PAX East or RIOT East?

So I along with many fellow PAX’ers came to the event hoping to meet great people, see some new games, and have fun right? Well those are well and good but the real excitement for me over the last 6 months of waiting has been the RIOT booth that was fabled to be gracing the expo hall. League of Legends being their flagship game, that can bring tears of joy and sorrow to a 250lb man, is something akin to a mixture of cocaine and ridilin in its intoxicating addiction. So imagine yourself faced with the entrance to the expo hall and seeing over the tops of many booths you catch a glimpse of what its all about, the Riot League of Legends booth…

I make my way to the booth just minutes after 10am when the convention starts and BAM I am hit with a wall of people that are so far out into the aisle that the enforcers are already telling people to move in or move on as its a fire hazard. I mean what the heck man its 1015 and there is THAT many people here already? I check around the back and front of the booth and I find the same result at all entrances. I then decide to wait 30 minutes to get a single lanyard and talk to a Riot team member about the game and things are starting to look up. I then realize I am boxed in on all sides by dozens of people wanting to talk to the team member I just left. So I squeeze out of the crowd back into the main path and leave the booth for now as I assume later on I will be able to see and hear more. I check out the Neverwinter game booth, Elder Scrolls, and even get to try out the new Halo 4 map pack. I then wander back to the Riot booth and to my amazement the crowd seems to be even bigger. In fact over the next 10 hours I visit the Riot booth several times and every time I encounter the same fact that you just cant get into the area without the greatest of determination and hours to spend.

I hope Saturday will be more calm but for now I pose the question to you dear reader is this still PAX East or is it Riot East with a few PAX events and panels thrown in?