PAX East 2011 attendance 69,500; officially becomes biggest PAX

@Faceless Troll Took me less than 10 minutes to try out the 3DS, but that was at 10:00am on the first day. I remember seeing the line later that day and it was diesel. I guess that's kind of how it is if that's what you go to PAX for.

@Faceless Troll

Depends on what you're referring to -
Portal 2's line was over an hour at just about all times, but...it's Portal 2. Pretty sure EVERYONE in the convention center wanted to go see that.

3DS..waited maybe 20 mins. Gears 3...again maybe 20 mins. Other stuff was longer, but not 'everything'.

And while your comment may have some truth to it with regards to the Expo Hall, it was a completely different story with the panels. Last year just about every panel's line was at capacity over an hour before the show. Some maybe an hour and a half - people would be going into a panel and the line for the NEXT panel in that theatre would already be full! If two panels you wanted to go to were near each other time-wise, you had to pick.

This year...most panels only filled up 5 minutes ahead of time, if at all. Only the incredibly popular ones that were also after the Expo Hall had closed filled up really early (The Day[9] and HuskyStarcraft Saturday panel comes to mind).

In this way, the new venue was a huge improvement, especially because the lines for most of the exhibits were fine as long as you just kept checking for when they would be slower.

@El Capitaine I was largely referring to the Expo Hall. It took me over an hour to play Duke Nukem. I only waited about 20 minutes to play the 3DS, but that's partly because I went to Capcom's booth instead of Nintendo's.

@Faceless Troll

I agree, I felt like I spent more time waiting in lines all weekend than doing things. I would have been happy with a smaller show. I also would really have liked to play SW:TOR but wasn't willing to wait 4 hours like some of my friends did. It seemed more like there was a bunch of wasted space, like the Level 0 food court. Speaking of which, the food there was gruel. After the first day we had to leave for lunch and dinner since we couldn't take it any more.

@Faceless Troll Only an hour? it was a 4 hour wait to play DNF at PAX Prime

@Faceless Troll
Faceless, I'm with you. The move from Hynes was--I thought--to help with the crowds, but it seems like they only wanted to be able to admit more people and still subject them to big lines.

Some of the panels didn't have big lines, but I think the selection of panels in general was less interesting this year. The big panels this year had longer waits than any of the panels last year, filling up 2+ hours in advance. Nothing last year filled up that fast. And I think the less popular panels only caused more crowds to pile into the popular ones and into the exhibitor hall and bulk up the lines in there. I saw way more lines in the Exhibitor Hall.

Also, the Capcom booth had Street Fighter on 3DS's just first-come first serve...and nobody really wanted to play street fighter on them that much so turnaround was quick--people just wanted to check out the 3D. No real line to speak of.

But yeah, I actually missed more panels this year than last year, due to ridiculous queue issues. They didn't really seem to solve that well. I talked with another guy there who'd been to Prime (I haven't) and he said they run it the same way there too. I can understand they don't want empty panels, that's basically a waste of money.. It might be worthwhile to let people reserve.

@sigma8 that said, there was plenty of physical space. I saw some people playing frisbee inside!

@Faceless Troll Took me 15 minutes to play Gears 3 on Sunday. Also took me just a few minutes to play the 3DS (At the Capcom booth because I didn't care to wait for SSF4, just played RE-3D)

Glad I tried 3DS before buying it. The system itself is a graphical powerhouse, but the 3D effect is throwaway.

@Faceless Troll

Big lines? That's the most craziest thing evar. That convention center's conference rooms were cavernous - I would just show up to panels and walk in. The smaller CAT theater was rough, but even the MuffinTop Breakfast was just walk-in walk-out. I had friends who attended PAXE last year and said the lines were hard to figure out and filled early. These lines rarely filled but for a few panels. I just walked into main theater events too - even the concerts didn't require standing in line for too long.

I agree that the panels were overall a bit weak. Sunday was a void, and even Friday was rather lackluster but for a few. My Saturday was full, though, and I barely got time on the show floor.

I don't think that the food was atrocious, just mediocre convention center food. Nine bucks for the chicken bacon sandwich and fries wasn't really unreasonable, and they had beer. My buddies and I would basically load up at breakfast and grab a small dinner there. The thing that was rough was the absolute lack of anything in the area, unlike the Hynes, which is surrounded by food stands. They had a bus that took you to different eating places in the city, though we didn't try it.

Overall that was a fantastic venue and I'm pumped that so many people fit in there so nicely, and that we had such a huge showing - which means more stuff and more developers and vendors next year. This is becoming THE show!

Also, the swag was fantastic - actually nice t shirts that are sized? Win!

@Faceless Troll
So your saying the popular stuff was popular? Are you complaining or just stating your disappointment on not getting to see things?

I actually lucked up and got pulled into the Portal 2 booth 10 min before closing on Sunday. I was impressed with the size of the BCEC overall. I didn't get turned away from any of the panels I wanted to attend and only showed up about an hour before for each just because I didn't want to sit in the back. In most panels you could walk in right as they were starting and grab a seat in the back.

@BinaryTB
Didn't find out that the food in the axillary food court was actually editable till Sunday and was better than the cardboard they were serving in the main court. The lunch trolleys were an awesome addition to getting a free ride to non-con food too. No Name and other restaurants were close if walking half a mile won't kill you.

Of course to maximize my time at PAX I brought food from the grocery store, ate breakfast in my room and always had something to snack on in my back pack. PAX is not the time for a culinary tour of Boston IMHO.

@Odog4ever "So your saying the popular stuff was popular? Are you complaining or just stating your disappointment on not getting to see things?"

Guess.

@Odog4ever
Yeah, packing food was smart. I stashed some energy bars in my bag and would mooch the free waters in the panel rooms, so that was something. But I was doing a lot of other things in addition to PAX that weekend so I didn't have a lot of time to properly coordinate my PAX-going.

@MasterYogurt
re: the lines.. I don't know. I obviously wasn't trying to attend every panel. After missing something I wanted to see, I was inevitably able to find something to walk into. Like the LoadingReadyRun panel. That somehow didn't get a full house. That said, I passed by plenty of panels I had zero interest in, and they were lined up to capacity.

My complaint wasn't that panels filled up, it was that if you missed a panel, there were not really any good backup panels. Even lame ones. There were some time slots where only one panel was starting. I may be forgetting last year a bit, but I feel like I had to actually make decisions about what I hoped to see at what time.

PAX can't go back to Hynes.. not without shrinking. I don't think they want to do that (even if they should). The new convo center is nicer overall. The only reason I liked Hynes better was for the non-conference perks--food and centrality.

@Lerkero
The more the merrier, I say. As long as they can scale it so that you can always find something to do (besides wait in line). The tabletop area was frakking immense this year. It might been just as big last year, too, but it's hard to say. Last year it was all in closed rooms. This year it was in (practically) an aircraft hangar that you could observe by walking over a skybridge.

@Lerkero

I attended PAXEast as my first gaming convention ever. I can't say the size really bothered me at all, and in some respects it was really awesome to see that many people gathered in the same place sharing the same hobbies. Media had a presence but from what I could tell they generally didn't get preferential treatment over regular attendees, one media guy tried to cut a line I was in and an enforcer told him he had to wait in the back. There is so much going on at any given time which is great. If you spend your whole time waiting in line for tons of panels and games that's fine, just means the lines to do other things are shorter for me. :)

@Softserve
If they did that, it might be in Tejas, since both PAX's now are on opposite coasts, but they're both in the far north. If they go middle, they might head south, too. I mean, if they're trying to make a balanced triangle and all that.

Chicago would be a capable city for it though. Is it really that hard to hop on a plane? I'd argue it's tougher for us on the coast, but most conferences don't exist in pairs, so if I want to go to GDC, it's a long haul flight. It'd be shorter for you. And Chicago to NY or Boston isn't a long flight at all.

@FichtenFoo
I'm reminded of about two centuries of (mostly) peace and prosperity in one of the biggest Empires western civilization has known.

@(Unverified)

The date is actually April 6th-8th according to the convention center website.

@sigma8

Did you try Craiglist? They would've went within the hour I'd think.

@sigma8
Or here. :( Oh well, next year! :D

@Nicknamer
Easy to know what I should have done. As it was, I had some interested friends who were going to take them, but then they too were no shows.

@BinaryTB
Walked 10-15 minutes into the city and there was plenty of food. Just need to explore!
The restraunt in the Westin was decent as well.

@DeadbyDagger

There was a pizza place not too far away that sold subs and sandwiches. It was great!

But yeah, I agree that the food court food was horrible and over priced.

@Nytemare

Yeah, my group found one of those and grabbed food from there and brought back to eat while we waited for the 3rd round of the Omegathon and the saturday night concerts. Worked out well that way. Another good tip, make your own sandwiches and bring them with.

@BinaryTB

they had a free shuttle at the BCEC transporting (pick-up included) people to restaraunts all over the place. We just hopped on, picked a restaraunt from the list they had, had an amazing lunch, and went on back to the BCEC. We weren't about to eat that shitty convention center food.

@jynxycat Food inside the convention center is limited to the vendors that the center has contracts with.