be hired in the future. They talked about culture change, and what they enjoy about their culture. The only downside is that they were all HR folk, and none were designers, programmers, artists, etc. They also did not specifically talk about certain controversial issues, and I think that was a good decision for this panel. I was pleased in general.
Fantastic
The Gamer Parenting Strategy Guide. - The three panelists were excellent, talking about their experiences, answering questions, generally being amusing but informative at the same time. Kristin, Jeff, and Eric are all great speakers and did a great job. I hope to see more panels like this at future PAX events.
Child's Play: Gamers Giving Back - Jamie, Kristin, Erick, wonderful people, and passionate about what they do. I enjoyed their look into what it takes to put on an event, and some of their current initiatives.
Jeff Gestmann Presents: An Intimate Q&A - As I said before, I was with a friend who's a big Giant Bomb fan hence my seeing this. In this case, though, I laughed my ass off. This was hilarious and fun and may just make me tune into Giant Bomb from time to time.
I've said it elsewhere and I'll say it here: I'm about 90% certain that I ran the only D&D game at PAX.
Other RPGs? One dude at the table over ran one game of 13th age.
Pathfinder Society showed up with demos sometime on Saturday.
Nothing else from the RPG people in Tabletop, that's no good.
Tabletop needs physical "looking for players" signs to hand out, twitter hashtags don't cut it when 1) not everyone has twitter and 2) connection could be spotty inside depending on phones (since there was no wifi available I could find).
It could stand to have a signup board, too.
Also talk with those Games on Demand guys from GenCon, because they know their stuff for running games.
I guess WotC was too busy firing people to send proper representation, but that can't be blamed on PAX.
Show was amazing, enforcers were amazing, lots of good things to say..... but the lowest tier wifi for exhibitors was $2500 a booth. I mean... there's a price and then theres wtfisthatprice? If you needed a (bad) landline it was $8000. This wasn't a show of Nintendos and Microsofts, it was mostly indy booths. There was almost no cellphone reception, we got LUCKY that one of our 3 phones (verizon I believe?) had reception, otherwise we would have been completely unable to take credit cards at the show, and it would have killed us.
Many of the booths had their own cell-based hotspot devices, but with all the electronics, almost all of these had interference and weren't working.
I'm assuming, although I really have no idea, that these prices were set by Freeman and not PAX in any way, so I would look long and hard at options to replace them. If these indy booths can't have wifi, how do you expect them to even have a show? One great example was the Kerbal Space Academy. They were sent to the show on donations from their fans, they get to the show and just need basic internet to stream.... and they're hit with somewhere between a $2500 and $8000 internet charge. Again, they got LUCKY that they worked out their hot-spot, because theres no chance in hell they could pay the price for internet, and then their entire show would have been ruined.
Veteran PAX Group representative checking in. My group has been to ...many... PAXen
My group ALMOST didn't go to PAX South, we go to East and Prime every year, and we were thinking a third PAX might be too much...we're all really happy we went though!
This launch was significantly smoother than EAST back in '10. It was not without it's hiccups, but everything ran quite smoothly.
Also, MAD PROPS TO FRIENDLY TEXANS. One of the biggest initial issues we've seen at PAX (was a problem at Prime a long time ago, and still is an intermittent issue at East), was convention staff looking down on, and being rude to attendees who may not fit societies views of "normal". Did not see any of that at PAX, and everyone was genuinely friendly and helpful (both at the con and in the surrounding city).
Also, the area surrounding the convention centre is absolutely beautiful. The river walk is amazing for sure!
I actually can't think of any complaints (that won't be automatically solved for next year). Such as the merch line being ridiculously slow compared to other PAXes....however, PA got shorted 4 point of sale terminals, so that's not exactly in their control.
...not really but we need someone to yell at us to make us better
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xiosGamer, Artist, Interesting mind seekerAustin, TXRegistered Userregular
edited January 2015
First time PAX attendee here! I thought it was an overall fun convention with room to grow. Now on to the feedback...
PROS:
-From talking to a few veterans of other PAX Events, this one was smaller and not as jam packed. So while I wouldn't mind to see it grow, I don't want the negative effects of having so many people that it becomes overwhelming or that I have to wait in line for hours just to play one game, as I heard is the case at PAX East. The size this year was great, 10-15% bigger would be acceptable but beyond that and you have to consider the logistics and downfalls of forcing people to decide what to play and fighting the crowds.. not always fun. So I'm glad this one was a success and I would go again next year without a doubt.
-Great and friendly staff without a doubt.
-Good variety of food selections. The prices weren't outrageous.
Improvement needed:
-Better/more navigational signage. Once we got into the convention center, there was a short bit of figuring out which hall to go down for the event. They could have benefited from giant signs pointing where to go along the way and then also once inside the area with the info desks and such. Not a huge deal but it helps, especially for first timers of the convention center, which was really massive and has great potential for utilizing more rooms in next years PAX. You could also do hanging signs above different areas of the expo hall that could be broken down into categories like mobile games or other stuff. Probably would be helpful here and there when you're looking across the room wondering where to go next.
-As other's have iterated, the layout should be changed up. I agree there was congestion in the front due to the multiple big booths. They were fantastic booths but I imagine if more people show up next year (and I expect that will definitely happen) that they need to do some tweaks to allow improved flow for higher traffic.
-PAX Shirts / merch. I was only able to make it out for Saturday but I was disappointed that by 3:30 they were completely sold out of all PAX 2015 shirts for guys. As an 8 year veteran of another gaming convention known as Quakecon, there is an elegant solution to this- Sell the shirts online as part of registration! That way people can just walk up to the merch booth, have their badge scanned then they get their t-shirt and voila. It's fast, prevents long lines and uses up less resources. It works extremely well at Quakecon and having multiple levels of ticket packages is ideal if someone wants even more. This solution would work just as well for these PAX swag bags. Instead of a bag with the same filler, I think it would be better to have it be more like a loot crate - so maybe you have one decent item and then you have a few other random items thrown in like say a voucher for a free game download / key or something else. Part of the fun is the surprise of what you get. I think it's best to do it this way or skip it altogether. You could even have something like where random bags get a ticket that you win a copy of the game if you visit the actual dev booth and signup for their newsletter or such. There's a lot of innovative ways they could enable marketability with a swag bag instead of allowing people to be convinced to just throw them in the trash. Get people engaged and involved.
-Improve the PAX app. I would like to see improvements in the app that would allow me to filter out certain schedule events like tournaments only or panels only. It required a lot of scrolling past stuff I wasn't interested in just to find the panels later in the day. It's all about filters. Please add them. Or maybe even just tabs from the top of the Schedule page that separate different types of events would suffice.
-More information about the PC Tournaments online and sooner. I don't recall seeing the PC tourneys announced when I registered and they were "TBA". It would be nice to know this information sooner or have it sent out in an email newsletter of sorts weeks ahead of the event. Not a huge deal, but would be nice. I missed one of the tourneys that interested me and I only found out about once I had arrived.
-Panelist speakers near the middle of the room would be ideal. But alas I could tell that due to the size of the rooms, it would be hard to put them center and fit projection screens on either side so I'm not sure what the solution to that might be but I feel it's doable. Maybe have screens on both sides that can fit within the limitations? That wouldn't be so bad.
I enjoyed this PAX but I was a little underwhelmed.
-Please don't sell 30 water bottles.
-I enjoy swag bags, but these were just bags of things to throw away later. With the exception of the SUPERFIGHT! cards.
-The sound for the concerts were horrible.
-Please add more AAA booths. I understand this is probably more them than you guys, but I felt like I was at a local comicon.
-More after-hour events. Again, I understand this may not be you, but after parties are half the fun for PAX. In all fairness, the most fun I had was playing SUPERFIGHT! in the Marriott hotel lobby with a handful of friends.
-Please utilize @PAXlines more. PLEASE.
Now Aside from that, I had a great time. The smaller venue made me feel like I had the opportunity to check out everything I wanted to. Everybody was easy access. In particular the Devolver booth. Enter the Gungeon was my favorite thing on the floor. I also feel like more and more booths are selling merch rather than giving it away. Which I understand, but don't really like it. Possibly because it was more indie booths than big name ones. I remember at PAX Prime '12 where Sony gave away Ico and SotC shirts. Those were awesome!
Overall, I really enjoyed it and met some great people that I will continue to talk to.
- Seemed easily organized
- Great indie representation
- Many opportunities to discover new games, new friends, and such
- Convention staff was polite and helpful
- Crowds weren't too overwhelming
- Has plenty of room to grow
Cons:
- Not many top companies represented (I missed you Blizzard!) [Even though Hearthstone and a bit of Heroes of the Storm was there, I would have killed for more]
- Not enough after-parties. As a San Antonio resident, and huge party/drink enthusiast, I would have loved to see more going on after-hours. I love meeting random people, and so I really wish the un-official events would have been bigger
- Maybe I'm dumb, but at times the map seemed hard to read. Then again, I was pretty hungover some of the time....
As other people have said, the unofficial events are all about you! If you want to see more, organize something. Doing that has the added bonus of letting you do exactly what you think will be fun
Every time you write parallel fifths, Bach kills a kitten.
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576 PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
The only issues I had was with the lines. Not because I had to wait in them, but they seemed handled very poorly.
For example: the 1pm Markiplier and friends Panel:
I was in line before the PAX_Lines twitter announced that it was full, but ya'll let everyone in in a mass (there for whoever got ahead of everyone else, and not let in and COUNTED in a neat orderly fashion) and there fore got snubbed even though I was in before it was announced full. Also there was a mess of line jumpers. Sooo yeah. Get on that. I've been to anime conventions with better lines.
I was very happy to see the swag bags so pared down this year. I didn't see any people taking piles of bags, stripping out the good stuff and then dumping the rest wherever. This was of course because the bags had nothing good in them. The only stuff in them a person might want was a Superfight! card, and a demo pack for Magic: The Gathering. Both of which were from exhibitors at the show, and at least Wizards was giving out the packs at their booth too. I think the lesson is: swag bags are terrible and should be done away with. They clearly take tons of prep time to make, generate massive amounts of trash, and when they have good contents it's generates bad attendee behaviors.
TLDR: Overall great launch for PAX South. Very satisfied PAX veteran.
I'll provide specific feedback, but I'd like to address a few common comments I'm seeing in here. While I am not affiliated with PA or PAX in any way, I did spend some years working PR for a very large publisher at other PAX events (Prime and East), so I have a slightly different view on how things are run.
1) "Layout could be better, move ____ over to ____", etc. The layout was great for a first attempt. I guarantee PAX will be expanding onto both sides of the convention center in the future, which will make the layout less confusing. Which ties into...
2) "Expo floor was small, not enough AAA, why wasn't ____ there?" Okay, dirty little secret time. Events like PAX cost publishers money. Lots and lots of money. Particularly if we are running a huge booth, giving away lots of swag, or traveling really far (*cough* Australia! *cough*). As PAX was expanding to more and more events, the PR budget gets spread thinner and thinner. Plus, while putting on a big booth at PAX generates some goodwill, the actual return on investment appears to be fairly low for the AAA crowd. The dollars spent on a booth and t-shirts are more of a reward for already-committed fans (who will probably purchase your game anyway) versus that same money being spent on TV ads or online promotions, which will actually increase awareness among undecided buyers and lead to more sales. Contrary to popular belief, content providers and publishers aren't swimming in cash, so they have to be smart. The end result is that when a company looks at a new PAX, they generally ask themselves, "Do we have a big title coming out very soon that needs an awareness push?" and "Will this event have enough attendance to be worthwhile?" The first is beyond anyone's control, but the great turnout answered #2 and will surely lead to more AAA presence next year. (Disclaimer: I am not in the business any more. I do not make these kinds of decisions, nor did I ever. And I will not state who I was involved with.) :P
3) "Provide more terminals to play games in the Expo hall, decrease play times for demos, etc" This is beyond PA's control, if I'm not mistaken. At least, it was for any demos I was involved in. All exhibitors decide how much to show, how interactive it will be, how many terminals they can provide, etc. You could provide feedback to a specific company, but setups can drastically from one convention to the next, so I doubt it would make much of an impact. A lot of factors can play into this, including technical issues (is the demo even ready yet? LOL) and lack of physical hardware (or staff to set up/maintain them). It was probably more noticeable this time because of the small Expo floor, but that will change (as explained in #2).
4) "San Antonio was super friendly, and lots of stores/restaurants were nearby, but they didn't seem prepared for the crowds." Bingo. I'm local, and I like to describe San Antonio as "the biggest one horse town you'll ever see". Despite it's size, fan conventions are relatively new here. A local anime event exploded and demonstrated to the national promoters that there was a willing fan base here. That lead to two major Comic Cons (Alamo City and Wizard World) and now PAX, all arriving within the last two years. San Antonio is still figuring out how these crowd surges work. As others have said, this location is infinitely more accommodating than East, where there is a huge dead zone around the convention center. I love being able to walk just a few minutes and have scores of restaurants to choose from!
5) "Swag was weak!" Yup. That's a budget issue, just like in #2. As South grows, more companies will be interested in providing swag. Personally, I really enjoy a good swag bag. Getting some unique CAH cards, some new Magic Decks, LoL codes, eye drops (oh lord, did those come in handy!), PA coloring books, etc were all fun. But I'm with everyone else who said that good swag also meant lots of jerks going through the line multiple times, snagging the one or two items they were hoarding, and dumping the rest. So...my ideal would be top-rate swag and maybe punch or scan badges to ensure one per person per day.
Sorry for the dry lecture. Thanks to anyone who read it. Now for FEEDBACK!
PRO:
-Panels ran on time and the guide BOOK (not the app!) was accurate for all events I attended (no last-minute switches).
-The A/V teams were on top of it for every panel I attended. No major glitches. (I didn't attend the concerts.)
-Enforcers were subtle and generally weren't noticed unless you needed them. This is ideal.
-Loved the board game lending area. Took full advantage of it. Didn't even realize there was a Twitter hashtag for inviting players, we used the old "box top on its side means we need more players". I both joined games and hosted games using this system.
-HUGE props to Gearbox for rolling their annual fan weekend into South. Please give them anything they want to keep making this happen! They were the backbone of the con, IMHO, and their pin giveaways made the almost complete lack of swag in the Expo hall less noticeable.
-People. The people attending, the PAX staff, the volunteers, the convention center staff---all aces. I met tons of people and enjoyed every encounter.
CON: (these are all minor)
-The guidebook app (at least on Android) deleted the Gearbox Theatre location. So all events hosted by Gearbox weren't on the schedule. The one and only event listed for them in the app was their Sunday panel in the Main Theatre. Huge gaffe. Luckily, the small size of South helped as people found their way to Gearbox anyway.
-Setting up a dancing stage right where people come up to the second level led to constant traffic jams. Call me an old fart, but I didn't see the appeal of watching one or two people halfheartedly play whatever dance game it was. Yet people would stand around and watch, right in the middle of the hall. Putting something like that near a dead end would have worked much better.
-I agree with the folks who said it was a little frustrating having indie tabletop games featured that weren't even close to Kickstarting or publishing. I get that these were chosen to bring them some needed publicity and input, and I'll adjust my expectations accordingly for the future. I did buy one game, but I was disappointed when two others were not only not for sale but weren't even close to finalized. (Still had fun talking to their creators, though!)
-I use a med badge due to a mobility issue, and I know this is a double-edged sword. If you are too strict, you might alienate someone in need. Too lenient, and people abuse the system. PAX has always erred on the side of leniency, and South was no exception. By the second day, obnoxious folks were running into the med badge seating areas and taking up seats meant for wheelchairs. And even when it was pointed out to them that it was for med badges only (and wheelchairs in that specific spot), they didn't care. Enforcers had to be found and asked to move them. I think most of us with the med badge wouldn't begrudge having to flash it each time we enter a med area if it will keep out folks trying to sneak in.
-Single worst experience was, unfortunately, the morning of the very first day. It involved the pin SNAFU and really made us feel like we were being intentionally played. In a nutshell, we waited in a line at the Expo merch booth and were told only after it was too late to get in the main line that we couldn't buy pin vouchers at that booth. The booth knew we were there for pins (we talked about it), yet they waited until the last possible second (literally, less than a minute before opening) to tell us we were hosed. Luckily, I spent an hour plus in line the next day and got what I needed, but it soured the first morning for me. I don't begrudge a hiccup or two with pins not arriving, but it seems like a major decision like "we won't sell at this location" could be communicated sooner.
Overall: GREAT debut for PAX South. Can't wait for next year.
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BekerChild's Play Program DirectorSeattleRegistered User, Penny Arcade Staffregular
-Single worst experience was, unfortunately, the morning of the very first day. It involved the pin SNAFU and really made us feel like we were being intentionally played. In a nutshell, we waited in a line at the Expo merch booth and were told only after it was too late to get in the main line that we couldn't buy pin vouchers at that booth. The booth knew we were there for pins (we talked about it), yet they waited until the last possible second (literally, less than a minute before opening) to tell us we were hosed. Luckily, I spent an hour plus in line the next day and got what I needed, but it soured the first morning for me. I don't begrudge a hiccup or two with pins not arriving, but it seems like a major decision like "we won't sell at this location" could be communicated sooner.
I agree there is always room for improvement in getting the word out. But if you are into Pins, you should really follow Brian on twitter, he is often the best source of information and did tweet the location on where they would be.
I agree there is always room for improvement in getting the word out. But if you are into Pins, you should really follow Brian on twitter, he is often the best source of information and did tweet the location on where they would be.
If I'm reading you correctly, that actually makes it MUCH worse. Is the "Lite Booth" the main store outside the Expo hall? Because if that was the sole location, and it was known a week in advance, then it was a major mistake for the staff at the other booth (inside Expo) to tell us all we could buy pins. We were told (at a minute to open) that the reason they weren't selling was because of the voucher situation, since they wanted to handle that at just the one booth. Wow.
Also, I'm not into pins in the least. They are a great idea, but I don't need another collection. I was picking them up for a friend as a birthday gift. And I don't use Twitter. I assume physically walking up to the vendor and asking pointedly if they have what I'm looking for the best source of info. 8-)
But thanks for the reply. Like I said, I am overall very pleased with my batch of PAX experiences over the years. And I'm sure some of the new fans will find those pin links useful.
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PedroAsaniBrotherhood of the Squirrel[Prime]Registered Userregular
@japester Don't just follow Brian, but PinnyPal twitter as well. Usually the day before the show we try and gather as much information about how all the Pins are being handled, and we did say something ahead of time.
@japester Don't just follow Brian, but PinnyPal twitter as well. Usually the day before the show we try and gather as much information about how all the Pins are being handled, and we did say something ahead of time.
Not to belabor the issue, but you are missing the point entirely, PedroAsani. Late pins weren't the issue. Vouchers weren't the issue. The issue was the staff working the actual merch booth waited until the last possible minute to tell us that we couldn't purchase pins or vouchers at that location. After assuring us, less than an hour prior, that we could. Following anyone on Twitter would not have rectified that in the slightest. It was purely a communication issue among the PAX staff. But like I said before, I think the PAX crew does an amazing job, year after year, at each location, so I don't think this is indicative of some ongoing issue. It was a big, opening day hiccup. But I wanted to mention it to make sure the organizers are aware of how it impacted folks. That way they can ensure it won't happen again.
I had a very hard time getting cell service at PAX South, on T-mobile. When I was inside and we were separated, many times my calls and texts didn't get through to my friends, or they were calling me and I had no cell service. It would be nice if PAX could have rented picocells or femtocells from the 4 major wireless carriers in order for the guests to have good cell service to look up games and things like that. I'm sure that this kind of thing depends on venue, but the inside of the hotel had pretty bad coverage. I hope that Penny Arcade will take this into consideration the next time it holds an expo.
This is a very important criticism. Can you guys change Pax to Dallas or Austin for the next Pax Souths? It seems location was a large factor in how small Pax was compared to events like Pax East or Prime. Apparently a good sum of people did not go because it was down in San Antonio rather than the metroplex.
The only issues I had was with the lines. Not because I had to wait in them, but they seemed handled very poorly.
For example: the 1pm Markiplier and friends Panel:
I was in line before the PAX_Lines twitter announced that it was full, but ya'll let everyone in in a mass (there for whoever got ahead of everyone else, and not let in and COUNTED in a neat orderly fashion) and there fore got snubbed even though I was in before it was announced full. Also there was a mess of line jumpers. Sooo yeah. Get on that. I've been to anime conventions with better lines.
THIS. My husband and I were in the queue way before and stood there, staring at the enforcer while 7-8 people just jumped in the "full" line right past her. People were walking through the area, and many were just staying. We got so flustered with the line we decided to not go to the panel at all. (Luck had it we ran into Markiplier before PAX started, so even though we wanted to see the panel we already said hi).
It was an amazing PAX, and our first. We had a pretty good idea of what to expect, and were just super excited to be there.
On the Pre- and Post- events (as the person who decided to try to catalog them), there simply weren't very many. There were 3 big dev ones: Grey Goo (ticketed event), Rooster Teeth (ticketed) and Deep Silver/Twitch. Then the board game night and bar crawl for 'parties'. If you were in town early, there's the Magical Mystery Tour. There was a pre-PAX dinner too that many expressed interest in but I'm not sure if many bought tickets.
Ultimately, we are a community and need community input. I don't follow every aspect of geek/nerd culture--if you heard about a party, post it! If you want to host a party, do it (and let someone know)! These events aren't sanctioned by PAX, they are by the community for the community. It was a first PAX. I don't think many people expected the level of turn out that we had (as evidenced by the shirt issue, or the secondary bar crawl). This is a thing that will get better with time.
Our few suggestions for improvement:
On Friday the Enforcers for the lines weren't doing a great job. See the Markiplier panel for the example I ran into. That being said, on Sunday for the Firaxis panel the Enforcers were wonderful. I think they learned. It was probably many Enforcer's first PAX too, so we should certainly be understanding.
About that Firaxis panel--it was the first panel of the day, so why on Earth was the theater already half full? Hubby and I were the third row, so we were pretty early to this panel. I am not sure how it was so full. Maybe med badges? If that's it, then that's totally fine! I was just surprised at the number of people already there.
I echo getting to the Tabletop area after 6. I was able to figure it out pretty quickly, but it felt like being somewhere after hours all alone. Granted, I played the most awesome game of Werewolf I've ever had, but if it was in a better spot there might have been more people.
Better placement/signage of the Handheld Lounge. Honestly if my friend wasn't in the PPL I might not have realized it was where it was. I walked through it a couple of times (usually on a mission from one place to another) and didn't even notice.
I could not get the Guidebook PAX XP scanner to work. I ended up giving up on it. Also, the map in the app wasn't very good. The paper map was far superior.
All in all it was a great convention. Each person in my group got to do something they really enjoyed, and a fun time was had by all.
One thing that was really nice (and unexpected!) to see was how present Khoo was. I wanted to thank him for deciding to bring PAX to the South, but didn't want to bother him.
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OpSteelneighbor of the village pindiotFort Worth TEXASRegistered Userregular
[*] About that Firaxis panel--it was the first panel of the day, so why on Earth was the theater already half full? Hubby and I were the third row, so we were pretty early to this panel. I am not sure how it was so full. Maybe med badges? If that's it, then that's totally fine! I was just surprised at the number of people already there.
The first chunk of the Firaxis panel line was queued in the side of the console area and let in a back door. Once that was empty then they let the rest of the queue that was lined up outside the room in the front door. My kids and I got there pretty early so there was no shenanigans there. :-)
And getting to hear Sid Meier speak was one of the highlights of the show for me.
Posts
There were a lot of map banners, but I could never effectively use them to find stuff, as I often couldn't discern where I was on the map.
It might be better to include the real names of locations, or specialize the map banners into direction signage instead.
Something like
X...
Y...
Z...
Theaters ahead
With directional arrows. Placed along/near walls facing the escalators. Cheap 24x36 or even 18x24 coroplasts would be sufficient.
The map in the schedule was hard to find too. A less wordy version of the map on pgs (24+25), could have fit on a page in the front or back of the 56 pg book.
3rd floor map is lacking. Size of falcon theater and console area are unimportant, folk just need to visualize how to get there.
A lot can be helped by color coding the connected escalator arrows and increasing font size/decreasing the text characters, while positioning that area relative to it's 2nd floor position.
The digits (1 2 & 3) are also too small to quickly discern.
For example
._UP._.....__....instead of._... UP TO
LVL 2._.....__......__......__..... LEVEL 2
Nitpicky stuff I know, but that's my two cents.
1. Expo Hall- I would give the layout a solid A. There was never a point where I felt congested in the expo hall. I really had fun playing the indie games there. I would have liked to see a couple more AAA games on the show floor to 1) give more options for the attendees and 2) keep the indie lines shorter
2. Handheld Lounge- I hardly spent any time there because of the location. It was right in the middle of a traffic lane which takes away a bit from the atmosphere of the handheld lounge. I love the set up at East where it was in a large corner a bit away from the majority of the action where people could play games and relax (they are bean bags after all). I understand that you only have so much pace to work with though. Maybe it could be improved on when the expansion is complete late next year.
3. Console Freeplay- Aces in my book. The staff was friendly and very efficient. I got to try out Shadows of Mordor among other games. Having two dedicated set ups for 8-man Smash was geneous. It would have been nice to see folks following the sign and switching players after two rounds but it wasn't a big issue. My only question is were did they get all of those gamecube adapters because those things are rare lol.
4. Console Tournaments- Again it was a blast. I must have played in half a dozen tournys at least. I didn't make the sign ups for Mario Kart 64 but apparently I probably would have been in if showed up at 4 anyway since every tournament I played in had no shows. My only gripe was how the Mario Kart 8 Part 1 tournament went. I know that these are run by volunteers but there was little organization. The tournament was scheduled for 4-6 but I don't think the first race started until almost 4:40. At that point we had to do one race instead of a grand prix. Maybe setting up the brackets after sign ups were filled would have made things smoother. Also, putting what system the games being played were on the guide would have helped since some games could have been on either PS3 or 360.
But again, I applaud all the enforcers for running the tournaments. It isn't easy but they did their best. I wish I knew they only had two Smash Bros 64 game cartridges because I would have gladly loaned out mine for a couple hours. I would suggest that maybe for future Pax's they could look picking a video game for a team tournament. 2 on 2 NBA Jam or Smash could be cool.
5. Food- I know that this is 99% up to the convention but they did alright. The prices were moderately acceptable for typical convention prices and they actually tasted like food. Also, who ever decided to put a huge food stand outside the console freeplay/tournament area deserves a promotion. I'm just saying.
6. Arcade- Again, I'm sure this is beyond Penny Aracde's control but I'll give my two cents. I love the atmosphere in the room but I wish they had a bigger space. I'm sure logistics played a factor but a few more games would hurt. Right? I'm guessing Screw Attack was footing that bill so props to them. By the way, does anyone know how far that guy with the Mortal Kombat 2 streak went? I watched until 60. I think I was win 57.
7. Enforcers- Awesome. I can't thank them enough. I thought about joining the ranks next year but I have a few questions about the job. That would be for a different thread though. Also, the convention staff was very friendly as well.
8. The downtown area- All the hotels and food was practically on the front drive way of the convention center and that was awesome. I loved the atmosphere compared to Boston. The weather was great on the weekend! My only grip was the lack of a convenient store that was open after midnight. I wanted to pick up some pop and snacks for the hotel room but I was out of luck. I should plan better for next year I suppose.
9. The attendees- Everyone was fantastic. Never met a rude person.
Suggestion- Since the tabletop area was tough to get to after hours, my suggestion would be to switch the tabletop area with the queue room. In order to keep the Expo Hall off limits you could have everyone walk down a makeshift hallway against the wall past the expo hall every morning and lead us towards the waiting area. It would make the table top area more accessible the whole time for those who were interested in it.
As long as the dates work out for me, I plan on being a permanent Pax South attendee.
Amen to that brother (or sister).
Line management is a problem every PAX has. Here are 2 options that don't contradict each other:
1-More stations with games and some shorter play times would be great. Have your big (and yes, awesome) displays with one game going on the big screen. That one can be longer, and people can choose to wait in that line for a more complete experience. But most of us just want to know if a wait like that is worth it, so you have a bunch of other stations set up with short play times.
2-My first PAX was 2007. That year many PC exhibitors had their games available in PC freeplay! I checked out World in Conflict at their booth, for example, and then later played it in console freeplay and I was hooked. I bought it right after PAX. I played other great games there that were in the expo hall. That is now (almost) unheard of. Now I can go to PC freeplay and play pretty much all the games everyone has had for 10 years.
--Believe it or not, someone at PAX South put their game in PC Freeplay! Yes, Next Car Game: Wreckfest was available there. My brother and I played about 3 hours total of it and were happy to get back in line for it. It was a blast, and I'm going to buy it now because of the experience I had!
---They're going to need to expand PC Freeplay, but that's doable.
PAX SOUTH
Pros:
San Antonio is great for hosting a PAX. We never used our car except to enter and exit the city on our first and last days, everything was in easy walking distance, including the Alamo.
Freeplay areas/panels/setups like Bioware Base and Gigantic/etc were all great, I loved the layout. Everything was easy to find and a lot of the non-expo hall stuff had its own great areas.
Loved having everything in the same building, especially since the building clearly has enough space for growth. I mean, there was another convention going on... just saying.
The content of the expo hall, and the awesomeness of the exhibitors. As always, great people showing off great work.
Cons:
Remember that I'm comparing this to several PAX Primes
There weren't enough AAA titles in the expo hall. We saw everything day 1 and wondered what to do between other planned panels and tournaments after that. I expected that but I didn't expect it to be, what, a fourth of the two main expo halls of Prime? And that's with cramming in the indie games that would largely be above the main halls in their own area, with only some in one of the main halls.
Verdict:
PAX South was awesome. The fact that the only problem I really had with South was that there weren't enough big games is amazing. It's not something that would keep me from not coming again.
PS And sorry friends, but swag bags have been awful for years
LE Pins will be bought first thing in the morning. You should be in the queue early if you want one. Assume 1 person buying two Pins, so if you aren't one of the first 300 people you are out for that day.
Not done BYOC, but it sounds like it would benefit from lockers.
Bigger variety of food outside the convention, but did you try the small Shitty Food Cart near Bandland? Different stuff every morning and afternoon, and oh my god every day was so good. Pulled Pork with BBQ sauce, Ham and Swiss Melt, Sausage and Egg Burritos. $2 for breakfast, $6 for lunch. SFC you were awesome.
Pre and Post events are organised by the community. You are part of that community. Don't think there are enough events? Make one. It's pretty cool.
Con Funk is caused by room sharing, I am convinced. Cram 6 people into a hotel room designed for 2 and it takes too long to shower all those bodies in the morning. Solution? Penny Arcade branded Jet Wash machines in the Queue Room. Anyone failing the sniff test from 6 feet gets hosed down with soap and water. Or they could just get up a little earlier and organise themselves. "I don't shower in the morning, I do it at night" Do it in the morning, for the sake of the rest of us.
Clearing the Main is usually only done for the big stuff like Acquisitions Inc. For example, Mike and Jerry's Q&A ran almost straight on from Storytime. Clearing would have been a huge hassle and most people want to see both. A lot stayed between Q&A and RT. What I think they might need is better management of the flow. Have people exiting from one side and filling from the other rather than running each other over.
Cops on-site may have just been a Texas thing, or possibly a gun thing. There were a few people talking in the subreddit the day before PAX about whether they were allowed to bring guns into the convention. Being told no didn't seem to sink in.
Nusquam Findi Factionis
My Digital Pin Lanyard
omg yes complete agreement with you there. On the plus side if 5 companies do bottles of water at once I don't see someone trying to grab a bunch of swag bags at once. Now I wonder what the nickname would if for this kind of promotion
MrAGeezie - www.youtube.com/MrAGeezie
I will make a commitment to improve this myself next year. 8-)
I will point out that I had a bad experience turned into a good one by the Enforcer running the Tony Hawk tournament. When I wasn't correctly marked as winning my first round, I was basically disqualified accidentally. By the time we figured out what had happened, another whole round had been played and I was out if luck. While I regret venting my frustration at the Enforcer who made the mistake (since it was an honest error,) he was understanding and apologetic. Not content to let me storm around the expo the rest of the day feeling snubbed, he bought me something to eat after the tournament. He didn't have to do that, but it is the kind of thing people do for each other at PAX, and I appreciated it.
Although I didn't get my shot to win that tourney medal, the actual winner can't use his to buy a sandwich! So I figure it turned out okay.
Thanks to the whole PA gang for putting on another excellent show!
In general, I will say this was my first PAX, and it was fantastic. I will absolutely get tickets the instant they go on sale next year (assuming the durn things don't sell out in 2 minutes).
This is my first large video game convention of any type, and there were a great many things that I thought were well done (forgive me if some of these are a "common" item). The queue room is a fantastic thing. The checkin/checkout of tabletop games is great. The food was standard fare, but this being downtown San Antonio, there's 25 places to eat in 10 minutes of walk time, so that shouldn't be an issue.
The Enforcers, wow. You people make it. I have never seen a friendlier, happier, more willing to help bunch of staff out there. I chatted with one of them for a while (god bless me I cant' remember her name, but she hung around the merch area) and learned a lot. What a swell group of people.
The attendees. My only complaint is a few cases of BO. Other than that, everyone is friendly, willing to chat, has a DS or a Vita, and generally just good folk.
I think this being a first time, all expectations were exceeded. A lot of people have posted small items that could have been better that I won't go over. I'm just in general gushing over the entire convention. When I feel comfortable enough to fall asleep on a beanbag chair, you have done well.
I'm going to talk about the panels that I saw some, as no one else has commented on them.
Alright
404ing It: Breaking (Down) the Internet. It was ok, wasn't as funny as I thought it would be
Good
The Giant Bomb San Antonio whatever whatever. I was with a friend who wanted to see this as I'm not a Giant Bomb listener so I had no expectation level?
Confessions of a Troll: Human Nature Online - Obviously the goal was to have some fun while talking about some serious human aspects. Unfortunately some of the serious aspects they were trying to get across while educating were weakened by the constant interruptions of each other and poking fun, because I know they were trying to make points about there being a line. Otherwise it was quite entertaining.
Great
Firaxis Game Megapanel - not so much a megapanel as a promo for Starships, but that worked for me, as I'm a big Sid Meier fan.
Pillars of Eternity with Obsidian - Exactly what I expected to see, gameplay and Q&A (and a ton of people yelling LOOT LOOT).
Turning Up the Heat: Women Working in Games - I was interested to see what would be talked about. The panel talked about STEM initiatives, what we can do to get young women interested in the industry, and how to educate and train them, so that they can be hired in the future. They talked about culture change, and what they enjoy about their culture. The only downside is that they were all HR folk, and none were designers, programmers, artists, etc. They also did not specifically talk about certain controversial issues, and I think that was a good decision for this panel. I was pleased in general.
Fantastic
The Gamer Parenting Strategy Guide. - The three panelists were excellent, talking about their experiences, answering questions, generally being amusing but informative at the same time. Kristin, Jeff, and Eric are all great speakers and did a great job. I hope to see more panels like this at future PAX events.
Child's Play: Gamers Giving Back - Jamie, Kristin, Erick, wonderful people, and passionate about what they do. I enjoyed their look into what it takes to put on an event, and some of their current initiatives.
Jeff Gestmann Presents: An Intimate Q&A - As I said before, I was with a friend who's a big Giant Bomb fan hence my seeing this. In this case, though, I laughed my ass off. This was hilarious and fun and may just make me tune into Giant Bomb from time to time.
Other RPGs? One dude at the table over ran one game of 13th age.
Pathfinder Society showed up with demos sometime on Saturday.
Nothing else from the RPG people in Tabletop, that's no good.
Tabletop needs physical "looking for players" signs to hand out, twitter hashtags don't cut it when 1) not everyone has twitter and 2) connection could be spotty inside depending on phones (since there was no wifi available I could find).
It could stand to have a signup board, too.
Also talk with those Games on Demand guys from GenCon, because they know their stuff for running games.
I guess WotC was too busy firing people to send proper representation, but that can't be blamed on PAX.
Many of the booths had their own cell-based hotspot devices, but with all the electronics, almost all of these had interference and weren't working.
I'm assuming, although I really have no idea, that these prices were set by Freeman and not PAX in any way, so I would look long and hard at options to replace them. If these indy booths can't have wifi, how do you expect them to even have a show? One great example was the Kerbal Space Academy. They were sent to the show on donations from their fans, they get to the show and just need basic internet to stream.... and they're hit with somewhere between a $2500 and $8000 internet charge. Again, they got LUCKY that they worked out their hot-spot, because theres no chance in hell they could pay the price for internet, and then their entire show would have been ruined.
My group ALMOST didn't go to PAX South, we go to East and Prime every year, and we were thinking a third PAX might be too much...we're all really happy we went though!
This launch was significantly smoother than EAST back in '10. It was not without it's hiccups, but everything ran quite smoothly.
Also, MAD PROPS TO FRIENDLY TEXANS. One of the biggest initial issues we've seen at PAX (was a problem at Prime a long time ago, and still is an intermittent issue at East), was convention staff looking down on, and being rude to attendees who may not fit societies views of "normal". Did not see any of that at PAX, and everyone was genuinely friendly and helpful (both at the con and in the surrounding city).
Also, the area surrounding the convention centre is absolutely beautiful. The river walk is amazing for sure!
I actually can't think of any complaints (that won't be automatically solved for next year). Such as the merch line being ridiculously slow compared to other PAXes....however, PA got shorted 4 point of sale terminals, so that's not exactly in their control.
Can't wait for next year!
...not really but we need someone to yell at us to make us better
PROS:
-From talking to a few veterans of other PAX Events, this one was smaller and not as jam packed. So while I wouldn't mind to see it grow, I don't want the negative effects of having so many people that it becomes overwhelming or that I have to wait in line for hours just to play one game, as I heard is the case at PAX East. The size this year was great, 10-15% bigger would be acceptable but beyond that and you have to consider the logistics and downfalls of forcing people to decide what to play and fighting the crowds.. not always fun. So I'm glad this one was a success and I would go again next year without a doubt.
-Great and friendly staff without a doubt.
-Good variety of food selections. The prices weren't outrageous.
Improvement needed:
-Better/more navigational signage. Once we got into the convention center, there was a short bit of figuring out which hall to go down for the event. They could have benefited from giant signs pointing where to go along the way and then also once inside the area with the info desks and such. Not a huge deal but it helps, especially for first timers of the convention center, which was really massive and has great potential for utilizing more rooms in next years PAX. You could also do hanging signs above different areas of the expo hall that could be broken down into categories like mobile games or other stuff. Probably would be helpful here and there when you're looking across the room wondering where to go next.
-As other's have iterated, the layout should be changed up. I agree there was congestion in the front due to the multiple big booths. They were fantastic booths but I imagine if more people show up next year (and I expect that will definitely happen) that they need to do some tweaks to allow improved flow for higher traffic.
-PAX Shirts / merch. I was only able to make it out for Saturday but I was disappointed that by 3:30 they were completely sold out of all PAX 2015 shirts for guys. As an 8 year veteran of another gaming convention known as Quakecon, there is an elegant solution to this- Sell the shirts online as part of registration! That way people can just walk up to the merch booth, have their badge scanned then they get their t-shirt and voila. It's fast, prevents long lines and uses up less resources. It works extremely well at Quakecon and having multiple levels of ticket packages is ideal if someone wants even more. This solution would work just as well for these PAX swag bags. Instead of a bag with the same filler, I think it would be better to have it be more like a loot crate - so maybe you have one decent item and then you have a few other random items thrown in like say a voucher for a free game download / key or something else. Part of the fun is the surprise of what you get. I think it's best to do it this way or skip it altogether. You could even have something like where random bags get a ticket that you win a copy of the game if you visit the actual dev booth and signup for their newsletter or such. There's a lot of innovative ways they could enable marketability with a swag bag instead of allowing people to be convinced to just throw them in the trash. Get people engaged and involved.
-Improve the PAX app. I would like to see improvements in the app that would allow me to filter out certain schedule events like tournaments only or panels only. It required a lot of scrolling past stuff I wasn't interested in just to find the panels later in the day. It's all about filters. Please add them. Or maybe even just tabs from the top of the Schedule page that separate different types of events would suffice.
-More information about the PC Tournaments online and sooner. I don't recall seeing the PC tourneys announced when I registered and they were "TBA". It would be nice to know this information sooner or have it sent out in an email newsletter of sorts weeks ahead of the event. Not a huge deal, but would be nice. I missed one of the tourneys that interested me and I only found out about once I had arrived.
-Panelist speakers near the middle of the room would be ideal. But alas I could tell that due to the size of the rooms, it would be hard to put them center and fit projection screens on either side so I'm not sure what the solution to that might be but I feel it's doable. Maybe have screens on both sides that can fit within the limitations? That wouldn't be so bad.
-Please don't sell 30 water bottles.
-I enjoy swag bags, but these were just bags of things to throw away later. With the exception of the SUPERFIGHT! cards.
-The sound for the concerts were horrible.
-Please add more AAA booths. I understand this is probably more them than you guys, but I felt like I was at a local comicon.
-More after-hour events. Again, I understand this may not be you, but after parties are half the fun for PAX. In all fairness, the most fun I had was playing SUPERFIGHT! in the Marriott hotel lobby with a handful of friends.
-Please utilize @PAXlines more. PLEASE.
Now Aside from that, I had a great time. The smaller venue made me feel like I had the opportunity to check out everything I wanted to. Everybody was easy access. In particular the Devolver booth. Enter the Gungeon was my favorite thing on the floor. I also feel like more and more booths are selling merch rather than giving it away. Which I understand, but don't really like it. Possibly because it was more indie booths than big name ones. I remember at PAX Prime '12 where Sony gave away Ico and SotC shirts. Those were awesome!
Overall, I really enjoyed it and met some great people that I will continue to talk to.
- Seemed easily organized
- Great indie representation
- Many opportunities to discover new games, new friends, and such
- Convention staff was polite and helpful
- Crowds weren't too overwhelming
- Has plenty of room to grow
Cons:
- Not many top companies represented (I missed you Blizzard!) [Even though Hearthstone and a bit of Heroes of the Storm was there, I would have killed for more]
- Not enough after-parties. As a San Antonio resident, and huge party/drink enthusiast, I would have loved to see more going on after-hours. I love meeting random people, and so I really wish the un-official events would have been bigger
- Maybe I'm dumb, but at times the map seemed hard to read. Then again, I was pretty hungover some of the time....
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For example: the 1pm Markiplier and friends Panel:
I was in line before the PAX_Lines twitter announced that it was full, but ya'll let everyone in in a mass (there for whoever got ahead of everyone else, and not let in and COUNTED in a neat orderly fashion) and there fore got snubbed even though I was in before it was announced full. Also there was a mess of line jumpers. Sooo yeah. Get on that. I've been to anime conventions with better lines.
I'll provide specific feedback, but I'd like to address a few common comments I'm seeing in here. While I am not affiliated with PA or PAX in any way, I did spend some years working PR for a very large publisher at other PAX events (Prime and East), so I have a slightly different view on how things are run.
1) "Layout could be better, move ____ over to ____", etc. The layout was great for a first attempt. I guarantee PAX will be expanding onto both sides of the convention center in the future, which will make the layout less confusing. Which ties into...
2) "Expo floor was small, not enough AAA, why wasn't ____ there?" Okay, dirty little secret time. Events like PAX cost publishers money. Lots and lots of money. Particularly if we are running a huge booth, giving away lots of swag, or traveling really far (*cough* Australia! *cough*).
3) "Provide more terminals to play games in the Expo hall, decrease play times for demos, etc" This is beyond PA's control, if I'm not mistaken. At least, it was for any demos I was involved in. All exhibitors decide how much to show, how interactive it will be, how many terminals they can provide, etc. You could provide feedback to a specific company, but setups can drastically from one convention to the next, so I doubt it would make much of an impact. A lot of factors can play into this, including technical issues (is the demo even ready yet? LOL) and lack of physical hardware (or staff to set up/maintain them). It was probably more noticeable this time because of the small Expo floor, but that will change (as explained in #2).
4) "San Antonio was super friendly, and lots of stores/restaurants were nearby, but they didn't seem prepared for the crowds." Bingo. I'm local, and I like to describe San Antonio as "the biggest one horse town you'll ever see". Despite it's size, fan conventions are relatively new here. A local anime event exploded and demonstrated to the national promoters that there was a willing fan base here. That lead to two major Comic Cons (Alamo City and Wizard World) and now PAX, all arriving within the last two years. San Antonio is still figuring out how these crowd surges work. As others have said, this location is infinitely more accommodating than East, where there is a huge dead zone around the convention center. I love being able to walk just a few minutes and have scores of restaurants to choose from!
5) "Swag was weak!" Yup. That's a budget issue, just like in #2. As South grows, more companies will be interested in providing swag. Personally, I really enjoy a good swag bag. Getting some unique CAH cards, some new Magic Decks, LoL codes, eye drops (oh lord, did those come in handy!), PA coloring books, etc were all fun. But I'm with everyone else who said that good swag also meant lots of jerks going through the line multiple times, snagging the one or two items they were hoarding, and dumping the rest. So...my ideal would be top-rate swag and maybe punch or scan badges to ensure one per person per day.
Sorry for the dry lecture. Thanks to anyone who read it. Now for FEEDBACK!
PRO:
-Panels ran on time and the guide BOOK (not the app!) was accurate for all events I attended (no last-minute switches).
-The A/V teams were on top of it for every panel I attended. No major glitches. (I didn't attend the concerts.)
-Enforcers were subtle and generally weren't noticed unless you needed them. This is ideal.
-Loved the board game lending area. Took full advantage of it. Didn't even realize there was a Twitter hashtag for inviting players, we used the old "box top on its side means we need more players". I both joined games and hosted games using this system.
-HUGE props to Gearbox for rolling their annual fan weekend into South. Please give them anything they want to keep making this happen! They were the backbone of the con, IMHO, and their pin giveaways made the almost complete lack of swag in the Expo hall less noticeable.
-People. The people attending, the PAX staff, the volunteers, the convention center staff---all aces. I met tons of people and enjoyed every encounter.
CON: (these are all minor)
-The guidebook app (at least on Android) deleted the Gearbox Theatre location. So all events hosted by Gearbox weren't on the schedule. The one and only event listed for them in the app was their Sunday panel in the Main Theatre. Huge gaffe. Luckily, the small size of South helped as people found their way to Gearbox anyway.
-Setting up a dancing stage right where people come up to the second level led to constant traffic jams. Call me an old fart, but I didn't see the appeal of watching one or two people halfheartedly play whatever dance game it was. Yet people would stand around and watch, right in the middle of the hall. Putting something like that near a dead end would have worked much better.
-I agree with the folks who said it was a little frustrating having indie tabletop games featured that weren't even close to Kickstarting or publishing. I get that these were chosen to bring them some needed publicity and input, and I'll adjust my expectations accordingly for the future. I did buy one game, but I was disappointed when two others were not only not for sale but weren't even close to finalized. (Still had fun talking to their creators, though!)
-I use a med badge due to a mobility issue, and I know this is a double-edged sword. If you are too strict, you might alienate someone in need. Too lenient, and people abuse the system. PAX has always erred on the side of leniency, and South was no exception. By the second day, obnoxious folks were running into the med badge seating areas and taking up seats meant for wheelchairs. And even when it was pointed out to them that it was for med badges only (and wheelchairs in that specific spot), they didn't care. Enforcers had to be found and asked to move them. I think most of us with the med badge wouldn't begrudge having to flash it each time we enter a med area if it will keep out folks trying to sneak in.
-Single worst experience was, unfortunately, the morning of the very first day. It involved the pin SNAFU and really made us feel like we were being intentionally played. In a nutshell, we waited in a line at the Expo merch booth and were told only after it was too late to get in the main line that we couldn't buy pin vouchers at that booth. The booth knew we were there for pins (we talked about it), yet they waited until the last possible second (literally, less than a minute before opening) to tell us we were hosed. Luckily, I spent an hour plus in line the next day and got what I needed, but it soured the first morning for me. I don't begrudge a hiccup or two with pins not arriving, but it seems like a major decision like "we won't sell at this location" could be communicated sooner.
Overall: GREAT debut for PAX South. Can't wait for next year.
There is also a ton of information (and speculations) pre-PAX on pins in the Pinny forums http://forums.penny-arcade.com/categories/pinny-arcade
If I'm reading you correctly, that actually makes it MUCH worse. Is the "Lite Booth" the main store outside the Expo hall? Because if that was the sole location, and it was known a week in advance, then it was a major mistake for the staff at the other booth (inside Expo) to tell us all we could buy pins. We were told (at a minute to open) that the reason they weren't selling was because of the voucher situation, since they wanted to handle that at just the one booth. Wow.
Also, I'm not into pins in the least. They are a great idea, but I don't need another collection. I was picking them up for a friend as a birthday gift. And I don't use Twitter. I assume physically walking up to the vendor and asking pointedly if they have what I'm looking for the best source of info. 8-)
But thanks for the reply. Like I said, I am overall very pleased with my batch of PAX experiences over the years. And I'm sure some of the new fans will find those pin links useful.
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Not to belabor the issue, but you are missing the point entirely, PedroAsani. Late pins weren't the issue. Vouchers weren't the issue. The issue was the staff working the actual merch booth waited until the last possible minute to tell us that we couldn't purchase pins or vouchers at that location. After assuring us, less than an hour prior, that we could. Following anyone on Twitter would not have rectified that in the slightest. It was purely a communication issue among the PAX staff. But like I said before, I think the PAX crew does an amazing job, year after year, at each location, so I don't think this is indicative of some ongoing issue. It was a big, opening day hiccup. But I wanted to mention it to make sure the organizers are aware of how it impacted folks. That way they can ensure it won't happen again.
2015 PAX Prime Omeganaut (I will forever hate Katamari)
THIS. My husband and I were in the queue way before and stood there, staring at the enforcer while 7-8 people just jumped in the "full" line right past her. People were walking through the area, and many were just staying. We got so flustered with the line we decided to not go to the panel at all. (Luck had it we ran into Markiplier before PAX started, so even though we wanted to see the panel we already said hi).
Edit: I sounded rough.
On the Pre- and Post- events (as the person who decided to try to catalog them), there simply weren't very many. There were 3 big dev ones: Grey Goo (ticketed event), Rooster Teeth (ticketed) and Deep Silver/Twitch. Then the board game night and bar crawl for 'parties'. If you were in town early, there's the Magical Mystery Tour. There was a pre-PAX dinner too that many expressed interest in but I'm not sure if many bought tickets.
Ultimately, we are a community and need community input. I don't follow every aspect of geek/nerd culture--if you heard about a party, post it! If you want to host a party, do it (and let someone know)!
Our few suggestions for improvement:
All in all it was a great convention. Each person in my group got to do something they really enjoyed, and a fun time was had by all.
One thing that was really nice (and unexpected!) to see was how present Khoo was. I wanted to thank him for deciding to bring PAX to the South, but didn't want to bother him.
The first chunk of the Firaxis panel line was queued in the side of the console area and let in a back door. Once that was empty then they let the rest of the queue that was lined up outside the room in the front door. My kids and I got there pretty early so there was no shenanigans there. :-)
And getting to hear Sid Meier speak was one of the highlights of the show for me.