PAX West 2023 brings Nintendo Live to Seattle

Dedicated gamers descend on downtown Seattle every Labor Day weekend, filling hotel rooms and restaurants, as they pack into PAX West. This year, fans have an extra reason to flock to Seattle — Nintendo Live is coming to town.

This Seattle event ranks among the largest gaming conventions in the world. As if PAX West wasn't large enough already, for the first time ever, Nintendo of America is holding its Nintendo Live event outside of Japan, and they’ve chosen to feature it at PAX West.

Adding this feature to PAX was a bit of a no brainer for founder Jerry Holkins, and Vice President of Media, Content and Events Ryan Hartman.

"[Nintendo] has been a longtime pillar of all our PAX shows," Hartman shared with KUOW's Mike Davis. "They always come with a big booth, and they always come with a bunch of cool stuff."

Nintendo Live is a fan experience, filled with gaming, tournaments, stage performances, photo ops, and more. It's a convention unto itself, dedicated to Nintendo. In order to accommodate Nintendo Live, PAX is turning over an entire wing of its convention.

With the video game landscape and industry changing so much over the past 20 years, how does an event like PAX stay relevant? For Holkins, PAX is a sacred space. It's all about giving gamers room for themselves.

"The best thing that we can do is try to put it together and then have it run as well as it possibly can, so that we don't block up the energy channels that they are manufacturing in the space," Holkins said. "We let them handle the sacred space."

While the giant spectacles of Microsoft and Nintendo draw a huge crowd, for Hartman, it's all about the community experience.

"I also love the weird little community meetups for like 20 people about some weird, esoteric subculture of a subculture," he said. "And they're like, 'Hey, can we use a meeting room and do a little meet up?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, absolutely!' I love it."

It it's your first time at PAX, Hartman suggests taking time away from the Expo floor.

"Go to the board game area, there will be people that are ready to play with you and teach you." Hartman said. "They'll be tripping over themselves to be like, 'Oh, you want to play? You're a new player? Oh, please let me welcome you into this thing I love!' and it's like that in every part of the show."

PAX West, aka the “Penny-Arcade Expo,” started as a two-day event at the Maydenbauer Center in Bellevue in 2004. It was billed as a “gamers first” event, rather than focusing on retailers or media. The idea was a far cry from most other gaming conferences at the time.

PAX was for the people who played the games. Since 2004, attendance in Seattle has exploded from a modest 3,000 attendees to more than 120,000, and PAX has expanded into other U.S. cities, and in Australia.

PAX West 2023 runs Friday, Sept. 1 through Monday, Sept. 4 at the Washington State Convention Center.

Listen to the entire conversation between Mike Davis and the Penny-Arcade folks by clicking the audio above, or listen wherever you find your podcasts by searching for "SOUNDSIDE."