The wait between Game On Expo 2023 and 2024 was only 7 months this time around as the typical August time frame was moved to March this year. This was such a welcomed change from the community as it is once less convention that takes place during the HOT Phoenix summer (and it even RAINED on Friday). The other big change was the convention moving into the North Building of the Phoenix Convention Center which gave them some much needed extra space.

Let’s just get to the elephant in the room which was the line situation on Friday. It seemed the convention might have underestimated the number of attendees that were planning on showing up at once? They had one security station which had 4 metal detectors. I got a handful of messages on Instagram with reports of waiting in line from 60 minutes up to 120 minutes. Game On Expo to their credit acknowledged the mistake on social media and had another security station setup. By the time I got to the convention late afternoon Friday, the line still stretched behind the convention center and it took me about 45 minutes to get into the convention center. With that said, this was really the only issue I ran into over Friday and Saturday. There’s usually a hiccup or two with a venue change and at least this one came early and was resolved. 

 

The venue change to the North Building expanded the convention dramatically as it uses the same exhibit space as Phoenix Fan Fusion (just not ALL of it). The extra space provided for bigger aisles, more vendors, and a ton more artists. With all the extra exhibitors and artists, the convention felt more like a pop culture convention with a high amount of gaming vendors than a video game convention which I am totally okay with. It really feels like Game On Expo can eventually compete with Fan Fusion as the largest convention in Arizona. 

There were a bunch of console gaming stations, arcades, pinballs, tournaments, and even wrestling! The convention also has the normal dedicated space for guests where you can line up to meet some of your favorite industry guests and the couple of times I wandered over to that area, it was always packed with guests from popular IPs such as Resident Evil, Baldur’s Gate, Sonic The Hedgehog, and Dragon Ball. This also applied to the panels the guests participated in, I attended the Resident Evil reunion panel which was full and the line for the panel afterwards, Baldur’s Gate, had a huge line waiting to get into the room. In comparison, I went to a panel last year for an iconic character, and there were maybe 10 people in the panel which was ridiculous.

Also an aspect of Game On Expo I enjoy are the video game music guests and this year the convention featured a handful of artists which includes hugely influential composer David Wise who was involved in some of your favorite games including Donkey Kong Country, Battletoads, Diddy Kong Racing to name a few. My good friend and I grabbed a seat at the main stage which was on the exhibit floor about 30 minutes before the start of the concert and by the time it started, every seat was taken and a large standing crowd had formed. It was such a cool experience that I am so glad I didn’t miss it.

I didn’t get a ton of cosplay photos but there were quite a bit of cool cosplays running around. I also want to give a quick acknowledgement to all the cosplay contest winners and the contest director errorpaige and the judge team. I know a lot of people enjoyed it and the contest had some really high quality cosplays competing. 

I opened it up to everyone on Instagram to share their thoughts and while I can’t share all the responses, I wanted to share a few:

Overall, I really enjoyed my two days at Game On Expo and if you haven’t been in a couple of years or you don’t think its for you, I encourage you to check it out even just for a day next year, you might be pleasantly surprised. For a few videos from Game On Expo, you can check out my Youtube Channel!