PAX is coming once again, and while you guys are busy getting ready for 5 days of debauchery and drinking, I'm busy getting ready to hunker down and do some JOURNALISM along with all of that. And since you guys did hint in my recent survey that you wanted to see a little more personal posting on the C-Blogs, I figured that I'd give you all a little bit of a look into just what goes down before, during and after PAX for us gaming journalism folk, the people who get to write about all the things you'll be playing and record all the memories you'll have after this year's event.

T-Minus 8 Days Until PAX Arrival

Today and into this evening, I've been bouncing e-mails back to PR contacts for PAX, organizing times to meet for game playing, interviews/Q&As and everything else coverage-related.

Oh, and I'm doing that other thing I normally do.

But back to the first part of it. Before any big media event, us journalist-type people who are registered for media badges get flooded with e-mails from all the exhibitors at the show to come on buy, check them out and presumably give them some positive buzz by writing about whatever we saw at their show booth.

If you're a big site like Destructoid where half of your staff is going to be there and you've played 85% of the games already anyways, then PAX isn't much to worry about. If you are the only guy for your entire site who is showing up and you have to hit as much as you can while you are there ... well, it's not quite as easy. It becomes much more of a juggling act. A fun one, mind you, because you get to play a ton of games, but it's still exhausting. By the end of PAX 08, when the expo hall was closing its doors, I was busy dragging myself back over to the Elephant and Castle to meet up with everybody else.

Before I get too far off track, though, let's talk about those e-mails. For the most part, it's standard fare: come by and check out our games! A few are for press-only parties that I'm not supposed to mention in detail, so I won't. But the trick happens to be figuring out not only which ones are worth your time, but figuring out a battle plan ahead of time. And with the PAX expo floorspace bigger this year, planning things out ahead of time is going to be really important. That's mostly what I'm doing right now.

Now, part of that planning also involves taking a few things into consideration. Media folk get in to the show floor two hours before everyone else, which means that I get to use Lesson #1 from last year: play the popular stuff first. Last year, this bit me in the ass because I didn't get to play Fallout 3, as the lines were incredibly, incredibly long for that game. This year, I'm not letting that happen again. With Valve announcing that Left 4 Dead 2 is going to be playable at PAX, that's what I'm doing right when the floor opens up at 8 a.m. Friday morning. Of course, that's hoping Valve's got their stuff set up by then (don't let me down, Gabe, you sexy beast!).

It's also important to plan around panels you'd like to attend (like the annual Dtoid panel) or other events of importance, as not to blow off any of the companies you'd set up times with. That's just common sense, and thankfully, I haven't had any lessons to be learned from screwing that up. Let's hope I keep it that way, shall we?

Lastly, it's important to have a schedule so you can remember when your meetings are and when you have to go do stuff like eat. Or sleep. Or go to karaoke with Chad Concelmo. You know, the important things in life. It's a bit of work and I'm still getting PR e-mails at this very moment, but by the end of the week, I'll probably be able to show you guys what my finalized schedule will look like, in case you're curious.

In the end, this is but one part of what goes into preparing for a successful PAX on the media side of things. The other parts I'll be highlighting later in the week as I continue my PAX preparations.