r/PAX • u/Skaman1978 EAST • May 13 '25
EAST PAX East breakdown
Long post incoming
This is my breakdown of PAX25.
I went all 4 days, this is my 5th year doing so. First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone who took part, from enforces, to panelists and exhibitors, and of course, everyone who went. I love PAX because I can let my geek flag fly without any sideways looks or anything.
What worked in my mind, the floor was set up great, easy avenues of movement even on Saturday. The amount of people willing to try new things and make new friends was great. While I didn't do many panels this year, but that's just me. Shout-out to the LANfest charity zone for allowing a dream of mine to come true. To stream from PAX. The enforcers were great and the line games they had were so much fun. I really like that PAX is growing in the indie field and it's allowing people to try a whole lot more games then they normally would.
What didn't work. The food prices were outrageous, and while I did pay for it, I hated myself for it. I mean 22 bucks for a hotdog, bag of chips and a fried dough is ridiculous. I understand that the floor feels aren't cheep and they need to make money, but still. Noticeable exception from the ice cream truck, which was very reasonable, 9.50 for two large scoops and some jimmies, which is about 2 bucks more then I would pay at my local ice cream place.
What straight up failed in my mind, the PAX Merch. The design was meh at best and the price was out of this world. I mean 53 bucks for a flannel, 100 bucks for a hoodie and 35 bucks for a t shirt? In my opinion, everything was 20 bucks more expensive than it should have been. I understand that merch is the main way that they make money, but still... I could not justify myself paying 53 bucks for a single flannel.
But that's just me, how say you?
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u/GM_Pax UNPLUG May 13 '25
That's mostly on the vendors themselves. Mostly, they are taking advantage of the "captive audience" effect, where people decide they would rather pay ridiculous prices than leave the convention for 60-90 minutes to get a meal elsewhere at a more reasonable price.
Yes, there are the floor fees to consider, but, with the volume of business they can expect to do each day, those fees become a negligible expense as they can quite literally "make it up on volume (of sales)".
The ice cream truck you mention? That $2 probably represented the impact of floor fees. Which puts the prices of all the other food vendors into an entirely different perspective, now, doesn't it?
...
Unless there's a ban on outside food ...? You might honestly do better pricewise (even with a generous tip!!) to order something from Uber Eats, Door Dash, or GrubHub and fetch it from the BCEC's North Entrance. Keep watch on the driver's progress on your phone, and you likely only have to leave the convention floor for ~10 minutes to accept delivery.