PAX survey hints at UK event

By Fred Dutton Published 11 February, 2011

US gaming festival to cross the pond?

The organiser of the bi-annual US Penny Arcade Expo – or PAX as it's better known - has issued a survey to gauge interest in a UK event.

The questionnaire, spotted by VG247, asks recipients "If we brought PAX to the UK, would you attend?" before canvassing opinion on a possible venue. It lists Earls Court, Excel, "a hotel in London", "other London venue" or "outside London" as potential options.

PAX, which has been running since 2004, incorporates an event in Boston in March and another in Seattle in September. Gearbox used the Seattle event last year to announce it had taken over Duke Nukem Forever, while Deus Ex creator Warren Spector provided the keynote speech.

The survey describes it as follows: "PAX is a gaming festival in the United States for gamers of all genres to come together and celebrate the culture of gaming. Unreleased games, big booths, fabulous prizes, concerts, the gaming community and industry support puts PAX far above any other show on the planet."

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (41) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • PJL101 #1 1 year ago

    Note to organizers: The UK comprises of more than just London. Please put it somewhere else.

  • RobotRocker #2 1 year ago

    Note to organizers: The UK comprises of more than just London. Please put it somewhere else.

    But thar' be dragons outside there!

  • superstu1337 #3 1 year ago

    Hell no! If you don't live in / near London then too freakin' bad! You can get a train from anywhere in the country to London, and if you can't you probably don't even have electricity! If I lived in like Scotland, I'd get off my lazy ass for once and get a 6am train to go! Maybe you should try to do the same!

  • zedzee #4 1 year ago

    Game shows have always been so poor and very far and few in between in the UK, so if PAX boosts that, then I'd definitely want to attend.

    I was at the EG Expo last year and just attended an Access PlayStation event, but these were really small, so a big event would be great.

    It's not like the UK doesn't have gamers. It's not like we don't have any developers. It's not like we don't produce fantastic games, characters and franchises.

  • Sharzam #5 1 year ago

    As much as i would like something outside of London, it is a fair point to say about the travel connections few other places in the UK are quite so well linked. All major train lines and motorways get there not to mention and the underground is useful. Perhaps Birmingham? Althourgh if flying into the UK for PAX say from mainland europe then again London wins.

    Personally i am South West so vote for Bath or Bristol however if in london still easy enough.

  • captain_Carl #6 1 year ago

    Brum would be better. More central. Easier to get to than London with good transport links.

  • elmoape #7 1 year ago

    Wish for brum myself as a south westerner (and asked for it in the survey) but chances as close to nought really... I don't mind, it's got a massive population great transport links and huge possibility of accommodation...

  • daz_john_smith #8 1 year ago

    Why doesn't Eurogamer join forces with Penny Arcade to do a joint Expo. 2 or 3 bigger events spread across the country; North, South & Scotland.

    Could also intergrate some of the additional elements of PAX like board gaming and more roundtable/panal discussions, etc.

    It seems like a good fit, EG has already held their own Expo's in the UK and the extra backing of Penny Arcade can only help. It would surely be advantageous for Penny Arcade to have a good partner here in the UK, because organising the show from the US or relocating here just to hold an Expo wouldn't be easy.
    Edited by daz_john_smith at 12/02/11 @ 07:16

  • Nanakai #9 1 year ago

    I would love PAX to come to the UK. I could cover for the community I'm in (Unscripted 360). I pute the keynotes and panels as being very important, and playing games less so. I've been to one event in London before, can't rememember what it's called because it only lasted one year lol. But me and my friends didn't get a chance to play any games, these events are just too big (in terms of turnout) to get a turn. I also begged them to bring it to Manchester. Why does everything have to be in London just because it's the capital!?

  • Razz #10 1 year ago

    I'd prefer if it were in Amsterdam.

  • Stoatboy #11 1 year ago

    Wah! Wah! Don't want to travel!

    People don't go to the Edinburgh fringe because it's convenient. They go because it's worth going to.

    Belt the fuck up, and either opt out and shut up, or man up and fucking go for it.

    I'm on a roll for negs by the way, so this post is practically farming them... ;)

  • TheeUmbrellaMan #12 1 year ago

    NEC always makes alot more sense for this sort of event to me than London. It's more central, much easier to access by car, don't have to pay "travelling to London premium" for train, access from Airport without even going outside, no need for bloody tube. It's every bit as accessible as London, but saves 2 hours of journey time for most people and a whole lot of faff.

    Unless they're charging you about double for an event there than Earl's Court or wherever else in London, I have no idea why you would pick London over it. Unless you work in one of the few places where London actually is easier to get to... like Brighton.... ;P

    EDIT: their they're fail.
    Edited by TheeUmbrellaMan at 12/02/11 @ 18:36

  • MojoDex #13 1 year ago

    why london seriously it's so hard to get too if you live past watford! all major train lines and motorways go through birmingham. and birmingham is central in the uk which means its fairly easy for anyone in the uk to get there. londons public transport is a shambles, anyone who says otherwise has never used it.

  • login_name #14 1 year ago

    Birmingham gets my vote.

  • Toothball #15 1 year ago

    I'd love it if this were to happen a bit further north than London, although I'd be quite interested in going wherever they might hold it.

  • Syrette #16 1 year ago

    Are Eurogamer worried about this?

    There is pretty much no competition when it comes to the Expo in this country at the moment, which has obviously helped the Expos become as successful as they have been.

  • AphoticCosmos #17 1 year ago

    Have it in Brum. Everyone can get to Brum in a reasonably short amount of time, even if it is a shithole.

  • metalangel #18 1 year ago

    @MojoDex: Damned right. I live in Cardiff and take the train or drive to London all the time, both the Great Western Mainline AND the M4 run right through Birmingham.

  • FogHeart #19 1 year ago

    Have I heard EG staff say they modelled the Expo on PAX? Is there room for two identical events in the calendar (of course yes from a pundits point of view, but what about the industry)? I have no idea if the PAX brand carries more weight over here. I doubt it but I could be biassed - so it may just end up as a less successful event that still draws numbers from the Expo.

    Working with EG makes sense, they'd have the contacts with the industry through their history in running the event, while EG have experience running the Expo itself over here. But of course that's 'fantasy football'. Very probably some British souls who are regulars at PA's site have drawn their attention to the established Expo in the UK and expressed doubts about competing with it, a strategy that would produce no winner.

  • Kropotkin #20 1 year ago

    Having been to 5 PAX events now I can certainly support the idea of it coming to the UK. Before you ask, yes I am from the UK and yes I have travelled to the US on 5 seperate occasions just to go to PAX, for it is that good.

    This also casts an interesting light on people who refuse to attend if it is held in London. In North America there are people who travel over 3000 miles to get to the PAX East and Prime events. There is even a cross country road trip in which people drive from the East Coast to the West Coast in a convoy over a period of 3 days to get to PAX Prime.

    You have to understand that PAX is not so much about the games, but more about the people who play them. This makes it much more of a community event that any other expo. There is also a culture of inclusiveness, if there is such a word. Even queues have a code of bahviour attributed to them that mainly focus on people playing DS games with one another as they line up for game demos/panels/concerts.

    Finally I would also like to see the event be held in Birmingham as it is central and I know how parochial people are in the UK and aren't willing to travel more than 10 miles to get to anything....

  • asphaltcowboy #21 1 year ago

    Oh noes! EG's reign of terror is under threat! ;)

    Would be awesome if there was a PAX UK (I love the Expo too though :x)

  • SpaceMonkey77 #22 1 year ago

    Yeah, I'd certainly check out a PAX U.K event.

    Mixing it with EG is a bad idea, though. PAX is very much a game fan community event, not about selling the latest wares like many U.K shows. Retrogaming, arcade gaming, import gaming, panels about games, weird and wonderful and those who make them etc. At PAX, gamers can be themselves, and not feel the shun of those who don't game. EG is the type of show where more casual people are likely to turn up, next to hard core peoples. PAX is largely about the core gamer (but we don't judge). The question is, are their enough core gamers in the U.K, to fill the event?

    Harsh truth, but London is a place that everyone knows where it is (known by foreigners too), and links in and out are easy enough. Birmingham is an alternative choice. Either way, though, I'd certainly be prepared to travel wherever in the U.K, to share time and gaming space with like minded people at PAX. Very glad its being thought about, and it would be nice to book a weekend off work for.

  • Aradiel #23 1 year ago

    Interesting, but I hope for somewhere other than London, or seriously cheap tickets. I don't like spending £50 to £100 just to be able to get to an event which itself costs £200

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #24 1 year ago

    We'd love to see if we could work with PAX. I emailed them before we did the first Expo (Yep, PAX was partly our inspiration for EG Expo when we started it) but they didn't reply. I emailed them recently too, maybe I will get a reply this time. We'll have to wait and see!

  • Hantheman #25 1 year ago

    PAX UK would be awesome

  • hiddenranbir #26 1 year ago

    London is easy to get to. Any place in UK is easy to get to, we're such a small country.

    People travel from further places when attending these PAX events.

  • kinth #27 1 year ago

    Not london. why is it always bloody london. put it somewhere in the middle of the UK so everyone can resonably get there instead of having to pay a fortune for a train that your lucky if it turns up. always wanted to go to a gaming expo but living "up ere in teh north" its always daunting to go all the way to london plus it will be twice as expensive as most places as london hotels are rediculously priced all the food is dearer hell everything is just more expensive. plus i dont want to get knifed by plan b ;)

  • kinth #28 1 year ago

    @stoatboy
    its not just travel even though the trains are pretty much always delayed going to london.
    the other major concern is price it's twice as expensive as anywhere else in the uk for anything including hotels and food.
    i dont really want to have to pay twice as much in a city just because its considered cool by hipsters who like to dress up as cowboys and who all suddenly think folk music is the greatest thing on earth for some reason.
    also wherever they held it in london would be dearer to rent meaning ticket prices will be higher. not everyone is rich and can afford to pay silly prices just because an area is considered hip.

    keep it central uk then its easy for everyone to get to and cheaper.
    Edited by kinth at 13/02/11 @ 04:23

  • Jamiesan #29 1 year ago

    Has anyone in this thread actually been to London? Some of the numbers above are crazy. Last year for the EG Expo, I booked my train tickets (Liverpool to London) as soon as my EG tickets were confirmed. It cost me £11 train there, £11 train back, £7 or 8 for the actual Expo.
    Lime Street to Euston is under 3 hours, the food inside the venue was expensive, but there are a bunch of high street food places within 2 minutes walk. The public transport is actually pretty decent(when they aren't on STRIKE!) considering the volume of people using it.
    The buses in London actually worked out cheaper on average then my local service, because a daily will get you on ANY route in the city. If I want to to into Liverpool from my house, I'd need to take 2 routes which operate under different companies, so I need to get 2 daily's.

    Not as expensive as some of you think. But I wouldn't drive down there if they paid me, and I'm lucky enough to have friends down there where I can crash.

  • CaptainTrips #30 1 year ago

    People who aren't from will always complain that it isn't in their city.

    I'm from the North East, and would happily travel down to London for the weekend to attend a PAX event. Hell, I might even travel down there for a full week and make a small vacation of it. What's more, I can travel there by a 30 minute plane ride from Newcastle airport, and it will likely cost me less than £100 to do so.

    London makes sense peeps - stop being so territorial! :)

  • metalangel #31 1 year ago

    Jamiesan, you were very lucky to get the heavily discounted, limited availablity train tickets.

    I used to live in London, it's an overpriced, overrated shithole.

  • TheeUmbrellaMan #32 1 year ago

    I'm from the North-East as well, and it isn't just being parochial that makes me want it anywhere but London. I cannot justify "less than £100" to get down to one of these events by plane, I simply do not have anything like that sort of disposable income to piss away. Even by train it's £50-odd to get there and back at best, plus ticket £8, plus hotels £40 (a deal I've managed once, usually £60), plus tube £10, plus food at around £20. I know because I've bloody done it for gigs in the past.

    Whereas if its at a proper out of city convention centre, I drive just down with 4 mates. Then it's £12 each for petrol, plus ticket, no need for hotels, no changing transport, can fill the boot with food, and it saves hours and hours. It's an option which London completely denies to me. I know this because I do it for Gamesday every other year.

    So it costs £128 each for London or £20 each for outside. Please, tell me how that makes sense.

  • Jazzy_Geoff #33 1 year ago

    there are 12 million people in the greater london area. find me somewhere else in the UK with that kind of population and you can hold all the events you like there. If not shut the fuck up and stop whining.
    Edited by Jazzy_Geoff at 13/02/11 @ 19:20

  • Aradiel #34 1 year ago

    Re: Jamiesan, I am in a similar situation to TheUmbrellaMan - I also live in the North East. I checked the train prices, and to go from Newcastle to London, keeping in mind I'm looking 12 weeks in advance (the furthest in the future National Rail will allow me to book), is £50 at the cheapest (but, because that means leaving a day before I want to, I need to spend extra on a hotel) - the cost is easily upped to at least £100 for a single weekend.

    [edit] I have done it a couple of times, but it's always bloody expensive. I've done the same going to Manchester, and despite it also being "In the North", the cost of a return ticket is £35 at least, so the saving is not much better.

    Our transport infrastructure is pretty poor (or, at least, excessively overpriced) in this country.
    Edited by Aradiel at 13/02/11 @ 19:33

  • SpaceMonkey77 #35 1 year ago

    Its more than likely to be London, so gamers foreign and domestic can find it. By the way, regarding hotels, there are these things called Travel Lodges and Premier Inns, that are cheap as chips to stay at. Do your homework and you can easily save money on food and accomodation.

    I just hope to god that if we do get PAX UK, they let you order your tickets in advance. Even at the MCM Expo, they let you do this, and insanely also make you cue to get in too.

    At the end of the day, I guess its down to how much we are prepared to represent what we love, and mix, meet and chill with like minded people.

  • TheeUmbrellaMan #36 1 year ago

    @Jazzy_Geoff: Population of London is around 8.2million according to all modern estimates from ONS. There is no sure figure because it is the census later this year. It certainly isn't believed to be anything like 12mil. The population of the Midlands is around 10 million according to the same estimates. Do I earn the right to not shut the fuck up now?

    Also, 86.5% of the country live outside of London. If I were to be generous and say that London is convenient for the whole of the South-East, I could also say that it is useless for the other three-quarters of the country. That's 45million people excluded from attendance save for the most dedicated (or most well-off too I guess).

    (Can you tell I've had this conversation before?... /sigh)

    As people from London keep telling me, you can get to London from anywhere in the country. Why this never seems to translate to 'I can get anywhere in the country from London' I have no idea. Is a journey that can't be paid for by Oyster Card really that foreboding?

  • Aradiel #37 1 year ago

    Re; SpaceMonkey - using the same criteria as I did for the trains, the cheapest Premiere Inn in London is Enfield - £121 for two nights.

    Maybe you should have done your own research.

  • gingerlink #38 1 year ago

    For those whinging about travelling:

    Consider how big the US is and there is one PAX event on each coast, wherever the hell you live in the UK, you've got less far to go than the majority of normal PAX attendees.

  • Aradiel #39 1 year ago

    Re: gingerlink

    You are missing the point - the issue is not distance, but the cost. Cost and distance are not directly related, as Nanaki pointed out.

    I would definitely want to go, but if the cost makes it too prohibitive, then I will obviously be unable to go.

  • cen4pgb #40 1 year ago

    I want to know what in the hell crazy prices people are looking at for london. If you book in advance you can get 1st class tickets and a 4 star hotel for some of the prices quoted here.

    Only 2 locations make sense in the UK for an event like this, London or Birmingham. Birmingham, is more convinent for day trippers, as the NEC is relitvely simple to get to.

    Londons transport links are the best in the country, and contry to whats been said here not all major train lines go through birminham.

    London is also the most convient for mainland europe being served by several international airports, and a direct train link to the continent.

    London also has far jmore exebiton spaces than the rest of the country. So theres more flexibilty as to whne it might actually be free.

    Having lived in the north, and having friends scattered around it, in gerneal the quickest easiet palce to vist any of them from leeds was London. Manchester by public transport took alsmost as long, and usually cost as much money.

  • Mkwone #41 1 year ago

    Put it in Nottingham and tie it in with Game City festival they have.