Here are the last round of pictures from this weekend's inaugural PAX East. More details to follow.

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Here are Saturday's pictures from PAX East, including plenty of cosplay. See also Friday's gallery.

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Here are pictures from my first day of PAX East, which opened yesterday at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Sixty thousand attendees prevented me from seeing everything I wanted to, but there's still much more to come. I'll report more as time allows; in the meantime, follow the event on Twitter.

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Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East, a gaming convention traditionally held in Seattle and making its East Coast debut this month in Boston, recently posted their event schedule. As a former attendee of the industry-only E3, I'm surprised and nearly overwhelmed at how comprehensive and diverse the PAX offerings are. Whether you're a gamer, developer, musician, or journalist, there are more sessions than you can possibly attend.

I counted no less than 27 that piqued my interest, starting with the keynote speech by geek extraordinaire Wil Wheaton. After that, as someone whose professional interests are in social and print media and with a personal interest in non-profit organization, I'll find my way to "The Death of Print", "Traversing the Twitterverse", and "Organizing a Child's Play Fundraiser". As a fan of both machinima and chiptune, there's "A Sophisticated Evening with Rooster Teeth Productions" as well as numerous concerts and panels. Jason Scott will be on-hand to debut GET LAMP, a documentary of text adventures and interactive fiction, and both Major Nelson (pictured above) and Radio Free Nintendo will be recording and discussing podcasts.

Not only do several of these sessions conflict with each other (how to choose?!), but I'll be challenged to find opportunities to escape the structured schedule and roam the show floor. There will also be plenty of games to be played, from pending releases to old-school classics, the latter courtesy the American Classic Arcade Museum. And, as my PAX partner-in-crime put it, "we need to fill our swag bags."

If these delectable delights have enticed you to attend PAX but you didn't register at my recommendation a half-year ago, your dreams may go only half-filled. Three-day passes have been sold out for a month, but if there's a particular day of sessions that interest you, you might still be able to get individual day passes.

With over 60,000 fans in attendance, PAX East is ramping up to be even bigger and better than PAX Prime. If you are any sort of gamer within driving or flying distance of Boston, be sure to be a part of this inaugural event.

PAX, or the Penny Arcade Expo, has now closed its doors for 2009. I've never attended this annual celebration of gamer culture since its 2004 inception, due primarily to the time and cost involved: the video game industry is no longer my line of work, and hauling myself from Boston to Seattle is a difficult expense to justify.

Fortunately, the philanthropists behind PAX, Penny Arcade, and Child's Play have seen fit to bestow their good graces on us remote fans. PAX East, the first ever PAX outside the Seattle metro area, will descend upon Boston on March 26th for three days of glorious gaming. Registration is now open and is priced even more affordably than their Web site suggests: a three-day pass is only $45, cheaper than two individual one-day passes.

Registration for PAX East comes with a free one-year membership with the Entertainment Consumers Association, a group I'd not previously heard of. Curious, I accepted the offer and will send an inquiry to the Massachusetts chapter to learn more.

I attended enough E3 events to grow weary of them, but none was aimed at my gamer self or was as accessible as PAX East promises to be. With four dozen dollars and a half-hour drive within my budget, I find myself looking forward to partaking of Gabe and Tycho's bounty — followed a month later by ROFLCon II, where a geek can be a geek. There's never been a better time or place to be one.