Take a look at your guidebook map when you get a chance: The amazing Take This organization organizes an AFK room to PAX events for years. I know you don’t want to miss anything, but just a little recovery time can really help you enjoy what you do get to see. Take time off the show floor for a while to get away from the noise or crowds. The summary of this section is to take breaks. Trust me, I’ll be enjoying a nice cocktail to toast with my friends, but binging on drinks of either kind can severely dehydrate you. On the other side, don't overdo it on caffeine or alcohol! I’ve seen both at other conventions, where people rely on substances to sustain or enhance the convention experience to the point of pain. You want to enjoy yourself? Power your body. Time for the basics: while at a convention, remember to eat! I’m not just talking chips or a convention hot dog either, but full meals with plenty of water. Still, it’s so very important to know your limits! The biggest change for me is how the expo hall is blessedly quieter you don't have various gaming booths competing for attention with loudspeakers blasting EDM or gunshot blasts. The lines aren’t as long, the crush of people isn’t as huge, and the main events don’t go as long into the night. With that in mind, Unplugged is going to be a slightly tamer experience than a video game convention. Knowing your limits and making room for down time in your schedule can be a livesaver, especially if you are going for the whole weekend. I had another friend who had anxiety attacks from the constant crowds without any breaks. I had a great time, but I’ll be honest and say that I spent the next week with flu-like symptoms, grumbling my way through work. I was able to manage just fine, but I was also 10 years younger and hopped up on Red Bull. We stayed until 1:30am to see everything we absolutely could, then woke up at 8 AM the next day to go wait in line on Saturday, just to stay again until 2 AM. The first convention I ever went to involved me driving to Boston on Friday for 4 hours after a day of work. This point gets put at the top, just because it can be so easily forgotten. #1: Before Everything Else, Take Care Of Yourself! With these questions in mind, here is our brand new guide to surviving – and enjoying – PAX Unplugged. For someone brand new to gaming conventions, it might be too much: where do you start? Where do you end? How do you know if you’ve gotten your money’s worth? For you veterans out there, maybe you are new to this particular convention, and want a few tips about good places to eat or relax. Still, if you have never been to a convention quite as large as a PAX, it’s still a lot to take in. While you see less flashing lights and glitzy displays, it also means you don’t end each day exhausted. PAX Unplugged is a convention that’s all about the board games, the tabletop, the analog it moves slower, but that doesn’t mean less fun. While Unplugged is a bit more established now, it's still a calmer, less rushed tempo than others we've been to. The crowds aren’t quite as large, developers and organizers are still trying to figure out the right tempo there’s less of a rush to it all. At this point, our staff enjoys it more than PAX East! There’s good reason for that though: there’s a certain magic to seeing a game convention in its early years. We were fortunate enough to go, and we had an absolute blast. In 2017, PAX Unplugged launched in Philadelphia. Still, PAX East is now a titan, a behemoth with 60,000 people, something that was overwhelming for those gamers new to conventions. It let us forget about reality, forget the stress of new jobs, and let us revel with a few thousand like-minded people. It was our sojourn, our chance to get out of New York for a long weekend. To prepare for PAX Unplugged 2022 on December 2nd, we've updated the article with some new hints and tips! We hope you find it useful.Ī few years ago, Zoë and I wrote a guide to our favorite convention, PAX East. This article was first published on November 27th, 2018.
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