Went to day one of Penny Arcade Expo 08. I was only there for 5 hours but I was able to see some interesting stuff. Got some shwag and posters. Got some pictures that I'll post later. And have some interesting things to report.
But here is a story of a little bit of interest on how my bro and I essentially cut in line in front of 10,000 people.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v123/Tie23/JOURNEY.jpg)
Interesting happened when my bro and I got there and found where you're supposed to buy passes. We are presented with a massive crowd of people, and a sort of line that's chock full of people that's around 25 feet wide, around 100 people every 20 feet along.(1)
Well, we find out that after 5 minutes we're standing in the "We already have passes" line, and surprisingly the massive line is the "already got our stuff" line, then there is a much smaller line for buying the damn things. Sorta backwards and confusing. (2)
Well, anyway, we get in a line for the tickets (there are about 10 lines for the passes) (3)
After a few minutes some guy shouts out "We have a much shorter line at the cash only desk!" (4)
So we basically bypass a 15 minute wait down to a one minute wait instead. Get the passes, and see where everyone else is going who have passes. My bro finds a old school mate who is working as an "Enforcer" (5)
and we find out that when you have your pass, you get in line for the show to start. This is when we freak out, because the massive 3000 person line feeds into the "Line-up room", a room so chock full of people it's scary. (6) Edit:
http://www.joystiq.com/photos/pax-2008/1006871/full/)
So we're basically told that we're 10,000th in line to get into the main Exhibit hall. One thing to note is that there are two doors, one feeding in the massive line of people outside this room into it, and a trickle of people exiting it, making their way to the exhibit. (7)
Without much concern, amazingly, we head to the end of the massive line, and we're waiting for the worst (8)
Well, we stand in the massive 10,000 person line, as people 10,001 and 10,002, we're worried. But then I point out that there is no difference between the special trickle people exiting the massive waiting room and us. So we get out of line and start moving back, looking at the people across the empty space (9)
We continue, and realize that the only reason why anyone went in that line was to hold people there before they opened to doors to the main exhibit hall. (10)
So it was pretty awesome. Basically, people who got there early basically sat in the waiting room for no damn reason. Getting there early only meant one thing: That you'd need to wait longer, pretty sad stuff. We were really lucky, we were in the Expo within moments of opening, but only waited for around 20 minutes to get in. While everyone else waited hours and hours. Pretty lame.
Pictures later.