Wow! What a great three days we just had at the inaugural Penny Arcade eXpo Australia (PAX Aus) 2013. To say the event was a success would be a gross understatement (even CNET loved it!). Ignore the trolls’ comments on forums, the event was a blast.
As for any new event of this magnitude, of course there were some teething problems, but these really were minor and just leave room for PAX Aus 2014 to be bigger and better!
It was an honour and privilege to exhibit in the ‘Classic Consoles Freeplay’ area along with my Australian retro gaming friends: Retrospekt, Retro Domination and Retro Gaming Australia (what an awesome bunch of guys).
Thousands of people visited the classic consoles area; it was great to see them smile with nostalgic joy. There were teenagers “wowing” at the Amstrad CPC464, parents showing their children the datasette on the C64 and explaining that you had to wait tens of minutes to load one game! There were four player battles on the N64 and lots of fighting action on the Dreamcast, Neo Geo AES, 3DO and Saturn. The serious retro gamers were most impressed by seeing the Nintendo Famicom and Sharp Twin Famicom ‘in the flesh’. There were popular high-score competitions on the Amstrad GX4000 (Robocop 2) and the Atari Jaguar (Tempest 2000).
The crowds were constant, from the start of day 1 to the end of day 3. Some came, looked around and played a game or two; some picked their favourite game or console and played to their heart’s content; and others worked their way around and played each console. But most pleasing were the repeat visitors who came back again and again to get their hit of nostalgia.
The Classic Console Freeplay area was a roaring success at PAX Aus 2013. Roll on PAX Aus 2014!
To view the PAX Australia 2013 photo album go to our facebook page.
