Ughhhhhhhh. I feel like a sucker paying $105, but...

eh maybe I'll snag the Sunday pass as well.

Just finished booking my hotel and found out the three day passes are sold out. Won't be buying passes until Friday, hoping none of the one day passes will be sold out by then.

I just got Friday and Saturday passes, usually sunday is my recover-from-drunken-stupor-and-go-like-1-hour day anyways.

Got my 3-day. The whole mix-up last week with the registration was the only reason I didn't wait till the end of the day, and wow, good thing. Kind of a mess this year, huh?

Originally Posted by metaly Kind of a mess this year, huh?

It really is.

Booked the hotel and flight this evening, so we're ready to go here.

Originally Posted by blueshinra Three-day passes are now sold out. Holy shit, that was fast.

Originally Posted by blueshinra Booked the hotel and flight this evening, so we're ready to go here.

Holy hell! I'm glad I saw this and pounced when I did. And here I thought I might wait till my son gets back tomorrow afternoon. I thought it took 2-3 weeks for them to sell out last year? I guess that was for all the individual ones too.

Well, makes up for all the CAG deals I miss .

I guess I should pounce on a hotel soon and maybe airfare. I'm trying to decide between flying and driving. Driving is no problem from where I am but those downtown hotels have limited parking and it costs an arm and a leg (looks like $30-$40 per night!). I figured I wouldn't be using the car anyway the entire time except when we leave. So maybe flying is better. Is it easy to get the train/rail thing from the airport to the Convention Center area?

I can get airfare for just under $200. So say $400 total with baggage fees for the 2 of us. Driving is 170 miles each way. That comes out to about $60 with $4 gas (plus whatever wear and tear on the car)... Hmmm... Still seems cheaper (and more flexible) to drive. I'll have to think on that. But I should probably book a hotel soon.

If you park at the convention center parking its about 26-28 bucks a night. Still expensive.

Wow, Saturday-only badges are also sold out now. So just Friday and Sunday are left which is pretty useless for anyone who isn't local.

I decided to look into hotels and about half the lower rates via PAX are gone already so I grabbed something just to be sure. Looks like that is fully-refundable if we change our minds. But even with the cheaper rate (and I picked one of the cheaper ones they had too) it adds up to $700+ for 4 nights. I figured we'd stay Sunday night so we could spend Monday doing other stuff in Seattle. But, man, that is not very cheapassed! And I need to take my other son to Disneyland some time soon, too. We promised him that as a Christmas present last year and I've been too busy to go this Winter/Spring and now I'm taking his older brother (who has already been to Disneyland) to PAX. So I'm on the hook for something big for the younger one . I may have to do Disneyworld instead.

For some stupid reason I thought I'd wait until this morning to make my final decision. I sprung out of bed half an hour early ready to spend, and Saturdays are long gone

Damn shame the Saturday passes sold out. I ended up cancelling my hotel reservation and I'm not going to PAX Prime this year. At least I got to make it to PAX East.

Originally Posted by io I figured we'd stay Sunday night so we could spend Monday doing other stuff in Seattle. But, man, that is not very cheapassed!

Tell me about it >_< When we booked the hotel last night, we decided to go with the same one we stayed at last year, the Hilton. We wanted to get a room for Wednesday night as well, and spend Thursday sightseeing around Seattle, since we weren't able to do very much of that last time. Turns out the Hilton was one of the hotels that wasn't offering the convention rate for Wednesday-- instead, it's a full $70 more! What we ended up doing was booking our flight early on Thursday so that we'd get in by early afternoon. Not as much sightseeing time as we'd like, but better than the price for the extra night

Oh, and as for public transit from the airport, yes, it's very easy to get on a train from there to the convention center area downtown. The fare is pretty cheap, too. Here's the info; I'll add it to the second post as well.

I think it's safe to say PAX has outgrown Seattle. It's time to move it.

Originally Posted by spydey I think it's safe to say PAX has outgrown Seattle. It's time to move it.

I hope that PAX East 2013 doesn't sell out this fast. I'm not sure about Seattle, but Penny Arcade has a ten year contract with Boston so if they outgrow Boston, they're there for a while. I think making a third PAX (South is recommended by a lot, as is Europe) will alleviate the over population of the other two PAXes. Or this could just be caused by scalpers buying all the tickets.

Just heard via metaly on Twitter that the show's completely sold out now.

PAX site update:

Originally Posted by PAX 05-03-12 PAX Prime Badges are Gone Every single badge has been sold, and there will be no extra allotments either online or on-site. We know many of you would still like to attend, but unfortunately, building firecode restricts us from selling any more badges. Along those same lines, if you buy a badge from a third party, we have a series of measures in place to detect counterfeits on-site. Last year there were an extremely high number of fakes, so know that if you're purchasing from anyone that isn't us, you run the risk of having a fake badge and not being allowed into the show. We think it's important to note that we care very little about the money in the "counterfeit badge" situation, but rather when a building is supposed to fit X, but we have X + 5,000 in it... there is a legitimate safety concern. That said, we absolutely cannot let people with fake badges into the show. So please be smart. If you buy from a 3rd party, do so from a trusted source. Thank you.

I wonder how much people will mark up their passes if they decide to sell them

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So, uh, now that I've bought my passes and committed to this thing, can anyone tell me exactly what it is? I hear there is a lot of waiting in lines. And I detest waiting in lines, so I'm not too happy about that. I know there are panels and last year there was a lot of Halo stuff (which is why my son wants to go though he realized it probably won't be too Halo-heavy this year).

But what exactly have I gotten myself into?

Originally Posted by io So, uh, now that I've bought my passes and committed to this thing, can anyone tell me exactly what it is? I hear there is a lot of waiting in lines. And I detest waiting in lines, so I'm not too happy about that. I know there are panels and last year there was a lot of Halo stuff (which is why my son wants to go though he realized it probably won't be too Halo-heavy this year). But what exactly have I gotten myself into?

Seeing how Halo 4 is coming this year there should be a good number of Halo stuff.

Originally Posted by 62t Seeing how Halo 4 is coming this year there should be a good number of Halo stuff.

Well, yeah, but I don't think it will be the extravaganza (Halo Fest, etc) that it was last year with the 10 Year Anniversary. I ended up buying him some PAX-exclusive Mega Bloks packs off eBay that were apparently given out there. He would be thrilled if there was something like that this year but I'm telling him not to expect that sort of thing. I'm sure Halo 4 will be present (and playable) but that is no stretch as it comes out just a month or two after PAX. There will probably be a beta around that time so it might not even be that thrilling for him to see/play it there.

Originally Posted by io So, uh, now that I've bought my passes and committed to this thing, can anyone tell me exactly what it is? I hear there is a lot of waiting in lines. And I detest waiting in lines, so I'm not too happy about that. I know there are panels and last year there was a lot of Halo stuff (which is why my son wants to go though he realized it probably won't be too Halo-heavy this year). But what exactly have I gotten myself into?

PAX has:

• Panels - sit in line for an hour or so to see people talk about things like these
• Exhibition Floor - all the companies have big booths where you can demo games and occasionally chat with devs. Most popular stuff requires hours in line, but there's enough other stuff to do that you generally don't have to do that
• Console freeplay - borrow a game from the game library and sit and play for a while
• Handheld Lounge - a room full of beanbag chairs to play DS / nap on
• Tabletop - where people play D&D and Settlers of Catan etc. until 2am
• Jamspace - chiptune & other bands play music
• Concerts - see acts like Jonathan Coulton and the Video Game Orchestra

Not sure if Prime has this but at East there's always been a room with old arcade machines. I think that's about everything? It's good fun and the weekend goes by in a flash. There's also about a million people there and you will almost definitely come home sick.

Originally Posted by CtrlAltDft I hope that PAX East 2013 doesn't sell out this fast. I'm not sure about Seattle, but Penny Arcade has a ten year contract with Boston so if they outgrow Boston, they're there for a while. I think making a third PAX (South is recommended by a lot, as is Europe) will alleviate the over population of the other two PAXes. Or this could just be caused by scalpers buying all the tickets.

I think they thought that East would alleviate overpopulation of Prime, but it sells out more quickly every year anyway.