E3 is Open to the Public for the First Time This Year
E3 attendees no longer have to be tied to the gaming industry to access the expo.
E3 is selling 15,000 tickets to the public this year. Until 2017, E3 was an industry exclusive event where game journalists, developers, and publishers gathered every June to connect and discuss upcoming video game hardware and software. However, the Entertainment Software Association, the organizer of the E3 event, has decided that the general public should be admitted and tickets will be available for anyone to purchase starting Monday, February 13.
The E3 general admission tickets available to the public will cost $250 with an early bird discount available to purchasers on February 13 that lowers the price to $150. These tickets will allow access to panel discussions, the show floor, and other to-be-determined events from Tuesday, June 13 through Thursday, June 15. Geoff Keighley is partnering with the ESA to provide public attendees with exclusive perks such as interviews with developers.
E3's relevance has been called into question in the last few years. With the ability to disseminate information quickly and efficiently over the internet, and flagging support from companies like Activision and EA, some say E3 is a holdover from a time when there was no choice but to gather in a central location to get info about the latest in video gaming.
A tentative list of E3 2017 exhibitors is available on the E3 Insider website, and again this year big names like EA and Activision are absent. The ESA states that the list of exhibitors isn't final, but I wouldn't be surprised if the final list contained fewer names than last years.
Whether or not E3 2018 will be open to the public isn't decided yet. However, the ESA more than likely hopes that the opportunity to directly interact with the public will convince exhibitors to continue contributing to the expo, so E3 might be open to all comers from now on.
E3 2017 is scheduled to take places June 13-15 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. You (yes, you) can purchase tickets for E3 starting February 13.
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Jason Faulkner posted a new article, E3 is Open to the Public for the First Time This Year
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I wonder how the publishers will react to this. The expo floor was already too crowded, and the lines were ridiculously long. I bet it will be less small room experiences (the lines) and more large screen displays with more of the really cool stuff behind closed doors.
But, I totally get that E3 has to change with so many competing shows now; PAX being the main one I guess.-
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That may be. I didn't follow what was going on down on the floor much last year. Like I said, I know PAX has been stealing a lot of thunder, and publishers were getting upset at how expensive E3 had become. Some even started doing their own thing on the side.
I'm kinda to the point now where I'm fine with just watching streams. Ya, actually playing is kinda cool, but it is usually such a limited experience. I know attendance dropped the year after booth babes got banned. -
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Exactly. I think this is a bad decision their part. I don't think most people realize that E3 is a trade show, designed for the press, developers, and publishers to be able to interact and make deals/show off products.
Opening it up to the public means there is no longer a venue where this is possible on such a scale.
It was bad enough when anyone with a blog could get press credentials, which in my experience meant seeing guys doing nothing there but getting photos of themselves groping booth babes and getting as much schwag as possible, so it is just going to be 100x worse now.
If people want to play unreleased games, go to PAX or one of the many similar expos. They may have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on an upcoming title, but they still get to play it. All this does is take away an important way for the creative side of the industry to connect with the business side.
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Also, I'm surprised that they are opening up the panel discussions to everyone. I went to those my first couple of trips there, but the only way I was able to get in to see them is because I had press credentials. Once I was actually working in the industry it started costing a lot of money if I wanted to go see any of the panels.
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It seems like a Hail Mary play to keep E3 alive. I've been going since 1999 and it was shocking how much empty floor space there was last year. The live dog & pony shows feel like a relic from the past and E3 is becoming irrelevant, so it makes sense that catering more towards fans makes sense since they're the ones who would actually go to a live event.
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