PAX Embiggened For 2007

The Penny Arcade Expo has moved to a new venue and plans to double in size over the 2006 show. The Washington State Convention center is the new home of PAX for the forseeable future, boasting 200,000 square feet of usable space. Organizers of the convention, started by the duo behind the Penny Arcade comic in 2005, are conservatively expecting 30,000 people to attend the three-day long event. Information about this year's show: "In addition to a show floor filled with contests, tournaments, and unreleased games, PAX 2007 will play host to the annual Omegathon three-day gaming competition, as well as a number of musical acts. Penny Arcade writer Jerry Holkins told GameSpot today that Jonathan Coulton ('Code Monkey,' 'Re: Your Brains') and Freezepop (whose music can be heard in games like Amplitude and Guitar Hero) will be performing at PAX 07."

Comments

E3 runoff?

[TheGreatHegemon]

Could they be anticipating a lot of people no longer going to E3 (Due to downsizing) will go to PAX instead?

well then

[User 956]

PAX Embiggened For 2007: The Penny Arcade Expo has moved to a new venue and plans to double in size over the 2006 show. The Washington State Convention center is the new home of PAX for the forseeable future, boasting 200,000 square feet of usable space.

That event sounds quite cromulent.

What what what!

[Funkcikle]

Embiggened is a perfectly cromulent word!

Re:A little background, perhaps?

[CyanDisaster]

...Organizers of the convention, started by the duo behind the Penny Arcade comic in 2005, are conservatively expecting 30,000 people to attend the three-day long event...

Did you happen to read the summary? Oh wait...what am I thinking? This is Slashdot after all...

Hope be with ye,
Cyan

Corrections

[Hamled]

I do believe that the first PAX was actually in 2004, not 2005.

Not a lot of surprises, but pleasent none the less

[bzarhandz]

The first PAX was indeed in 2004. This new venue was being talked about before PAX even opened last year, as there was far too little room for the gamers and talent that showed. Here's to hoping the larger spaces translate into less standing on line. Freezepop also comes as little surprise, as Jerry (Tycho) dropped their name in a Q&A panel in PAX'06 as the artists he was most interested in providing a venue for. Here comes a special con!

Embiggend

[queenb**ch]

Is that even a word? Gah! You guys sound like one of the Viaga emails....

Re:Embiggend

[mikkelm]

It's a perfectly cromulent word.

Re:Embiggend

[Homr Zodyssey]

I, for one, welcome our new cromulent overlords.

The "political cartoons" of the game industry

[jchenx]

Am I the only one who finds Penny Arcade's seeming influence inexplicable? The problem with Penny Arcade strips is that most of them aren't even comprehensible -- much less funny -- without a dozen paragraphs of supplementary commentary.

While certainly some of their comics could be funny to anyone who doesn't follow the games industry (such as today's comic), I agree that there are others that you wouldn't "get" unless you were into gaming (such as one earlier this week regarding WoW). But you know what? I don't think that's a bad thing at all.

If you don't get the jokes, then they probably weren't meant for you in the first place. In the meantime, all of us video game junkies still get a kick of out them (hence their massive popularity).

If that attitude seems a bit elitist, then yeah, I guess we're guilty of that. :)