PAX (originally known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a series of

gaming culture Video game culture is a worldwide new media subculture formed by video gamers. As video games have exponentially increased in popularity over time, they have had a significant influence on popular culture. Video game culture has also evolved with ...

festivals involving

tabletop Tabletop may refer to: Mountains *Table Top Mountain in Rangeville, Queensland, Australia * Table Top Mountain (New York) * Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa * Tepui, flat top mountains in South America Places * Tabletop, New South Wa ...

, arcade, and

video gaming Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedbac ...

. PAX is held annually in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

and

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

in the United States; and

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

in Australia. PAX was previously held annually in

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

in the United States. PAX was originally created in 2004 by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the ''

Penny Arcade ''Penny Arcade'' is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website ''loonygames.com''. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have estab ...

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be ...

, because they wanted to attend a show exclusively for gaming. Defining characteristics of the shows include an opening keynote speech from an industry insider, game-culture inspired concerts, panels on game topics, exhibitor booths from both independent and major game developers and publishers, a

LAN party A LAN party is a gathering of people with personal computers or compatible game consoles, where a local area network (LAN) connection is established between the devices using a router or switch, primarily for the purpose of playing multiplaye ...

multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system ( couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

, tabletop gaming tournaments, and video game freeplay areas.

History

The first PAX, known at the time as the ''Penny Arcade'' Expo, was held on August 28–29, 2004, in

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside (King County, Washington), Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area and has v ...

, at the Meydenbauer Center, and was attended by approximately 3,300 people. The event was then held annually in August, at the same venue, for the next two years. Attendance grew rapidly, with over 9,000 attendees in 2005, and over 19,000 in 2006. In 2009, Penny Arcade partnered with ReedPOP. By 2007, the event had outgrown its previous venue, and moved to the

Washington State Convention and Trade Center The Seattle Convention Center (SCC), formerly the Washington State Convention Center (WSCC), is a convention center in Seattle, Washington, United States. It consists of several exhibition halls and meeting rooms in buildings along Pike Street ...

, with a total attendance of 39,000. Attendance continued to grow to 58,500 in 2008, and 60,750 in 2009, and 70,000 in 2011. The show stopped reporting attendance numbers in 2011, citing difficulties in tracking attendance in a multi-day event. PAX Prime 2013 was the first four-day PAX and took place from August 30 to September 2, 2013. Passes for PAX Prime 2013 sold out within six hours.

Expansion to additional cities

In 2010, Penny Arcade hosted its first event outside of Seattle. PAX East was held in Boston, from March 26–28, 2010, at the Hynes Convention Center. With an attendance of 52,290, PAX East rivaled the newly dubbed "PAX Prime" in Washington, which saw 67,600 attendees in 2010. This venue was moved to Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in 2011. An agreement reached in early 2012 committed Boston as the home of PAX East until 2023. 2013 marked the first international expansion for PAX. PAX Australia 2013 was held July 19–21, 2013 at the Melbourne Showgrounds. The following year it moved to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, where it has been confirmed to remain until at least 2022. The first PAX South was held in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center on January 23–25, 2015. It set a PAX record for highest attendance for an inaugural year. In October 2021, ReedPop announced that PAX South would be discontinued, citing that the event had not seen significant growth since its inaugural edition.

New verticals

In 2011, Penny Arcade launched PAX Dev, a new event exclusive to the game developer community to "speak freely and focus entirely on their trade". Differentiating itself from other game developer events like GDC, PAX Dev does not allow press. 750 people attended in 2011. At PAX South 2017, Penny Arcade and ReedPop announced that a new event type, PAX Unplugged, would be held on November 17–19, 2017 at the

Pennsylvania Convention Center The Pennsylvania Convention Center is a multi-use public facility in the Market East section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, designed to accommodate conventions, exhibitions, conferences and other events. The "L"-shaped complex occupies four city ...

, in

. The event was designed as a tabletop-exclusive convention, a gaming segment which was only incidental in other PAXes.

Name of PAX in Seattle

PAX was originally known as the "Penny Arcade Expo," a Seattle-only event, but quickly became known by its acronym "PAX". As part of an expansion into new cities, Seattle's PAX was renamed "PAX Prime" in 2010. On November 18, 2015, it was silently confirmed that PAX Prime was being renamed to ''PAX West''.

Activities

PAX consists of the following activities: * Freeplay, further broken into: Console, Classic Console, Handheld, PC, VR, and Tabletop. * Tournaments, further broken into: Console and Tabletop. Some PAXes feature additional tournaments hosted by vendors. * "Bring Your Own Computer" or BYOC, a

LAN Party A LAN party is a gathering of people with personal computers or compatible game consoles, where a local area network (LAN) connection is established between the devices using a router or switch, primarily for the purpose of playing multiplaye ...

. * Panels, talks, signings, and similar events. * Concerts. * PAX Arena, an eSports tournament. * The Omegathon. * An Exhibition Hall, which includes game studios, merchandise, and the Indie Megabooth.

The Omegathon

Each PAX features an event called the "Omegathon," a festival-long tournament consisting of a group of randomly selected attendees competing in a game bracket for a grand prize (which has varied from a large game bundle, to a trip to Japan, to a trip to any PAX in the world). The final round of the Omegathon makes up part of the closing ceremonies of PAX. Past games for the final round of the Omegathon have included '' Tetris'', ''

Pong ''Pong'' is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan A ...

'', ''

Halo 3 ''Halo 3'' is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the ''Halo'' franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in 2001's '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' and continued i ...

'', and skee-ball.

Enforcers

Early PAXes were largely run by a large group of volunteers, which the show calls "Enforcers". Now a paid role, most Enforcers are still not professional conference organizers or temps, but rather selected from an application available to attendees on the PAX website.

Events

Active PAX Events

File:Logo_of_PAX_West.svg, PAX West (Formerly PAX Prime) has been held annually in

, Washington,

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

since 2004. File:Logo_of_PAX_East.svg, PAX East has been held annually in

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

since 2010. File:Logo_of_PAX_Aus.svg, PAX Aus has been held annually in

, Victoria, Australia since 2013. File:Logo_of_PAX_Unplugged.svg, PAX Unplugged has been held annually in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...

since 2017.

Former PAX Events

File:Logo_of_PAX_South.svg, PAX South was held annually in

between 2015 and 2020. File:Logo_of_PAX_Dev.svg, PAX Dev was held annually in