PAX (originally known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a series of gaming culture festivals involving tabletop, arcade, and video gaming. PAX is held annually in Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, and Melbourne. Previously, it was also held in San Antonio. PAX was created in 2004 by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic, because they wanted to attend a show exclusively for gaming. The shows include a keynote speech from an industry insider, game-culture inspired concerts, panels on game topics, exhibitor booths from both independent and major game developers and publishers, a LAN party multiplayer, tabletop gaming tournaments, and video game freeplay areas.

History

The first Penny Arcade Expo was held on, at the Meydenbauer Center, and was attended by about 3,300 people. Renamed PAX, it became an annual event. Attendance grew rapidly, topping 9,000 in 2005 and 19,000 in 2006. Outgrowing the Meydenbauer Center, the event moved to the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, where it drew some 39,000 in 2007, 58,500 in 2008, 60,750 in 2009, and 70,000 in 2011. The show stopped reporting attendance numbers in 2011, citing difficulties in tracking attendance in a multi-day event. In 2009, Penny Arcade partnered with ReedPOP. PAX Prime 2013, the first four-day PAX, was held on ; passes sold out in six hours.

Expansion to more cities

In 2010, the first PAX East was held at the Hynes Convention Center on, drawing 52,290 attendees. The first PAX Prime drew 67,600 attendees in 2010. PAX East moved to Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in 2011; a 2012 agreement cemented Boston as the home of PAX East until 2023. The first international event was PAX Australia, first held at the Melbourne Showgrounds. The following year, it moved to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, where it remains. The first PAX South was held in San Antonio, Texas, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center on January 23–25, 2015. It set a PAX record for highest attendance for an inaugural year. But the event saw little growth in later years, and was cancelled in October 2021.

Specialty events

From 2011 until 2020, Penny Arcade held PAX Dev, an annual event meant to allow the game developer community to "speak freely and focus entirely on their trade". Unlike other game-developer events like GDC, PAX Dev did not allow press. 750 people attended in 2011. At PAX South 2017, Penny Arcade and ReedPop announced that a new event type, PAX Unplugged, would be held on November 17–19, 2017, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The event focused on tabletop games, a type that was only incidental in other PAXes.

Name of PAX in Seattle

PAX was originally known as the "Penny Arcade Expo", but quickly became known by its acronym "PAX". Seattle's PAX was renamed PAX Prime in 2010 and PAX West in 2015.

Activities

PAX consists of the following activities:

The Omegathon

Each PAX features an event called the "Omegathon", a festival-long tournament consisting of a group of randomly selected attendees competing in a game bracket for a grand prize (which has varied from a large game bundle, to a trip to Japan, to a trip to any PAX in the world). The final round of the Omegathon makes up part of the closing ceremonies of PAX. Past games for the final round of the Omegathon have included Tetris, Pong, Halo 3, and skee-ball.

Enforcers

Early PAXes were largely run by a large group of volunteers, which the show calls "Enforcers". Now a paid role, most Enforcers are still not professional conference organizers or temps, but rather selected from an application available to attendees on the PAX website.

Events

Active PAX Events

Former PAX Events

Timeline of PAX Events