I went to PAX East

This year, I decided to attend PAX East. It’s always been something I was interested in, but I never considered actually going because I wasn’t sure what I would get out of the experience. This year, my circumstances changed and I decided that I would take a trip down to Boston and see what PAX had to offer me.

Turns out, it had a lot.

The Event

I arrived in Boston on Wednesday, the day before it was set to open. I timed my arrival so that I would arrive close to 4PM, which is the check-in time for the hotel I stayed at (Omni). I had reserved my room ahead of time through PAX’s website, and as a result I was blindsided by additional fees. I have never been to a hotel in a big city, and on this day I was introduced to incidentals.

Incidentals are daily fees applied to your stay to accommodate any services you may utilize in the hotel. Services such as equipment rentals, room service, and spa services. Services I had no intention of using, but because I was using a debit card to pay, they charged me an extra $150 per day. Ouch. They refunded unused funds after my stay, but it was still a hit to the wallet that I wasn’t prepared for.

After moving around some money to pay the extra $500 that I needed for the room, I settled into my room and took it all in.

Losing $500 before the event even started was a bit of a mood killer, but I made the best of it. I relaxed with my laptop (that I originally wasn’t going to bring, but luckily I changed my mind at the last minute), and I took advantage of the room service that I had already paid for. I relaxed in my hotel room for the night and chatted with friends that I was planning on meeting the next day, and I didn’t understand why the room didn’t use blackout curtains when there was so much light pollution at night. It didn’t help me sleep at all, so I was running on very little for the entirety of the event and the drive home.

I found the blackout curtains on Friday night. Oh well.

Thursday

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to arrive late to PAX on Thursday, since I figured it would be swamped with people, but ultimately I decided to go over five minutes before. Omni is directly across the street from the convention center, so I didn’t need to worry about traffic getting to the building, just inside.

The line was rather short when I arrived. It was much longer on Friday, but getting inside is a quick journey. They don’t want the line to stop so they rush everyone through, and only people that set off the metal detectors are separated for bash checks. The metal detectors didn’t activate for me, and I was carrying a large stainless steel mug, a Hydro Flask, a camera, my phone, and a binder full of pins.

Once we got inside the building, there were massive bins of free lanyards. I grabbed one immediately, and then,  because we were minutes early, they took us on a trip through the outer hallways of the center, until they released us onto the expo floor where all the vendors were located. The hall felt empty because it was so large, and whenever I took pictures, half of the hall just faded into the distance.

I had two major goals this PAX: meet people I know, and figure out if I actually liked the event.

The first goal was on. Higgins802 is a Destiny streamer on Twitch, and he was working at the Free League Publishing booth at PAX, in the tabletop area. I’m not a tabletop player, but that was my first stop. Meeting him was awesome – he was super kind, and I got a pin of his personal logo (and I gave him one of my badger pins).

Once we’d met, I left him to his potential customers and left in search of something fun to take in. I found myself at the AverMedia booth, where I appreciated a still-unreleased adapter to connect DSLR cameras to PCs for streaming purposes. They only had 7 for the show, and I passed on one, but I’m thinking it may become a purchase once it’s released if I can figure out a nice overhead setup for my Nikon for crochet purposes.

I continued around the center with no real direction. I followed the flow of traffic, I appreciated pretty game graphics, and I nervously looked at hardware that I’m definitely not buying in the next 6 months. I was tempted by jewelry and wall art, and eventually I found the PAX merchandise area.

I’m uninterested in clothing and branded sweatshirts, but I am very interested in pin collecting. I had brought a binder of pins with me, unsure if I would find a use for them, but I quickly found out their purpose: plinko.

Next to the PAX merchandise area, there were two small areas for buying pins and trading pins. I first bought some pins, getting the Enfu Kitties Series 1, and the 2025 PAX East collection. Because I bought two sets, I got a free lanyard from their collection. Yay!

Then I ventured into the official pin trading line. The person working the booth had two options for traders: play plinko for chances to get their limited edition pin, or trade for the assorted pins they had on a display. The cost was one pin per plinko or trade, and you could exchange two pins per hour.

By the end of Friday, I won all 7 event pins. It was pretty awesome.

While I was there on Thursday, I did attend a couple panels. One panel featured femme creators in the gaming community, and the presenters discussed their experiences in the gaming industry, gave some tips for people looking to get into the gaming industry (basically: think it over in this economy), and discussed some of their proudest achievements for women in the industry.

I also attended a discussion on mental health themes in the Destiny universe, which was interesting but limited to an hour in the schedule.

In between these panels, I met a longtime friend, mx, who I’ve known for years, and we chatted and shared finds from the expo.

The final meetup of Thursday was hosted by 1000 Dreams, and was a meetup opportunity for female content creators. I met some awesome people there (Hannahbugz, PhoebzOrPhoebe, cheddyju), and we shared our discords. I still have no idea what I’m going to say to them, but I’m looking forward to chatting with them again.

Towards the end of the day, I picked up a mug from Wild Bill’s, which was a HUGE initial investment ($80 ouch), but paid for itself with the unlimited drink refills for $10 the following day. When I go to PAX again, or another event that they attend, I can bring the cup and just buy unlimited refills for $10 without needing to buy a new cup. It’s a pretty awesome business, and I’m eager to see what other events they attend.

Friday

Friday was a bigger day for PAX and a milder day for me. I had less events that I wanted to see, so I focused mainly on getting video so I could try to make a vlog of the experience. I attended a pin trading meetup for official PAX pins, I attended a meetup of Destiny players and cosplayers, and I spent a little bit of money on a cute Mara Sov rubber duck. As I was leaving the final time that day, I played plinko again and got the final pin that I was missing of this year’s set. The difference in amount of people was massive. I could barely see the floor because there were so many people. It was a lot harder to get around compared to Thursday, and I did get disoriented while trying to revisit some booths. I was also still tired from all the walking on Thursday, so I called it early and left the expo at 4PM to relax in my room for the rest of the night.

Luckily I had friends online that I could talk to and watch the streams of, so I wasn’t bored. I considered leaving Boston on Friday night and head home around 11PM since the roads had mostly cleared up, but then figured that I paid for the bed, I might as well try to use it. A theme of the trip was no sleep, and that’s unfortunately a decision I made for myself, as I decided to not bring my CPAP and that was probably half the problem.

I did opt to not use the newly-found blackout curtains on Friday night so that I would sleep less – I wanted to wake up early so I could beat Boston traffic, and it worked out. I woke up at 4:45AM and was leaving Boston by 5:15 on Saturday morning.

The trip out of Boston was smooth and had almost no traffic, so the decision to leave early was a wise one. Unfortunately, it also meant that I wasn’t able to go to the yarn stores that I wanted, since they opened at 9AM and 10AM, and I made it home by 8AM.

What did I get out of my trip

I achieved the goals I wanted for the trip! I wanted to see if it was the event for me, and I wanted to meet two online friends in real life. I met those friends and it was exciting to have a face for the names I’ve known them as. I also narrowed down my goals for the next time I attend PAX, now that I know what it has to offer.

I’m a 3-4 game person. I’m not really interested in new games unless they’re very pretty and offer something I haven’t seen before, or are exceptionally relaxed and cozy. I didn’t get a lot from trying out new games, but I did enjoy looking at new hardware. Had I had a little more money, I might have walked out with the DSLR adapter for my PC, and I was very tempted by new monitors. I’m also interested in gaming accessories like jewelry and bags, and they did have a lot of plushies and some artists selling art prints and collectibles. I was a bit disappointed at the lack of an artist alley, but after attending PAX East I have a better idea of what they do there – it’s very much a trade show, and I don’t think it has the space for the smaller creators that I wanted to see there.

I do want to attend again, but I think I would focus on checking out the hardware companies (and creative software companies, like Black Magic) on Thursday before they become unapproachable on Friday. The people selling merchandise were more easily accessible on Friday, but there were still layers of people viewing their inventory that you had to wade through before you could grab anything.

I’d also need to pay more attention to the schedule leading up to the event. The Destiny meetup appeared on the schedule really late, and I’m not sure if it was even on the schedule Wednesday before I left. Had I known there would be more Destiny related panels, I would’ve brought one of my Hareball Ghost Shell plushies to show off. Missed opportunity!

I also only filmed on Friday this year, and I ran out of battery after two hours. A powerbank was something I passed on because my phone has a good battery life, but I didn’t think I would be using my camera as much as I did. Definitely a necessity for future PAX attendance, and for other events that I attend as well! (I already ordered one.)

What did I bring

Now for the substance of the event and what some people have requested. What did I actually take to PAX (and what did it cost, but that’s next section)?

I tried to pack light for the convention. I bought the usual clothing, but I also brought my laptop so I didn’t need to squint at my phone at night during downtime, when I wanted to chat with streamer friends on their Twitch streams. I opted not to bring my CPAP because I don’t technically need it, and I didn’t want to lug it around. I think it contributed to the lack of sleep, but my room was as bright as day with all the light pollution in Boston, so I’m not giving it full responsibility for that.

So a brief list of what I actually brought (not including meds, clothing, toiletries):

• A tablet bag for the convention floor (mine was from Sipsey Wilder)
• Two chargers – one for my phone, one for my camera
• A folder of pins for pin trading purposes
• Headache meds
• A nail kit
• A phone charger
• My EZ Pass
• My GoPro and car hookups, with a visor mount for the car
• A small notebook and pen for writing notes, collecting business cards, and saving stickers
• A handmade gaming plushie that I brought to show off and hooked to my bag
• A bag of protein bars and snacks

What did it cost

I stayed from Wednesday night to Saturday morning, and only attended PAX on Thursday and Friday. My hotel didn’t allow outside food, and I am a nervous person that didn’t want to be caught bringing food in, so I just ordered room service while I was there.

Item	Cost	Notes
Pax Tickets	156.50	For Thursday and Friday
Car Rental	380+300 Deposit	Enterprise, for Wednesday morning to Saturday morning. I returned it before business hours on Saturday so they didn’t count an extra day
Omni Hotel: (projected cost from PAX)	1010.41	Cost for three nights and state tax, per PAX East housing
Omni Hotel: Incidentals	450 hold*	Because I paid with a debit card, I was charged 1460.41 upfront to cover the stay plus any incidentals (like room service) that I used. The excess was returned to me after I checked out
Omni Hotel: Parking	51 per night	I had a discount on parking since I used Omni’s own parking garage
Actual cost from Omni Hotel	1303	This is the total that includes the cost of parking and after my incidentals were returned (I ordered room service a few times :V)