PAX East 2011 has come to an end, and I would say, “Mission Success!” Unlike other conventions I’ve been to, it was fairly stress free. I didn’t have a huge agenda outside of seeing Metroid Metal live. Metroid Metal totally melted my face by the way. Since it was the 25th anniversary of Metroid (apparently?) they played the original sountrack start to finish, uninterrupted as one long 25 minute saga of thundering guitars and pounding drums and bass. Easily the highlight of the show for me.
In comparison to my experiences at New York Comic Con, there were more panels I was interested in, the attendees were nicer over all, and the space was much more well managed. Long lines were there of course, but nothing felt as claustrophobic and condensed as the comic book death corridors of the Javitz Center. The crowd was well behaved, and volunteer enforcers were more than helpful and kind. Bravo to them, always seeming to be happy to be there and lend a hand with some serious dedication and patience. On day one, I lost my phone, and was glad to see it returned to the front desk amongst a box of other phones! Hooray for geek kindness!
There will be an episode of Bit For Byte coming up soon all about PAX and some of the games we tried and the panels we checked out.