Our First PAX

Zack

Fleeting expressions blur together as I was swept into a frenzy of booths. For each moment that a title caught my eye, it was countered by another attraction I had to have my hands on. Excitement floods through my sensations as the energy of PAX East courses through my body. Boston, a city I’ve only ever witnessed through a second screen but dreamt of roaming since I was a child, had finally become a reality through my love of video games and dedication to writing.

The small town I was raised in is no foreigner to burnouts and scums. Festering trivial matters of drama between their cliques, no one has the time of day for a trait called ambition. Needless to say, an opportunity such as traveling to Boston for PAX East to cover the event is unheard of. Surrounded by professionals that I’m heavily influenced by gave birth to a humbling feeling of instead of approaching them as another fan, I was on a common playing field that I could look to them for guidance. Those pinch yourself moments we take all too much for granted.

As exhaustion began to kick in after twelve hours of scaling the convention center top to bottom, we kicked into round two. Mind and body working as a constant contradiction of feeling alive as my eyes began to roll to the back of my head. A thunderous roar rips through amps alerting my senses PAX hasn’t finished what it started quite yet. With performances from Bit Brigade, MC Frontalot, and Video Game Orchestra, sleep became a thing of the past as the assertive charisma grabs ahold of me.

By far, though, the people I met during PAX East are the kind I’ll never forget. Anticipating the event for the past several months, I couldn’t contain my curiosity of meeting some of the other great writers here at IP. As all of the happenings came to a full circle as I boarded my plane back to Chicago, a sigh of relief escapes from me, reminding myself that I’m headed towards the direction I intended with some great people along the way.

Jacob

As I’m writing this I’m sitting on a plane with the dust of my first PAX East convention settling behind me. I won’t lie to you and say I feel like a million bucks. My body hurts pretty much everywhere, every time I blink my eyes burn, and I can feel the dreaded PAX Pox slowly tightening its grip around me. I’ve certainly felt better, physically, but I wouldn’t change one second of my first PAX experience because mentally, I’ve never felt better or more sure about what I want to do with my future.

PAX East 2014 gave me my first experience covering video games in a convention setting. It was everything I hoped: fast paced, exhausting, stressful and fun. I was also able to meet many of the writers for some of the higher profile sites that motivated me to want to cover games and the game industry.

My favorite part of PAX, though, was finally meeting the other Irrational Passionists. Alex, Greg, Zack, Aneudys and Joe made the trip 10 times what it could have been. We meshed immediately and spent the next four days talking about games, cracking jokes, and having a great time.

Really, that’s what PAX is all about. It’s a convention for the people. It’s a place where you can go and talk with anyone on the show floor and have an engaging conversation. Being at PAX taught me to find something I love and be passionate about it, perhaps even irrationally passionate about it.