Good Morning Gato #9 – Terrifically Marvelous PAX Catchup!

PAX East 2010 has come to an end and the Ska Studios crew has since rested their tired eyes and recovered to a state of “normal”. As such, last week we were crazy busy doing the whole PAX exhibiting thing, which meant we just didn’t have the time to supply you with a Good Morning Gato post. Our bad. This week we are attempting to make up for our error with a complete recap of the Ska PAX experience which comes with a bonus video of James riding his Razor scooter around the show floor. If that doesn’t make you want to read on, we just aren’t sure what would.

PAX East Travels: The Beginning
As the story goes, last Thursday in the “way too early to wake up” hours of the morning, team Ska Studios packed up the old rental van and traveled east to Boston. The land of beans, the Bruins and that Dane Cook dude. PAX East was our end goal and after about three hours of driving we arrived. After moving all of our supplies into the convention hall we had about two hours to setup before we had to hurry over to Microsoft NERD for James’ speaking engagement. The NERD place was rockin’ and we got to meet all kinds of neat folks, talk business and eat some cold and overly moistened soft pretzels. Come 10PM, we stole someone’s cab (it’s the Ska Studios way) and were dropped off at the hotel. Sleeping followed.

PAX East Travels: The Rest of the Story
Friday morning started promptly at 5:45AM with the ear cringing sound of the alarm clock’s buzzing. Team Ska made its way to the convention center to complete the setup of the booth and make sure everything was in working order. Luckily enough, setup was a breeze and everything came together with no problems (other than one power outage which we blame on our exhibitor neighbors and their power cord antics.) We also learned that using a Razor scooter to get around the convention is the best form of transportation. But more on that later.

At around 2PM, the repetition that exhibitors experience kicked in. It’s a cycle of talking about how freakin’ awesome Charlie Murder and The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile are, selling merch to those interested, complaining that our feet hurt and chatting with all kinds of amazing folks. Mix that all with random evening parties, lack of sleep and consuming massive amounts of oranges and Pop-Tarts and you have PAX East weekend. Not at all bad, it’s actually quite fun.

Sunday came soon enough and PAX East came to an abrupt end. That night we packed up our booth, put our games to sleep and hustled everything down the convention center’s elevator and into the van in less than one hour (something we’re extremely proud of.) Three more hours of driving commenced and we arrived back in upstate New York. Home at last.

All in all, PAX East was a magical, fantastic, uber-great experience for team Ska Studios. We got the chance to chat with our industry friends, meet new people, show off our games and have fun. Thanks to everyone who got the chance to stop by and we can only hope that Ska Studios is able to exhibit at more events in the future.

Razor Riding
As promised, here is a video of the Ska Studios approved PAX East transportation method as demoed by James himself. It’s Razor scooter scooting at its finest!