Will a fourth day ever be added to Pax East?
With how fast the three day badges went this year, do you ever think Penny Arcade with open up a forth day in Boston? I know they have tried to help stop scalping in the past. But they're are still a lot of fans that can't go to Pax, because of how fast badges sell out. I know Seattle got a fourth day, but that is only because the size of the venue is smaller then Boston. What other things could be done, to help with ticket sales?
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PAX seems like it is just getting bigger and bigger every year. There were a couple people in my program that wanted to go to PAX, but had no idea what Penny Arcade even was. So I guess Penny Arcade was right, when saying that PAX is becoming it's own thing out right. I guess if they're done expanding, the convention to four PAX's a year. Then I guess we will have to hope that maybe Fan generated events can fill that gap.
I guess once November hits, you better be checking Twitter hourly if you want a three day badge.
Some of that is because East has higher capacity than prime. Most of it is due to the extreme popularity of prime.
South is also like 5 weeks before East. In theory that'd push demand down as well.
(Why the Friday? Because then they could in theory have Thursday as the first day. Currently Friday is kind of the "soft opening" since most people have to work or go to school. If Friday was a Holiday then they could move to have Thursday as the "soft opening" day.)
Currently the closest thing in the calendar is only a State Holiday, March 17th 2015. There is also the national observance of St. Patricks Day, which is a good excuse to stick around for a week after PAX East but schools and work are still operating (probably less so the following day.)
It's difficult to see how you could shuffle things around and get 4 days in the same way that Prime has. I think that it's more likely that the convention centres will get bigger rather than having extra days added.
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They are just absurdly discounted right now, which is why they sell out so quickly.
3 days should cost like 2.75 days, a small enough discount that people who buy a 3 day pass feel obligated to go all 3 days.
Also, the Saturday day pass should cost a little more than the Friday or Sunday pass, like say $10 more.
I agree with Khoo in that he should never charge the true price of PAX tickets, as they'd go for like $100+/day if they were priced true, but making people pause a bit, before buying 3 day passes or Saturday tickets would smooth out the crowds better.
I think there should be an option to combine single day badges into the 3 or 4 day badge when you buy them.
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Don't kid yourself.
The 3 Day badges could cost the same amount as three single day badges added up together.
They would still sell out just as fast, and there would still be people upset. The fact of the matter is: there are more fans/people who want to go to PAX than there are 3-Day badges available.
I think he's talking about the all the tickets, not just all-days ones being priced at market value. Meaning if PAX tickets were priced what the market would bear, people who only needed 2 days would think twice about paying an extra $100-$200 for a 3-day versus just what they actually needed. And they wouldn't sell out as fast because it's no secret that tickets are currently priced way under the demand curve.
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East 2014 tickets completely sold out in 15 days, East 2015 tickets took 37 days to sell out completely.
Comparing that to PAX Prime... 2013 Prime sold out completely in 6 hours, and 2014 Prime sold out completely in less than an hour and a half. 2014 Prime was also the first year we saw attempted theft of badges from around the necks of attendees. I'm a bit concerned about this year to be honest.
Weren't the weekend passes for East 2015 still gone within a few hours? It's not as frenetic as Prime, but they still move really fast.