The picture above is an exaggeration, but not by much.
Perry and I arrived at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Downtown Philly with the intent to cover VGXpo. Now, I’ve been to my fair share of conventions over the years, but never as a press member, so I was kind of excited to be able to wear a press badge and be able to rub shoulders with some industry people, play some games, and maybe get some exclusive coverage on new happenings. I knew VGXpo wasn’t going to be a huge event, so that’s why I figured it would be a good starting point for my first time as a member of the press. Too bad the video game gods decided to take a big shit on that.
On first arriving at the convention center, we were sent on a wild goose chase through the whole fucking building just to find the place to register for our press passes. First, we were sent upstairs.  Then, after watching a convention center worker fumble through paperwork for 20 minutes, we were sent back downstairs to an empty hall. The feeling of agoraphobia I experienced as I stared into this massive, empty cavern would only intensify throughout the day.
After talking to a different convention center worker, we were sent back upstairs, to the third floor, where there were actually signs of life and activity. We watched a woman sign-in two other members of the press. Then, as our turn came, she quickly walked away into a room full of expo volunteers. We finally got help in the form of some different woman affiliated with VGXpo, who didn’t seem to know what was going on any better than the convention center workers.
After receiving our press access, which didn’t include a lanyard and badge as you would expect, but a simple yellow wristband with absolutely nothing to distinguish us from a typical con-goer, we were told by this woman that we were really too early for them and nothing was ready yet.
However, after speaking to a volunteer who took over registration for the woman (let’s see, how many people had been in charge of registration in the 20 minutes that we were upstairs?) he informed us in a rather annoyed and perturbed tone, that we were not too early, but everything was late.
The booths for regular registration weren’t even set up downstairs, the program guides hadn’t arrived yet, and there was general disorder and dysfunction throughout the VGX team. Perry and I managed to find a program guide about an hour after the event actually started. Several people who seemed to have entered when the doors opened at 2:00 came up to us and asked where they could find program guides of their own.
After running the fucking gauntlet just to get into the expo, we finally entered the show floor to scope out the booths and general set up of the event. I thought, as we walked through the huge hall that housed the vendors and such, that since we were early there would be more people setting up booths at any moment. But as 2:00 p.m. came and went, I began to realize that this was it.
Perry:Â There’s elbow room out the ass.
Yes, there was elbow room out the ass. The program guide boasts that the con takes up “nearly 150,000 square feet of floorspace.” Good thing, too, because I know I hate having all the booths at a convention right next to each other and easily accessible.
When are these convention people going to learn that fat guys and nerds want to haul themselves several hundred feet before hitting another attraction? The people at VGXpo figured that out, and they made ample use of those nearly 150,000 square feet and filled it with nothing but open space. I could feel my agoraphobia reaching near catatonic levels.
Some things that would have helped VGXpo: how about some fucking signs telling people where they need to go to find events and attractions? At every other convention I’ve ever been to, there have been signs everywhere telling me where to find this, where to find that, where to eat, where to take a shit.
At VGXpo there was nothing. Just a bunch of convention center workers who didn’t know what the fuck was going on, and a volunteer staff that was just plain annoyed at how disorganized the whole thing was.
How about a map inside the program guide that actually showed where things were, not just a bunch of fucking dark voids on an equally dark background with some shit written on it. “I haven’t seen a map this hard to figure out since Metroid Prime,” sez Perry.
The biggest thing missing from VGX was just some general organization. If you’re hosting an event, any event, you would think one of the biggest thing you would want is to have things organized. Not VGXpo.
In all honestly, though, I’d like to extend my appreciation to the volunteers for putting up with all the shit and whoever fucked things up for them. The exhibitors were also really good, there was just a lack of them.
Apparently, there was a musical guest present Friday night. I didn’t know this until well after the convention, though, because the show booklet doesn’t feature them in the guest section. They just list 8Static on the schedule in between other events going on during the day. I had to search on Google to find out what 8Static was.
Now, some may call me ignorant; I just say that VGXpo should get its shit together. I don’t know if the guys who actually made the music were there, or if they were just playing music by them. I don’t fucking know, and I didn’t stick around to find out.
Admittedly, there were some things there that were interesting, which Perry and I will post throughout the weekend, but overall VGXpo was a huge disappointment. I don’t think we’ll be going back next year.
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This makes me so sad, last year, even though it was a clusterfuck of non-organization … this year seems… just ‘wow’ <–(“wow” said in a really sad tone, not in an excited way as “wow” should be used)
I’m sorry your first press experience wasn’t awesome. Did you plan on going Saturday or Sunday to see if things improved? Or do you think it would be a wasted effort?
What we saw on Friday was it in terms of the show floor. We scoped out the panels and events that were going on in the program guide for Saturday and Sunday, and decided that there was nothing really worth covering. There was nothing going on that was worth writing about. Like I said, this wasn’t the fault of any of the staff or the guests that were there, it was a blunder at the planning stages for this event.
Aw, man. That’s a damn shame.
Hopefully the next show will be better. Are you guys going to Big Apple Comic Con next weekend?
We won’t be at that one. However, we’ll all be at GameX on the 23-25 at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center. Different venue, different company running it. Thank God.
I think they spent too much time worrying about the other show
in philly. This show really sucked…
I wanna hug you, me and my friends came up all the way from boston for this shitshow, we were all wondering if we were crazy for thinking this was a total shitfest. glad to see were not alone. so thank you, for saying what were all thinking.
Take what you will of this, but as one of the performers that played on Friday (I opened for 8static), I can say that we definitely performed. We weren’t in the Exhibit Hall, though, we were down the other hallway in room 204. My name is in your program book, but only on the schedule, not in the guest section. I was a little bummed by the turnout (I think the peak number of people in the room at any given time was 25) but I still sold a few CDs.
That’s one of my points. You were a musical guest; therefore, your name should have been in the guest list. I really think the turnout for your show, and 8static’s, would have been better if things were more clearly defined in the program guide.
I went to VGXPO last year and the year before. Sad to see they still haven’t figure out how to get organize yet and make signs. Frankly I skipped the show this year cause I knew it would be crappy. I know last year they said they had 20k+ people. I actually doubt the number since the damn hall was so freaking small. Also doesn’t surprise me they were late to open or had staff that had no idea what was going on. Its probably been like that since the first show they had.
There is another show happening in the Philly area in 2 weeks, http://www.gamexpo.us/ . This one at least looks like they have their act together as they are having some known guests and the big publishers there.
We’ll see you there Awol! The full Binge Gamer crew (we roll four deep), will be out and about at GameX. We were all going to be heading to VGXPO, but decided half a crew was enough (and boy were we right bout that).
Good to know probably the best way to find me would be at the ECA booth. See you there.
It’s no surprise. VGXpo is a joke. Did you ever hear about the director, Ed Fleming, getting kicked out of PAX for drunkenness and harassment?
This is the first I’ve ever heard of this… but I admit, I laughed. I laughed really, really hard.
As a vendor, I whole-heartedly agree with you. We had a booth at Game Core and were approached to sign up for a booth at VGXPO. When we were told that 25,000 people would be there (http://kotaku.com/5100858/vgxpo-2008-triples-attendance), we were quite intrigued. That was nearly as many attendees as Otakon, the second largest Anime Convention in the US, though the booth prices STARTED at nearly three times that of comparable locations at Otakon. After thinking it over and stretching our funds (since we’re a very small company based out of Maryland), we decided to sign up. Well, after a week and a half of reciprocated calls and emails and with only days until the convention, we finally got all the necessary information from VGXPO’s founder, Ed Flemming and were able to send in the paperwork.
When we arrived at the convention center Friday morning to set up, there were no maps, signs, or lists indicating where we should set up (eventually Paul Truitt, the guy who actually runs Game Core, was able to help us find it). Workers didn’t seem to even know whether or not there WERE exhibitor badges, much less where to send us to get them or where they were located. After waiting about 20 minutes for bewildered volunteers to track them down via some dynamic walky-talky work, I was eventually handed one wristband and a piece of notebook paper to write my company name and to sign. So, obviously not working off of an official list. I informed them that I had paid for 4 badges total, but I could have said 400 and they would have had no way to verify it (which was confirmed by the fact that Ed Flemming later approached our booth and tried to hand us more wristbands, asking how many we had ended up paying for).
After setting up, we checked into our room at the Marriott. This was the hotel with a convenient walkway connecting to the convention center feet away from Hall A and that offered a convention rate for the weekend. Returning to the convention via the walkway, we were turned away. Guards stated that VGXPO had requested that attendants only be allowed access via one particular entrance, which Marriott guests could only access by leaving the building, walking a block and a half, re-entering the convention center (where access to the closest escalators was also blocked), and then going back up to the second level.
So clearly the con is not organized, and you’ve already covered the fact that obviously 25,000 people were not in attendance. The last straw for us was Saturday night. The floor closed to the public at 9:00pm. By 9:15, a staff member (who I believe was named Scott) was circling our table yelling at us for still being there packing up our wares, saying things like “I have a life. Let me get back to it!” and something along the lines of “It’s 9:17, you should have been out of here 17 minutes ago.” Eventually I responded that, yes, the floor closed to the PUBLIC at 9:00 and since then we had been packing up and it was not an instant process. To that he said, “That’s not my problem. You’re still here. THAT’s my problem.” He continued to circle us until we finished packing up and then followed closely behind us as we exited.
We ranted angrily about this on our way to the hotel (which would could use the walkway to EXIT the convention and return to), and in the elevator a nice man named Darell asked, “Who said those things? I’m a VGXPO staff member.” We told him that we thought the man was named Scott, and Darell told us that Scott is second in command (so quite a bit above Darell) but that he would say something to make sure we had more time in the future.
He soothed our nerves a little, enough to prevent us from making a fuss. But the lack of organization, the promises of a large con but delivery of a small con, and the scathing disrespect from the con staff will keep us from attending future VGXPO events.
I erred on the side of caution while writing this article, but after seeing all of these comments, I think I should have ripped into it harder. Guests, vendors, and fans should boycott this event and the company behind it. We don’t need this kind of trash as part of the industry.
And I’ve been going to Otakon since 2001. I can’t believe they tried to dupe you guys by telling you this con would be as big. What a joke.
What a let down this con was. I made a trip from NYC and it was the
the single worst choice I made this year. I’ve decided to give PA one more
chance by attending the GameX con. I just read that they have EA, Sega, Ubisoft
and QVC. As a media guy, GameX having QVC doing a show live
from the con is unreal. This should be a lot of fun!
This was my 3rd year attending VGXPO and it was the most disappointing and infuriating one yet. I also travel from NY, and pay for 2 nights in a hotel to attend this. If I had known ahead of time I would have cancelled my trip. But there were 24000 there the year beforè, I know bcause I was there. So I was ver excited to see what they could do after that. What a let down….
The wrist bands for a weekend attendee were a joke.
It took all of 15 minutes to see everything there was in the exhibitor hall. The biggest thing there as the headline exhibitor was the Wii booth…are you kidding me?
There was nothing for the “hardcore gamer”, nothing for the PC crowd, barley anything for the other platforms, no big tournaments and no demos of new games to try.
Fail, Fail and more FAIL!
I won’t be going back. They should just shoot VGXPO and put it out of its misery.
I heard about GameX from someone there (the only good thing about the trip) and the first thing I did when I got home was make resrvations and buy ticktes for that. It looks ike it will be everthing VGXPO couldn’t be.
VGxpo had 24K attendees last year was because of their NBC relationship. Check it – the year before, with no NBC, there was only around 4K. There was just no way they were going to match last year’s number without major media support.
My understanding is NBC dumped VGXpo after Ed defaulted on money owed and stuff. Then NBC formed a partnership with the folks behind GameX . What a stupid bastard for f*ing up that relationship. Now he’s been saying everywhere GameX stole the NBC relationship! What an idiot.
Yes I realize that the attendance last year was due to NBC’s involvement and seeing all those people, it was my belief that since they did have such a draw and they actually made money, that they would be able to make it even bigger this year.
I have no idea if there were money issues, but I heard that Ed had a falling out with one of his partners, whom in turn, created GameX which took NBC as well as most of the big exhibitors. THat was the downfall of VGXPO. I also agree that Ed is an idiot and has no clue about how to run a Video game expo.
Meanwhile, I have my reservations and my tickets for GameX and I am looking forward to next weekend.
My son and I had attended VGXPO for the past 3 years.
This year was absolutly the worst.
We attended on Saturday and arrived at 11:30.
My son (who is 11) said “maybe they are still setting up”.
What a huge dissappointment it was for the both of us.
I go to a video game expo to play video games (retro and new) and to see what new hardware/software is coming out.
The retro arcade area was a joke this year, the small amount of machines which were there, most were either not turned on or had broken controllers. This year there was NO PC gaming, not a single PS3 that I can remember. They had a few XBOX 360 systems running Call of Duty 4, but they were tied up for the contest. Every time we saw an open machine we were immediatly chased away by a VGXPO rep.
I would have had more fun staying at home playing on my Atari PONG machine. The only good parts of the show was the Nintendo Booth and the excellent retro hardware vendors that they had this year.
Next year I will spend the money for the show $29.00, $22.00 hotdog lunch, and $24.00 parking to buy an new game for one of my systems.
I hope that GameX is alot better next week.
Well HANDS DOWN, GameX was frickin awesome and destroyed VGXPO… It was soooo much fun and lots to do… QVC was there and i heard that they sold 3.1 mil dollars worth of wii’s during there live broadcast. The organization at GameX was second to none and VGXPO should take a lesson or two as to how o run a con. I was truley amazed that this was a first year show. I wonder how many attended GameX??? I would guess 10k but will see… GameX was fantastic!!!!
Ooh gosh i just typed a big comment and as soon as i hit reply it come up blank! Please please tell me it worked right? I do not want to sumit it again if i dont have to! Either the blog glitced out or i am just stuipd, the second option doesnt surprise me lol.
Hi just thought i would let you know i also had a issue with this blog appearing frozen as well. Might be monkeys in the system.