Penny Arcade Expo expands to the point of overflowing

This is the sixth year for the Penny Arcade Expo, a celebration of games—from board and paper-and-pencil to video games—and the culture that surrounds them. Started by Jerry “Tycho” Holkins and Mike “Gabe” Krahulik, the creators of the Penny Arcade Web comic, blog, and video game, the event has doubled in size every year since its inception in 2004—until now. The size of the Washington State Convention & Trade Center means that PAX can’t accommodate a larger crowd than the 60,000 attendees expected this year. So, organizers will stage the first PAX East in Boston in March.

In addition to the keynote by Vancouver video-game designer Ron Gilbert, the sold-out PAX 2009, which takes place in Seattle from Friday to Sunday (September 4 to 6), will feature musical performances by nerdcore artists Freezepop, Jonathan Coulton, MC Frontalot, Anamanaguchi, and Metroid Metal. That’s in addition to displays by nearly 100 exhibitors, with demos of upcoming tabletop, console, and computer games.

And what would a gaming convention be without some friendly competition? Not only will there be free-play areas scattered throughout the exhibit hall, formal tournaments are also part of the fun. Twenty preregistered attendees have been randomly selected to take part in the Omegathon gaming competition. Participants compete in a variety of games, from the as-yet-unreleased Halo 3: ODST to Connect Four. The Omegathon culminates with the final two competing on-stage in a secret game. At the first PAX, the final game was Pong. Last year, it was Excitebike.

Gilbert looks forward to PAX because it’s a place where he is surrounded by enthusiastic gamers. “I go to lots of trade shows,” he said, referring to video-game industry events such as the Game Developers Conference and Electronic Entertainment Expo, “and I always come home tired. When I come back from PAX, I’m energized.”