PAX (originally known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a series of gaming culture festivals involving tabletop, arcade, and

video gaming Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

. PAX is held annually in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, and

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

. Previously, it was also held in

San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

. PAX was created in 2004 by

Jerry Holkins Jerry Holkins (born Parkinson"Holkins is a combination of Holcomb (hers) and Parkinson (mine)." https://twitter.com/TychoBrahe/status/12073336701 on February 6, 1976) is an American writer. He is the co-creator and writer of the webcomic '' Penny ...

and

Mike Krahulik Michael Krahulik (; born September 25, 1977) is an American artist for the webcomic '' Penny Arcade'' and co-founder with Jerry Holkins of Child's Play, a charity that organizes toy drives for children's hospitals. He goes by the online moniker ...

, 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 establish ...

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or ...

, because they wanted to attend a show exclusively for gaming. The shows include a 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 social gathering of gamer, participants with personal computers or compatible game consoles, where a local area network (LAN) connection is established between the devices using a router (computing), router or network switch, switc ...

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 Penny Arcade Expo was held on , at the Meydenbauer Center, and was attended by about 3,300 people. Renamed PAX, it became an annual event. Attendance grew rapidly, topping 9,000 in 2005 and 19,000 in 2006. Outgrowing the Meydenbauer Center, the event 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 two buildings in Downtown Seattle with exhibition halls and meeting rooms ...

, where it drew some 39,000 in 2007, 58,500 in 2008, 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. In 2009, Penny Arcade partnered with ReedPOP. PAX Prime 2013, the first four-day PAX, was held on ; passes sold out in six hours.

Expansion to more cities

In 2010, the first PAX East was held at the

Hynes Convention Center The John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center is a convention center located in Boston, Massachusetts. It was built in 1988 from a design by architects Kallmann, McKinnell & Wood. It replaced the John B. Hynes Memorial Auditorium, als ...

on , drawing 52,290 attendees. The first PAX Prime drew 67,600 attendees in 2010. PAX East moved to Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in 2011; a 2012 agreement cemented Boston as the home of PAX East until 2023. The first international event was PAX Australia, first held at the Melbourne Showgrounds. The following year, it moved to the

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), colloquially referred to as Jeff's Shed, is a group of three adjacent buildings next to the Yarra River in South Wharf, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The venues ar ...

, where it remains. The first PAX South was held in

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center on January 23–25, 2015. It set a PAX record for highest attendance for an inaugural year. But the event saw little growth in later years, and was cancelled in October 2021.

Specialty events

From 2011 until 2020, Penny Arcade held PAX Dev, an annual event meant to allow the game developer community to "speak freely and focus entirely on their trade". Unlike other game-developer events like GDC, PAX Dev did 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, Philadelphia, Market East section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, designed to accommodate conventions, exhibitions, conferences and other events. The L-shaped ...

. The event focused on tabletop games, a type that was only incidental in other PAXes.

Name of PAX in Seattle

PAX was originally known as the "Penny Arcade Expo", but quickly became known by its acronym "PAX". Seattle's PAX was renamed PAX Prime in 2010 and PAX West in 2015.

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 social gathering of gamer, participants with personal computers or compatible game consoles, where a local area network (LAN) connection is established between the devices using a router (computing), router or network switch, switc ...

. * Panels, talks, signings, and similar events. * Concerts. * PAX Arena, an

eSports Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...

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 ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...

'', ''

Pong ''Pong'' is a 1972 sports video game developed and published by Atari for arcades. It is one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but B ...

'', ''

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 following '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' (2001) and ''Halo 2'' (2004), the game's story centers on th ...

'', and

skee-ball Skee-Ball is an arcade game and one of the first redemption games. It is played by rolling a ball up an inclined lane and over a "ball-hop" hump (resembling a ski jump) that jumps the ball into bullseye rings. The object of the game is to col ...

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 Penny Arcade Expo, then PAX and later PAX Prime) has been held annually in

, Washington, United States, since 2004. File:Logo of PAX East.svg, PAX East has been held annually in

, Massachusetts, United States, 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, United States, since 2017.

Former PAX Events

File:Logo of PAX South.svg, PAX South was held annually in

, Texas, United States, between 2015 and 2020. File:Logo of PAX Dev.svg, PAX Dev was held annually in

, Washington, United States, between 2011 and 2019. File:Logo of PAX Online.svg, PAX Online was held virtually between 2020 and 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Timeline of PAX Events

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Conventions in Australia Conventions in Boston Conventions in Philadelphia Culture of Seattle Esports tournaments Festivals in Melbourne Festivals in Philadelphia Festivals in Seattle Gaming conventions Video game conventions LAN parties Multigenre conventions Expo Recurring events established in 2004 2004 establishments in Washington (state) Seattle Area conventions