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It was time for PAX Prime 2016 and you were super excited. It was the first convention you had been to in years, your first gaming convention ever, and your favorite YouTube personalities were all going to be there. You even booked your hotel room early so you were able to afford to stay for the whole weekend. You had gotten your pass, your plane tickets, hotel reservations, and best friend and headed to Seattle for an amazing time. You had been pestering your friend so much you were afraid they were going to ditch you when you got there, just to get away from your incessant chatter about what you wanted to see, who you were going to try to get autographs from, and what you were going to buy. You were a little embarrassed by how much of a fan-girl you sounded like, even in your own head, but you couldn't help it. You had been saving up for this trip ever since you tried to watch the live stream on Twitch of PAX East and the audio died in the middle of the Markiplier and Friends panel. You had still watched the whole thing, bad audio or not, but you had vowed not to miss the chance to go to another convention if you possibly could. You had then immediately booked a room for PAX Prime 2016 and bought the pass as soon at it was available. Your family was so sick of listening to you talk about your trip that had stopped answering the phone when you called them for the past two weeks. Oh well, it would be the best trip of your life, or so you hoped.
As soon as the plane landed, you rushed to the baggage claim rack and started looking for your two bags. You had your carry-on stuff, but you wanted to make sure your other bags were in your possession as soon as possible, so you could go check in to the hotel and grab some food somewhere. You were starved and your friend was getting cranky from lack of food as well. He never liked traveling, but he was excited for PAX as well. He was not much of a YouTube fan, but he was a gamer and web-comic fan, like you. He was hoping to go to some of the panels on game development and he told you he would go to one panel with you if you went to one with him. You had agreed after seeing that Jack, Mark, Bob, Wade, and Felix (That's JackSepticEye, Markiplier, Muyskerm, LordMinion777, and PewDiePie) had a panel on Saturday together. You finally saw your luggage coming around the carousel and you grabbed it, quickly setting it down on the wheels to roll out to the taxi you asked your friend to hail. You grabbed his bag too, and rolled all three bags out the door to the waiting cab. After loading the bags and telling the driver what hotel to go to, you settled back in your seat for just a moment before springing forward and staring out the windows. You were too excited to sit,still for long. Your friend just laughed softly and told you to calm down. You smiled at him and looked back out the window, watching Seattle roll by. You chatted excitedly to your friend about where he wanted to eat tonight as you pulled up to the hotel. Since neither of you were familiar with Seattle and your hotel was close to downtown, you had decided to walk around and explore a little after checking in and dropping off your bags. You had agreed that since you had both had the time off anyway and you (at least) had planned to land in Seattle a day before the convention started to get over any jet lag and site-see the city a little, that you both definitely did not want to waste the whole evening in the hotel. As you head back out, you agree to meet up in the lobby tonight at 10 pm. After all, you were here for the convention, and that started in the morning.
The next morning, after a nice breakfast at the hotel, you head over to the convention center. As you wait to be admitted, you go over the events for the day with your friend. He wants to go to a panel this evening, and you want to go to the signing this afternoon, but other than that neither of you has any plans. You decide to go to the game demo area first and see what looks good. Your friend decides he doesn't want to start there, so he will meet you after the signing. You made sure you had your bag and headed over to the game play demos as soon as they opened. After watching a few you walked over to where the lines were starting to form for signing and queued up with everyone else. You chatted with other fans and got to know a few other people in line and generally had a lot of fun as the day passed. You were even elected to go get food for a bunch of people while they held your place in line, so all of you could eat together and get some real food, instead of just snacks and water. The signing was amazing! You got to give people the presents you had made them and get autographs, a picture, and a quick hug. So awesome!!! Then it was time to meet back up with your friend from home and go to the panel he wants to see so much. You hope we can go back to the hotel after that and get some food. You're exhausted, starting to get cranky, and you are starved.
Day two of the convention came earlier than you wished, but you were so excited your friend had to repeatedly tell you to calm down and breathe. At one point he told you he thought you looked like you were going to pee yourself if you didn't calm down, to which you just stuck out your tongue at him. You were practically bouncing with energy, enthusiasm, and excitement. You told your friend he could go look around for a little while, but to meet you at noon with lunch, so you could get in line for the panel late this afternoon. You knew they capped the lines and wanted to make darn sure you were going to be able to get in. as you watched him leave, you walked over to a few of the vendor tables to look at things and bought a few small items, adding them to your bag. You also walked to the food area and bought some drinks and snacks. You knew after the signing lines yesterday, waiting in lines was long, boring, and potentially dehydrating. You would need the extra energy and drinks. Fortunately, people were nice about bathroom breaks, especially if you were there with friends to hold your place. Things could have gotten ugly fast otherwise, even with the security and convention workers. So far all the people you had met at the convention were amazingly nice. It has been a blast. You hoped all the people you met today were equally nice. Time seemed to be playing tricks on you this morning. Every time you looked at a clock or your watch, time seemed to have jumped forward a lot, but the actual seconds and minutes seemed not to tick by at the normal rate. As noon approached, you walked back to the designated meetup area and quickly spotted your friend milling about in the crowd. You waved and called out to him. He spotted you and waved back, trying to wedge himself between a group of people and a wall. When you finally were able to get over to him, you grabbed your part of the meal he had brought and explained where you were going. He followed you. As you got to the area, you were not surprised to see the line had already started forming for the panel. Your friend however, was completely floored and said as much. You grinned at him and told him you were a little surprised that the line wasn't already longer actually. You were in the first forty or so people. Since you knew what to expect, you had planned ahead. You introduced yourself to the group of people just ahead of you since they seemed friendly and asked the line enforcer if it would be okay if all of you sat on the floor and played a game of cards. The enforcer grinned and nodded. She was one of the people who had helped with the signing yesterday and you had talked to her then for quite a while. You asked your new friends if they wanted to play Apples to Apples, Cards Against Humanity, or a regular card game, since you had brought all three in your bag. (I told you, you were prepared for the line!) You all agreed to Cards Against Humanity. The afternoon passed far more quickly that you had expected and you formed some solid friendships with some new people. Several people in line behind you had joined the game and you had pretty close to twenty people playing, while some of the people in the crowd ahead and behind that were cheering different people on or booing and cheering at the answers played. It was the most fun you had had in ages. Your friend, who had somehow managed to get separated from you in the group of players on the floor, yelled over that you were a mad genius for bringing the game and you smirked, stood up, and took a bow. He applauded, as did most of the rest of the players. The enforcer even stated she was going to recommend to the organizers that this was an excellent way to keep the lines in order, and since we were in a hallway out of traffic, no one was being blocked from any events. She would recommend that they help plan this type of thing for the future. You grinned and reached in your bag for a bottle of iced tea and a bag of chips. Your friend asked you to toss him some too, which you did happily.