Penny Arcade Expo

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Penny Arcade Expo
PAX logo
Status	Active
Genre	Gaming
Venue	WSCTC
Location	Washington
Country	United States
First held	2004
Organizer	Penny Arcade
Official website

The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is an annual gamer festival held in Washington state, USA. PAX was created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic, because they wanted to attend a show that gave equal attention to console gamers, computer gamers, and tabletop gamers.

Created in 2004, PAX has nearly doubled in size each successive year and has been hailed as a weekend-long celebration of gamer culture. Defining characteristics include an insider keynote speech, game-inspired concerts, panels on game industry topics, exhibitor booths, after-hours parties, tournaments, and freeplay areas.

In regards to PAX, Jerry Holkins has said that "PAX and Child's Play will outlive Penny Arcade. Substantially."^[1]

Contents 1 PAX 2004 2 PAX 2005 3 PAX 2006 4 PAX 2007 4.1 Pre-PAX 2007 4.2 The Layout 5 PAX 2008 6 PAX East Coast 7 PAX 2009 8 References 9 External links

[edit] PAX 2004

On April 12, 2004, the authors of Penny Arcade announced PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo. PAX 2004 was a two-day event held in Bellevue, Washington from August 28 to August 29, 2004, which they hoped would turn into an annual event. Several exhibitors, including Microsoft and Ubisoft, showcased videos and playable demos of their upcoming games at PAX 2004. Microsoft allowed attendees to experience a multiplayer level of Halo 2 months before it hit stores in addition to a number of other Xbox games, while Ubisoft showed Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Ghost Recon 2 and two other titles.

Included amongst the events of the first PAX were live musical performances by bands including The Minibosses, panels featuring Penny Arcade creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins as well as others in the video game industry, and the Omegathon, a contest where twenty contestants played a series of games for a chance at winning an excessively large video game collection worth in excess of $25,000.

The contestants competed in a tabletop dice game called Diceland, Halo (Xbox), Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GameCube), Dance Dance Revolution, Doom (PC) and the original home version of Pong. Sean Celaya defeated Kevin Potter in the final round to take home the ultimate prize becoming the PAX 2004 Omegathon champion.

In an interesting turn of fate, precisely 1337 people pre-registered, to which Holkins mused, "though I ordinarily shun leet-speak that number clearly implies the blessing of gaming deities."[1] All told, about 3,300 people attended the event.

[edit] PAX 2005

PAX 2005 took place from August 26 to August 28, 2005 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington, where the first PAX was held. PAX 2005, unlike its predecessor, occupied the entire center, effectively doubling the usable floor space. Sponsors included Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft and NCsoft, among others.

Musical guests included the rock groups The Minibosses and The Neskimos, self-professed "professional hardcore gangster rapper" mc chris, pianists Martin Leung and Connie Lin, nerdcore hiphopper MC Frontalot, and rap/funk group Optimus Rhyme, who performed live in two separate concerts in a massive theater.

Many favourite events from PAX 2004 such as Pitch Your Game Idea, Red vs. Blue, a screening of the 1989 film 'The Wizard', and Penny Arcade Q&A made encore appearances. New events included Beat The Pros, and industry panels on online gaming, the videogame marketing process, and on controversy in the industry.

Omegathon II was an even more elaborate affair than its predecessor. Krahulik said on February 9, 2005 on penny-arcade.com that, "[At PAX 2005] we will deliver an even bigger prize to the winner of the Omegathon." On June 29, 2005 [2], it was revealed that prize would be the complete NES video game library, being valued at least $10,099.99. The prize was locked in a large cage in the exhibition room and also included two Star Wars-themed Alienware gaming PCs, one of which would go to the winner and the other to the runner-up. Contestants competed in the tabletop game Diceland, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Katamari Damacy, Karaoke Revolution, Quake, and the Atari 2600 game Combat. In a thrilling four-round match, Luke "Coreside" Armstrong defeated Will "LeRoy" Garroutte by a single point to win the best-of-three series 2-1-1 and take home the grand prize. In total, more than 9,000 gamers attended PAX 2005, almost triple the previous year's attendance.

In response to Hurricane Katrina Penny Arcade auctioned off the original pencil sketch of the PAX 2005 program cover on eBay with 100% of the profit to be given to the American Red Cross. It was sold to Christian Boggs for the final price of $8,700. Mr. Boggs also placed the winning bid of $20,000 on an auction to appear in a Penny Arcade comic strip at the 2005 Child's Play Charity Dinner. [3] [4]

[edit] PAX 2006

PAX 2006 was held from August 25 to August 27, 2006. The Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue was again used as the venue, although the Tabletop Gaming area was moved offsite to the ballrooms at the nearby Red Lion hotel. Exhibit space at PAX 06 completely sold out in less than three months, with exhibitors including Nintendo, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Turbine Inc, Technomancer Press, NCSoft, Rooster Teeth Productions, Creative Labs, Wizards of the Coast, and nVidia. Because they applied one month before PAX 2006, Sony was unable to attend, as exhibitor space was also sold out. According to Gabe, there were 19,323 attendees[5].

Highlights:

• Returning Omeganaut Will "LeRoy" Garroutte defeated David "Davertron" Davis in the final round of the Omegathon: head to head Tetris. LeRoy took away a brand new Scion car fully loaded with custom wheels, custom sound, LCD tv, Xbox 360 Premium, wireless controllers, and more. Davertron left with an Xbox 360 Premium and $500 Best Buy gift card, and will return as an Omeganaut in 2007.
• Holkins and PA business manager Robert Khoo led the way into Omegathon Round 5, Guitar Hero II. After blistering through "Trippin on a Hole In a Paper Heart" on expert, Holkins smashed the guitar on stage.[6]
• Krahulik and Holkins announced the first ever Penny Arcade video game. Titled "On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One", (which has since been released) and that the game would feature PA characters in episodic adventures. Details were few; when asked what the game was about, Holkins replied "Gabe. Tycho. And Cthulhu."[7]
• Krahulik and Holkins also announced a Penny Arcade annual scholarship, wherein one applicant with an intention to work in the game industry will be awarded $10,000 toward tuition expenses.[8]
• Several game companies ran large prize tournaments and giveaways, including ArenaNet ($10,000 prize tourney), TableStar ($2,500 prize tourney), and Nvidia (several thousand dollars' worth of video cards).

[edit] PAX 2007

The fourth annual Penny Arcade Expo took place August 24 to August 27, 2007, and experienced its first year within the confines of the 130,000 square feet (12,000 m²) of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, more than doubling the space used to house PAX 2006.^[2] While 2006 brought forth the announcement that the massive Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) would be heavily downsized, this allowed the ever-growing Penny Arcade Expo to become the biggest gamer festival in North America. Headliners for 2007’s PAX included Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, as well as others such as Ubisoft, NCSoft, THQ, Wizards of the Coast, Namco-Bandai, Vivendi, Konami and 45 other game publishers and developers.

[edit] Pre-PAX 2007

While PAX'04, PAX'05, and PAX'06 have grown consistently throughout the years, the anticipation for PAX'07 brought about several exciting endeavors, including the Cross-Country Super Trip, the Pre-PAX'07 Dinner and The Party at Sealab Party, created using the Penny Arcade Forums as a means of uniting the thousands of gamers traveling to Washington to attend the convention. The Cross-Country Super Trip, an experience in Massive Multiplayer Driving, began in Hoboken, New Jersey and concluded in Seattle, Washington. The trip featured stops in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, where cars of gamers joined the trip before reaching the destination of PAX'07.

[edit] The Layout

While the convention was housed on three of the floors of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, the exhibition hall was certainly a busy place, featuring educational, video game and tabletop exhibitors, as well as retailers. The layout of the exhibition hall allowed visitors to peruse through a variety of displays, offering places where they could win their weight in Ramen noodles or enter the World's Smallest Dungeon, as hosted by Technomancer Press.

[edit] PAX 2008

On October 26, 2007, Penny-Arcade Inc. announced PAX 2008. PAX '08 was again held at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, and covered the weekend of August 29-31. ^[3] The exhibition hall space was doubled from that of 2007, and tabletop gaming and an additional panel room was located in the Pike Street Annex of the convention center, the first time this space has been used for PAX. Also new for 2008 was the "PAX 10", a judged selection of self-submitted independent games on which attendees voted for a favorite. To account for crowds, one empty exhibition room was explicitly reserved for the purpose of holding queues for the popular events in the main theater and other queues as needed.

The pre-show attendance estimate was 45,000, but this was soon feared to be a low guess. ^[4] PAX 2008 occurred on the same weekend as long-running Seattle music festival Bumbershoot. The final count of tickets sold was reported as 58,500, including 45,000 pre-registered tickets. Despite the large increase in convention space, overflow still occurred at some events. ^[5]

[edit] PAX East Coast

Announced on August 1st, 2008 Penny-Arcade Inc. made public plans to bring an additional expo to the east coast by 2010.^[6] Reed Exhibitions has been announced as a partner for the logistics of the expo. The first PAX East Coast will be held from March 26 to March 28, 2010 at the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center in Boston, MA.^[7]

[edit] PAX 2009

PAX 2009 is scheduled to occur on September 4-6, once again at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. The Keynote speaker is the Ron Gilbert. Musical guests announced so far include previous performers Anamanaguchi, Freezepop, Jonathan Coulton and MC Frontalot, along with first-time PAX appearances by Metroid Metal and Paul & Storm.

Like 2008, PAX 2009 will overlap with the Bumbershoot music festival.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Penny Arcade Expo

• Penny Arcade
• Penny Arcade Expo (PAX)
• Gabe's post announcing PAX 06
• PAX 2007 Washington State Convention & Trade Center Floor Plan (PDF)
• PAX Canadian Supertrip 2008
• West Coast Train Trip 2008
• Hotel Space Sharing thread
• PAX - The New E3 For Gamers

v • d • e Penny Arcade Creators Jerry Holkins • Mike Krahulik Other projects Child's Play • Penny Arcade Expo Video games Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Related articles Characters • MC Frontalot