This year I had the amazing opportunity to attend PAX 2018. This was my second PAX as well as my second time meeting one of my idols and favorite Youtubers, Markiplier.
The day started early. I packed my bag, checked everything over and rushed out to the car to begin the journey to what I knew would be multiple hours of waiting.
Now most of the time, waiting is a bad thing – no, not just bad, waiting is the worst thing to do, especially when you’re excited! Luckily lines at PAX are almost never boring. Enforcers have games, pipe cleaners and fun activities for everyone to do, and if you aren’t interested in that, it’s almost guaranteed someone around you will have something fun to do.
You can walk around and exchange pins, which is one of my favorite things to do.
Every once in a while, a group of people called the Cookie Brigade will come around. They have delicious cookies in a wide variety of flavors, chocolate chip, oatmeal, peanut butter, and more!
These cookies are free to everyone, but they always appreciate donations to help them with their cause. They help children in shelters and bad living conditions purchase consoles and games so they can join in on the community of gamers.
Not only does the Cookie Brigade have amazing cookies and an even better cause, they also have incredible timing. They walked into our line about two hours before the event started and gave everyone a much needed and delicious snack.
Then finally, at 3:00 it was my turn. Though the time I spent with Mark was short, it was still one of the most memorable times of the event. By the end of the 30 seconds my heart was racing and my smile would not leave my face. It made my day.
Once everyone in my party had finished up with their time, we made our way to the Expo Hall, which is the heart of PAX and my favorite place to wander. Inside is an amazing amount of gaming equipment, board games, video games, and of course people. Luckily the traffic wasn’t too bad, I’ve had a harder time walking through my high school, but on the downside there was less traffic because most of the people were in capped-out lines. I had come in too late to try the new games but that didn’t concern me too much, even though it made me a bit jealous to know that people were playing games that hadn’t been released yet. The one game that I was excited to play was the new PS4 Spider-Man game. Unfortunately everyone else was excited for it too which meant another capped-out line filled with people much quicker than me. I did get to watch from the sidelines though and from what I’ve seen, the game play is amazing and I’m more excited to try it out than I was before. I didn’t even see the dreaded ce-34878-0 error code pop up whilst I watched! On the upside there was a cool place to take a photo so my friend took the opportunity to get a picture in front of it.
I finished up my day with a final walk around the merch tables and a panel led by one of my other favorite Youtubers, Crankgameplays.
This panel was absolutely hilarious and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We had a lot of funny questions, a lot of shade being thrown towards Jacksepticeye, who was also in the room, and overall everyone had a good time. It was the perfect way to end the day and in my opinion was better than last years. Hopefully I have the opportunity to attend next year and write more about this amazing event.
