This past weekend was an absolute blast as I attended PAX Unplugged here in Philadelphia with the company I work for, Ikigai Games, LLC. Our big boss man came on Friday and learned the ropes with how conventions work. It was pretty stressful to have the person who signs our checks there, but also very exciting! We love attending conventions, talking about our product, and introducing people to the exciting world of Japanese and grammar!
Thursday I showed up to the Philadelphia Convention Center to sign our company in, find our booth, and get our displays set up. It was wild to see how big this convention center is and we didn’t even see a fraction of it because we stayed busy in the Expo Hall all weekend!
The entry at the Philadelphia Convention Center is absolutely gorgeous! I think the castle-like look definitely adds to the tabletop vibe they’ve curated for PAX Unplugged. Upstairs were the theaters where panels spoke, and down that long hallway was the Expo Hall we called home for the weekend. The whole are was pretty crowded the whole weekend, but I caught this rare less busy shot Sunday afternoon.
This is one of our wonderful sales team members, Morgan! She’s hails from Las Vegas and loves to attend conventions with us. She loves Japanese the Game and selling it to our wonderful customers. We were very lucky to have her with us in Philadelphia this weekend to help promote and sell our products. When you’re talking to her or playing a demo with her you can rest assured you’re getting excellent service from a knowledgeable team member!
Our wonderful corner booth at PAX Unplugged, featuring our Convention Master, David – big brother to the game’s creator, BJ! David knows Japanese the Game inside out and loves attending conventions. He says this is the best job he’s ever had, and his enthusiasm shows through in everything he does to help our customers learn the game and have fun while we “trick” them into learning Japanese grammar!
We were also blessed with some amazing booth neighbors, which is a normal thing for us when we attend PAX events! This is Cathy, who runs a Philly local game shop. The games they were presenting were an absolute riot and we were so happy to play their games, and they came over and played ours as well! It was a great connection to make and we look forward to seeing them again in the future at other PAX events.
Overall it was an incredibly BUSY convention, so I didn’t have time to get very many pictures. However, the ones I got are filled with pretty amazing people and we love to meet new people. Thank you to everyone who came out to visit with us, play our game, and buy the game!
