In addition to last weekend being Easter (which was busy enough what with organizing the extra teachers for Kids Harbor and seeing our babysitter at church), I also went to PAX East on Saturday.

PAX is the "Penny Arcade Expo" organized by the heavyweight web comic Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com/). PAX originally started in Seattle and was renamed PAXPrime when they created PAXEast in Boston.

Blizzard generally doesn't have a presence at cons like this partly because they have BlizzCon every year, their own huge fan convention. However, because there is no BlizzCon this year, WoWInsider (www.wowinsider.com -> http://wow.joystiq.com/) decided to do a panel at PAXEast. They have a weekly podcast so decided to do a "live podcast" for the panel. This basically ended up being an introduction of the hosts and then questions from the audience. It went over fabulously well.

As soon as they determined the day, I bought a ticket to PAX for that day ($35). I got there early (8:15ish) to leave enough time to get through whatever registration line there was (not much on the second day) and find the room the panel would be in. This second part took the better part of half an hour since PAX is at the Boston Convention Center and Expo which is massive. I ended up being about 8th in line, and spent the next hour and a half chatting with people about WoW, which doesn't happen much in my normal social circles.

A little after 9am, two of the hosts came by the room and gave us all loot cards for being so early. "Loot cards" are playing cards from the WoW Trading Card Game which have a scratch-off code that you can redeem for something in-game -- usually a pet, mount, or item that will do an effect. I got Landro's Lichling, a pet. (yay!) Here's a pic of Saliira with the lichling (they asked for "disappointed" pics for everyone who received loot that day).

They finally let us into the room and I got a front-row seat, which allowed me to take this picture (that they then used as a header for one of the blog articles until they could get the video processed.

In that pic are (L -> R) Mike Sacco, Mat McCurley, Fox Van Allen, and Alex Zeibart. After the panel was done, several of us stayed behind to chat with Mat, Fox, and Alex (Mike had to go to a family event). I got the three of them to autograph my Lichling card, and later Mat mentioned (via twitter) that when he saw some people he recognized (including me, from my twitter picture), he felt less nervous.

After the panel and chat, I found some work friends for lunch, wandered the exhibit floor a little, met back up with them and another work friend, and then as I was leaving saw two church friends that I had given up seeing.

A very successful and fun event all around.