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As you probably heard last week, Jono and I went to PAX South this year. I thought I’d share some of my pics, thoughts and experiences about the delightful Southern edition of what is probably the most “fan forward” video game/gaming convention going these days. If you only want the photos, feel free to just head to the flickr album here.

First of all, there’s the weather. I’ve never been to PAX West (formerly Prime) or obviously PAX Australia, but I will say that one of the (slight) detractors of PAX East is that Boston in the Spring is just a slightly warmer version of Montreal in the Spring. Which means it’s still jackets and pants weather. Not so in San Antonio. We hit a high of 29 Celsius on Sunday last week (84 Fahrenheit), that’s shorts and pants weather. If I’m going to be dealing with flights and exchange rates from the abysmal Canadian dollar, warm weather is a definite bonus.

The other thing that I really liked about PAX South is the convention location. It’s literally right in the middle of downtown San Antonio, anyone who’s been to PAX East (with the exception of the first edition) knows that the convention center is located quite a ways out of the city. Sure, it’s pretty easily accessible from public transportation, but not in any kind of walk-able distance. That means you’re either “at the con” or “in the city” and transitioning between the two takes some time and a subway or taxi ride. Not so at South. Every single day of the con we could pop into PAX, head out for drinks or food, go back to PAX, head to the hotel, go to dinner, go back to PAX for a concert or what have you. It felt like a good excuse to get out and see San Antonio, and not just wind up either skipping a whole day of PAX or ignoring the host city.

So weather and location were upsides for me, how did the actual convention do?

Crowds: Don’t be fooled by a lot of these pictures, the lineups were fractions of what they were at East the last time I went. As long as you could commit to showing up 30-40 minutes before a panel you could be assured to get in for most panels. Even if you couldn’t, I saw a lot of panels allowing for late comers and not refusing people at the door according to the PAX Lineup twitter.

Panels: Maybe I’m bad at choosing panels, but there were only a handful of panels that seemed genuinely interesting to me. Of the few panels we did want to go to, one was cancelled, one was just a glorified commercial (Loot Crate) and the other started well and then became a slideshow of out of context concept art (Mike Selinker did a great job of getting me excited for the future of horror board-games and then did a bad job of actually getting me excited for his upcoming game Apocrypha). There were also a lack of big names featured in the panels, which brings us to our next point…

Exhibitors: This is a bit of a double-edged sword. There was a distinct lack of big-name developers down on the show floor. Now, this is cool and shitty at the same time. On the one hand, it means that a lot more indie games had spots on the show floor which is always cool to see. On the other hand, it means that there were very few giant “wow” exhibitions which are often a highlight of a convention (not that I particularly enjoy waiting an hour to play an upcoming game for 10 minutes or so). Glaringly absent (in my opinion) was Gearbox Software. Based out of Texas and 3 months out from the launch of Battleborn? You’d think they’d be repping their home State’s video game convention.

Cosplayers: Every single time I end up at a convention, I am more and more blown away by the efforts and talent of people bringing their favorite characters to life. PAX South was no different. I don’t know if I’m out of touch or what (or that I don’t play World of Warcraft or League of Legends) but I didn’t recognize like half the characters. Still awesome costumes though. The warmer weather seemed to be a bit of a mixed blessing for the cosplay crowd, since even though they didn’t need to rain/cold proof their costumes, the heat seemed to be a lot to take for those heading outside to benefit from the natural lighting for photographs.

Diversions: Not sure what else to call this section. I’m talking about the Freeplay areas? Board games, Consoles, Retro Consoles, PC and Retro Arcade all had their own Freeplay sections. There were also tournaments set up for all these different gaming platforms throughout the weekend. A big highlight for us was the Steel Battalion 10 player local setup they had at the Retro Console Freeplay area, since when the hell else are we going to play Steel Battalion in 2016? These rooms are pretty much all comparable at PAX as far as I know, though I will say that I preferred the 80s retro arcade that was at PAX East when I went. I mean, I guess Street Fighter 3 is “retro” these days (that game is 19 years old, holy crap I’m old), but when I think “retro” arcade my brain goes to the 80s, not the 90s. But yeah, that’s just me being old I think. Still, good fun.

Hanging out in the freeplay areas is also probably the easiest way to meet new people, as people are much more inclined to jump into a conversation/gaming experience when you already have a unifying interest (the game you’re playing).

Night Activities: Now, I didn’t actually end up going to any parties (instead we ended up spending our evenings going to the Alamo Drafthouse and an AHL hockey game, because we’re Canadian and can’t turn down the chance to see hockey ever) so I don’t have much to comment here. That being said, the parties that I did walk by were blasting terrible music and featured cover charges. Again, perhaps I’m just an old man, but paying 10-15$ to get into a bar just because it’s PAX is not up my alley. Although I heard there were more late night things to do this year than last year, so that’s good.

We did check out the Friday Night concert which featured Bit Brigade and The Protomen, both of whom put on an entertaining show. Hoever, especially since it was in a theater and not just a great big hall, the sound was really pretty terrible. I know that music isn’t exactly the focus of PAX, but not being able to understand the vocals of almost an entire set is pretty crap.

Overall, would I go again? Probably. If the Canadian dollar wasn’t so low it would almost be a no-brainer. For all my little issues I’ve got with PAX, I generally have a good time. Add the weather and the downtown location and I think I prefer South over East. Who knows if I’ll ever get around to attending West or Australia one of these days.

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.

If you want to see ALL of my photos from PAX South, look no further, or just go to the album here: