Pre-reg for PAX 07 is now open.
Yes that's right kiddies, the Penny Arcade Expo 2007 has now opened its gates for pre-registration. If you're planning to go (and you should be), if you sign up for all 3 days before March 31, you'll get 10 bucks off the price. That's 1000 Wii points! I know I'll be there. Heck, I'm even considering shelling out the dough for a regular pass instead of just going as Media so I have a chance to be entered into the Omegathon.
Oh, in case you didn't know, the Penny Arcade Expo is the annual game-o-rama conference put on by the crew over at Penny Arcade. This year, they're moving from the Meydenbauer center in Bellevue, WA to the Washington State Convention and Trade Center right smack dab in the middle of downtown Seattle. As was apparent at PAX 06, the ol' MBC just wasn't big enough any more. Way too many nerds packed into that place made it a bit uncomfortable. So now they've got over 200,000 square feet to work with. And I'm pretty damn sure they're gonna fill every last square inch of it with gaming goodness. They'll need the space, as PA business guru Robert Khoo has predicted at least 30,000 of us spazzes showing up this year. (I took that picture of the dapper Mr. Khoo on that Wikipedia link.)
With the death and subsequent modest rebirth of E3, people are going to be looking to PAX to be the new annual gamer destination. Gabe and Tycho have already said they don't want to be E3. PAX is a different animal. But by the time the ESA announced that E3 was to be no more, you know that the big game companies had already finished up their '07 budgets and even possibly their '08 as well. There's probably still a fairly big line item in there for hundreds of thousands dollars from the Big Three that they don't know what to do with now. I expect they'll at least dump some of that into PAX.
They've got a survey going on over at the PAX website to see what kind of panels we're interseted in seeing this year. They've got some returners from current years, such as the Pitch Your Own Game Idea and the Q&A with G&T. They've also got some new ideas that look neat to me, such as The 'Khoo and A' and The WoW Effect (and How It's Changed PC Gaming).
Look to see more gaming goodness as usual, such as the freeplay console and PC rooms, the game tournaments including the legendary Omegathon, lots of great exhibits, and I assume that the 24-hour tabletop gaming room will also return.
And of course there are the awesome nerd concerts, which have featured in the past: Optimus Rhyme, The Minibosses, MC Frontalot, and others. The concerts are always a rockin', hiphoppin' good time. At last year's PAX, Tycho mentioned that he would love to be able to get Freezepop for their next concerts, so we'll see if they were able to pull it off.
All in all, it looks to be another good time, and even bigger than before. Hope to see you there!
Hmm, I have to figure out something to do to top hitting Tycho's baby last year.
What say you?!