In the spring of 2014, my husband and I were preparing for our return back to the USA and realized that our 10 year anniversary was a few months away. We had been bouncing around the idea to renew our vows, since spending $58 at the courthouse rather than thousands for a wedding seemed more cost effective. We have talked about having a ceremony for years and this seemed like a good time.

Then Penny Arcade announced PAX South. Not only was it a new PAX, but we would be living less 3 hours away. The only issue: it was on our anniversary weekend.

So now we were left with a decision. Do we go back home and spend our anniversary celebrating 10 amazing years, surrounded by family and friends that we haven't seen in years, or do we attend a gaming convention where we can geek out by ourselves for a whole weekend?

Like responsible adults, we chose PAX.

Fast forward to January 23^rd, 2015 and it is time for PAX South. My best friend (for work related reasons, my husband was unable to attend) and I were eating breakfast in our hotel, going over the schedule for the things we wanted to see. Since neither of us had been to a gaming convention before, we were not really sure what to expect. I knew I wanted to check out the Gearbox rooms, but we did not have much a plan past that. The morning was slightly rainy and people were already lining up to get on the bus to head towards the convention center, so we hurriedly finished and headed out the door. There was a large party waiting for the bus, so we decided to walk to the convention center.

In true Texas fashion, it had stopped by the time we got to the convention center.. As we approached the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center and I realized exactly where we were, I knew that this was a perfect venue for the 1^st annual PAX South. The convention center is surrounded by historic San Antonio and has paths leading to the Riverwalk. There a multiple hotels and almost every variation of restaurant, tons of shopping, tourist stops, and historical locations all within walking distance.

The venue itself almost felt like it was made for PAX. The Expo Hall was huge and not as crowded as I expected it would be. There were vendors lined up everywhere, selling merchandise and advertising games and Jesus. (Yes, you read that correctly. Gamechurch (http://gamechurch.com/what-we-do/) had a booth and is a completely non-satirical group that preaches love and video games.) Attached to the Expo Hall was the tabletop gaming area. At first, I thought this area was a bit larger than needed, but as the weekend progressed, it grew in popularity, especially when the Magic the Gathering tournament started.

From the Expo Hall, there was an escalator that led up to area where visitors were playing a dance game (I think it was the latest Dance Central), and food station. To the left of the food was the Gearbox Theatre and Community FunZone. Since Gearbox's Community Day is around the same time, they partnered with PAX to have on-going festivities for attendees. We spent a lot of time here waiting on panels a such. They had some sort of contest going on almost the whole time. They also previewed pre-alpha footage from Battleborn, played a few walk-throughs of episode 1 of Tales from the Borderlands and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. It was not uncommon for any one of the Gearbox peeps to be wondering around. They also had several panels throughout the weekend in the Gearbox Theatre, ranging from a costume contest to behind the scenes footage of Homeworld, Borderlands and Battleborn.

It's a TOURGUE FIESTA!!!!!

Since we didn't take a normal path to find the Gearbox area, it took me a bit to get my bearings. The Gearbox area was towards the back of the convention center. There was an escalator that led to a theatre upstairs, but we did not attend any panels up there. As we headed back down the hallway, we realized that we had actually bypassed the Bioware room, Retro Arcade, Handheld Lounge(which was really just a bunch of pillows laid out in the middle of a walkway) and the two smaller theatres, which ran continuous panels throughout the weekend. When compared to the Gearbox area, the Bioware room seemed lacking. They hosted several panels, but we only attended one. I heard several complaints that while they advertised that they would be talking about all of their games, they mostly talked about Dragon Age: Inquisition. The panel we attended was about the art and development for Inquisition. It was interesting, but since I have never played Dragon Age, I was a bit lost. The major downside of the Bioware room was not only did they not have a store for merchandise, their schedule was only posted in their area. We had to go by their multiple times to see if there was anything interesting going on.

The only game Bioware has ever made

The other two theatres ran panels all weekend. These panels ranged from social commentary within the gaming world to online trolling. We only attended one of these panels and had a lot of fun with it. It was the Confessions of a Troll: Human Nature Online panel. It was interesting hearing from former (and some current) trolls from the early days of the Internet. The presentation mostly focused on the different types of trolling and the panelists histories as trolls. While interesting, I think the panel would have been more informative if it had been longer. It was awesome to see the one of the panelist go into “Dad mode” when two kids asks questions about being stalked online.

After we left the Confessions of a Troll panel and realized that the other panel we wanted to see was already full, we decided check out the concert in the main theatre. The Returners were on stage, which was a nice surprise. Their music was enjoyable and the acoustics were good. The only major issue was that the theatre was only partially full, so there wasn't much to absorb the sound of the lead singer's flute. Their music was quite good. The One-Ups played later that night, but we opted to find dinner instead, since it was after 9 PM.

On Sunday morning, we attended the Gearbox panel in the main theatre. Since we figured that it would be packed, we got in line at about 9:15 for the 10:30 panel. I was definitely glad we got an early start on the day, because we were lined up in the third group and the lines were almost completely full by 10 am. The panel was every entertaining. It was Gearbox's main panel. They premiered the Lady Hammerlock DLC for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, episode 2 of Tales from the Borderlands, as well as screenshots from the remastering of Homeworld. As with everything else they did that weekend, they also gave away some nVidia video cards and a special edition of the Homeworld collection. This also marked the second time in my life that I have felt slightly old.

Thank you game I have  never played!

The winner of the Homeworld collection was 16. My best friend remarked that she wonders if Randy Pitchford (who had pulled the winner up on stage at this point to participate in a magic trick) felt old because the kid that was getting the collection wasn't even alive when it came out. I pointed out that the original game came out in '99. To which she replied, “Oh, he was one then.”

Yep, still not really thinking about that implication.

After the panel, we decided to give the Expo hall another look. Since it was the last day of the convention, there were fewer people in there. We were able to actually talk with people and try some of the demos out. We got hooked on a mobile game called Force of Elements and spent a lot of time at the Tiny Build booth, trying their puzzle games out. This was a really good time for us to try the games out because we didn't feel like we were holding anyone up or blocking someone else from trying the games. We were able to play with things at our pace, which was nice. Now the major vendors, such as Nintendo and Grey Box, still had extremely long lines, so we opted to skip those.

After we were done with the Expo Hall, we realized that we still had a few hours till the next panel we wanted to see. I knew that my husband would have wanted us to the Homeworld panel, but given that my friend nor I had played the game, I figured we would both be lost and the Borderlands panel was one of the final ones. Since it was almost 3 and we still had a 3 hour drive home, we decided to go ahead and end our PAX South adventure.

Overall, I had a blast the whole weekend. Since this was the first PAX South and my time PAX, I can't compare it to the larger, already established conventions. There were still tickets available when the convention started, so I imagine that it will be more packed with people and things to do as it gains popularity. My biggest complaint is that, as with every convention, all the cool panels were at conflicting times. Given that that is a problem at almost any convention, I can't really say it is a complaint. I know we will be going again next year and I can't wait to see what the 2^nd annual PAX South will be like!