Last year my Uncle
and I had a rough time with travel arrangements and we often found ourselves
arriving much later than we had hoped. We unfortunately wound up staying across
the city and had to resort to bus/subway travel. It wasn’t a bad way to go
because everything was pretty cheap, but the downside was that the bus had
funky schedules on the weekend. Not to mention that this particular weekend had
an Easter Sunday. Our bus showed up every couple of hours to pick people up, no
doubt expecting a low volume of passengers. So keep in mind, when you go to PAX
this year, the travel arrangements you have set up. If you’re across town for
some unfortunate reason, make sure you look up the bus schedule and get to where
you need to be in a timely manner. The city doesn’t care about your time
requirements, trust me.
Now you’re
probably wondering why it matters to show up at PAX at a decent time. I mean,
the show doesn’t even start until 10, right? True, but you’re looking at 60-70
thousand game fans showing up at around the exact same time. Showing up early
doesn’t hurt anyone. Which brings me to my next lesson. Be prepared to wait…for
everything. You will need to have some patience because PAX is an overcrowded
joyride that forces you into a game of hurry up and wait. If you plan on
attending the exhibition hall first thing, show up at 8. You’ll wait two hours
to get in, but you’ll probably be at the front of the line which means you’ll
have first dibs on whatever you want. Last year, my Uncle and I found ourselves
waiting three hours to play a fifteen minute demo of Borderlands 2. Granted, it
was some of the best fifteen minutes we had at the show, but the wait was just excruciating.
Your wait time
will never be short, ever. In fact, when it comes to attending panels, the longer
you wait, the better seats you’ll have. I would recommend showing up to
whatever panel you want to see an hour before it starts. Sooner even, depending
on what you’re going to see. The Rooster Teeth panel was a very long wait for me
(mainly because the Penny Arcade Q&A session lasted longer than expected)
but since I showed up in line later than I wanted to, I wound up sitting near
the back of this giant concert hall. I had to view the whole thing via the giant
television screens they placed up. Not every venue is that large, so if you
want to ensure that you get to see the panels you want, you had better show up
early.
Waiting in line is
probably one of the most boring experiences I’ve ever had in my life. There
were times where I got to converse with other gamers who were waiting in line,
but after a while it got old and I just wanted to be left alone in my own
thoughts. Fortunately for me, I brought my Kindle Fire and had plenty of time
to read. The only downfall was that there was so much going on around me that I
found myself re-reading the same sentence over and over until I just packed the
thing back into my bag and played Fruit Ninja on my phone for an hour. Then I
realized the battery on my phone was dying and I had to get back to my
sentence. Bring something to do. People all around me last year had apparently
been to PAX before because they were sporting laptops, handhelds devices, and
tablets that kept them busy the entire time we were waiting. So if you’re going
to PAX this year, make sure you bring something to help you pass the time because
you will spend the majority of it waiting.
In case you haven’t
noticed, most of what I’m telling you has to do with standing in line. Like,
wear comfortable freaking shoes. I don’t know about you guys, but I have planter
fasciitis, which in a nut shell means my flat feet make standing for long
periods of time a pain in the ass. You’ll be seeing me with some arch supports
this year and some comfortable freaking shoes. By the time Sunday rolled around
last year, I could barely walk, which I think is the reason why we stood in line
to play Max Payne 3 again because they had a wall you could sit up against.
Make sure you’re comfortable, that’s very important to ensure you don’t have a
miserable time (which is impossible at PAX).
Bring a backpack.
I’m sure if you’re bringing something to keep you busy in line that you’ll have
some sort of pack anyway, but having a backpack serves a lot of purposes. It’s
going to hold the water bottle that you should definitely bring. Nothing sucks
more than needing something to drink after you’ve been standing in line for two
hours. Hell at that point, death is a better decision than losing your spot. A
backpack will also help you keep your swag intake in check. You will get so
much swag at PAX, that is a promise. Hell, by the time the third day rolled
around I was practically in heat for whatever free shit I could get. My first couple of days sucked because I was
walking around with a giant T-shirt stash. I finally snagged a kick ass Torchlight 2
tote bag and that made the rest of my time much easier.
Make sure before hopping
into a huge line that you’ve made your peeps and dropped your D’s. You don’t
want those nasty diarrhea stomach pains while you’re waiting to play Far Cry 3
do you? That’ll just take away from the experience. In the opposite direction
(other than bringing water) bring some snacks. If you get hungry you can just
snap into a slim jim and be good to go for the next fifteen minutes. It wouldn’t
hurt to have one of those things while you’re standing in the food line either
haha. The food is expensive there, but it beats running two or three blocks away
to find food. The venue didn’t really seem to have any nearby McDonalds
stationed up anywhere. If anything, pack a lunch and bring it with you, there’s
no losing with when you scarf down a tasty PB&J before watching the new Xcom game in action.
One thing I
noticed last year, after spending hours and hours in line, is that some people
smell like microwaved diapers. For the love of God, shower every day. Do it for yourself, do it for the people who
have to stand around you. Bring deodorant with you just to be safe. Trust me,
the world will thank you, not just your fellow gamers at PAX.
Finally, I would like
to recommend that you plan your days out. Look at the list of panels going on
and know what time you have to be there. Just know this, though, you might not
get to go to everything you want, and that’s okay. The show floor was my
favorite part of PAX because it was so full of life. There are so many booths
and things going on that last year we kind of played everything by ear. Should
we go to this panel or stand in line for Diablo 3? Yeah, we chose Diablo also.
Except one of the developers from Blizzard just started handing out free beta
keys, so we played Torchlight 2 instead.
PAX was one of my
favorite moments last year and I am completely psyched to be going again this
year. If you’re going, send me a shout out and we can go wait in line together somewhere.
If you’re not going, stay tuned Mar 22-24 because I will be posting as many
updates as I can on my twitter/facebook/and of course right here on my handy
dandy blog. Stay clean my friends.
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