PAX West Is In Person This Year, Despite Everything

In case you haven't heard, we're still in the middle of a pandemic

PAX West, the popular gaming convention, will go down as a physical event this September, event organizers announced via press release today. I probably don’t need to tell you why that isn’t exactly the best idea.

PAX West is scheduled to take place over Labor Day weekend (September 3 through 6) at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. Tickets go on sale this week: $230 for the whole four-day weekend, or $60 for individual day passes. If that’s all you need to know, well, there you go. But, like every other long-running in-person event, PAX’s standing over the past year has been on shaky ground.

As recently as December 2020, PAX organizers Reedpop and Penny Arcade were optimistic about a 2021 PAX schedule. PAX East would take place in early June, PAX West in early September, and Pax Unplugged in the middle of December, all provided the covid-19 pandemic abated, or at least eased to manageable levels. That plan was sketched out as a second wave of the pandemic—spurred by holiday travel and loosened social distancing regulations—embroiled the United States. Between then and now, around 300,000 Americans died as a result of covid-19.

In March, PAX organizers canceled PAX East, citing extremely reasonable health and safety concerns. (For perspective, had plans proceeded apace, PAX East would’ve occurred three weeks ago.) It was replaced with the all-digital PAX Online next month. At the time, organizers remained optimistic that a September PAX West could still happen.

Source: Kotaku