Interesting - thanks, Pete. Looking at that PAX East schedule I'm going to have to say this doesn't appeal to me all that much. It seems to trend a little younger than me. But then I'm doing this mostly for my son, though of course I have some interest and wouldn't have signed up if I didn't also want to check it out. I guess I should experience this sort of thing at least once. The last sort of convention like this that I went to was the old MacWorlds in San Francisco back in the early 90's.
As for getting sick, I have 5 kids, 4 of whom go to different schools (and the 5th is 2 years old). So there isn't a cold/flu virus I haven't been exposed to. I should be OK in that respect.
And I guess I should definitely bring my 3DS. And maybe I'll have to play Mario Kart and some other games first (I've barely touched it). I may also have to get my son interested in either the 3DS or Vita (which I don't have yet) so he can take part in all the handheld tourneys and such. The problem is that he is a huge 360 fanboy and vehemently hates anything Nintendo or especially Sony now. But yeah, he's 12
. Hopefully they will have a Halo Reach tourney like at PAX East. He is pretty damn good at it.
As for the tickets selling out so quickly, here's what someone on the PAX forums posted about the 3-day passes: In 2009 it took 6 months for them to sell out, in 2010 it took 3 months, in 2011 it took 2 weeks, and now in 2012 it took about 6 hours. They then went on to predict that at that rate, the 2013 PAX is sold out already
.