PAX East 2025 Day One

First Entering the Expo Hall PAX Day One

  Day one at PAX East 2025 is a wrap.

  Here is a fun little fact about PAX East: The first day is Thursday. It tends to be one of the best days to go. Usually, it's not as crowded as Friday and Saturday, allowing for more time to check out all the exhibits in the expo hall.

  If you can only go one day, I suggest Thursday. I was able to go through several exhibits repeatedly.

  Once you arrive, you'll be funneled into the main hall entrance. There, you can pick up a free lanyard for your badge. This is also the area to pick up badges that you ordered too late for them to be shipped, or purchase any that are still available.

  Next, we consider trying to get PAX Merch or hitting up the expo hall.

  Merch lines will always be long, so be prepared to stand in them for a while if you want to get anything. I try to hit that line up first so it's out of the way, and you don't have to worry about them selling out of anything before you can make it.

  As you enter the expo hall, you get a great view of everything for a moment, like Mufasa and Simba on Pride Rock. You're then shuffled quickly to the stairs or escalator down into the expo hall.

  They get annoyed if you hold up the line, taking photos, or just enjoying the view.

  If you're like me, once you make your move to the expo hall, you'll do at least one circle around all the exhibits before joining a line. That being said, if there's something you want to check out, don't hesitate to hit that up first. If you're there on a Friday or Saturday, try to b-line it to that exhibit to avoid long lines.

  As a pc gamer and filmmaker, I found a few specific booths to be of interest on day one.

Alienware

  The first booth we stopped at was Alienware. They tend to show off their new gaming laptops and pc towers, giving you a chance to try them out.

This year, they're doing giveaways every day.

  To enter the giveaways, you need to do a couple things like sign up for their Alienware Arena program and review a laptop or pc you try out. Each thing you do, you get a ticket for the giveaway.

  One of the ways to get a ticket was to play a game, "Revenge of The Savage Planet," and the post on social media about it. Here's my post on X about it below.

Post on X while at Alienware booth

  At today's giveaway they actually had some random freebies for people who answered trivia questions the first in the group. You got an Alienware plushie keychain.

  It pays to be honest.

  One of the trivia questions was about the inspiration for the latest gaming line. The answer was Area 51. My cousin and I said it first, but my cousin we just ahead of me. They weren't sure who actually said it faster, so I was honest. I told them he was. They gave him the plushie keychain, and for being honest I got a fridge magnet set.

  That was pretty cool.

 Another perk to the Alienware booth giveaway this year, they tell you to keep your tickets through the weekend. That means you still have more chances with the same tickets all four days.

Lenovo Legion

  The next booth we stopped at was the Lenovo Legion exhibit. They had a tournament for "Splitgate 2", a first person shooter, team death match type game. We enjoyed the game so much, we circled around to get more attempts at playing the game.

  The tournament is about getting the highest kill count within a game, by the end of the day several people had over 40. I unfortunately maxed out at 17, which was actually decent in the rounds I played.

  This meant I was slightly above average compared to the others I happened to play during these rounds.

Blackmagic Design

  I was surprised that Blackmagic Design was at PAX this year. As soon as I had the chance, I b-lined it to their booth. They make cinema cameras and other film and video production equipment. On top of that, they created non-linear video editing software that competes with the best available.

  My film degree caused me to drool over the tools and cameras they were showing off. Most of which were setup for people who did streaming, and content creation.

  I spent a good ten minutes speaking with one of the reps about their cinema equipment. It was pretty cool to talk shop with someone who understands the lingo.

Free Play Arcade

  We ended the day over at the Free Play Arcade. They had a bunch of old arcade game, most of which, I played at least one in a real arcade at one point or another.

  While browsing through the room we came across "House of the Dead 2". That's one of the classic shooter games I used to play regularly.

  This meant we had to play.

  We got through half the game before we let others play. One thing we want to do is avoid hogging an arcade cabinet if others are waiting to play.

  They had so many other arcade cabinets there, Mario Kart 2, Mortal Kombat 2, Dance Dance Revolution, X-Men, Street Fighter, the list goes on. It was definitely nostalgic as someone who used to go to arcades as a kid in the 90s.

There was so much to look at in the expo hall, it's hard to cover in just one article. It was a good time, and we're just at day one. I'm excited to see what the next few days bring.