San Antonio is gaining traction as a destination for premiere entertainment and tech industry events, and the Penny Arcade Expo is proof of this.

The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is one of the most popular video game conventions in the world. Every year Penny Arcade hosts a series of conventions across the globe: PAX Prime in Seattle, PAX East in Boston and PAX Australia in Melbourne. PAX Prime and PAX East are the two biggest gaming festivals in North America, and San Antonio will play host to the third largest gaming convention for years to come.

Each of these conventions attract over 70,000 gaming enthusiasts from the surrounding areas to see what gaming industry companies have planned for the future. Penny Arcade founders Mike Krahulik and Jerry Hopkins announced this new convention at PAX East in Boston this past weekend.

“Since its launch in 2004, PAX events have doubled in size almost every year, and our Seattle and Boston events represent the two largest gaming festivals in North America,” said Robert Khoo, President of Penny Arcade, during the “Make A Strip” panel at PAX East.

“We’ve been hearing for years that those in the south had a tough time making it to the northern corners of the country; PAX South has always been a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.”

The event will make its debut at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center Jan 23-25, 2015. PAX draws such big crowds that it requires buildings with over 100,000 square feet of space for vendors, making the convention center a perfect venue.

Attendees will get to experience a three-day event where they can rub shoulders with industry legends during one of the countless panels, an exhibitor hall with all of the latest unreleased video games and hardware and several concerts from the top performers in the “nerdcore” music genre.

A three-day pass to PAX East and PAX Prime typically cost $70 while single-day passes weigh in at $35 generally. Prices haven’t been confirmed for PAX South, but fans shouldn’t expect much of a price increase over PAX East and Prime.

Tickets have yet to go on sale, but that doesn’t mean you can wait till the last minute. Tickets to other PAX events usually sell out within hours of being released, so you will have to keep your eye on when ticket sales begin.

In terms of events that can bring a large amount of tourists to our San Antonio, it doesn’t get much better than PAX. This could be a significant boost to San Antonio’s economy in 2015. Penny Arcade has yet to decide whether PAX South will be held in a different southern city after next year’s event. PAX East wasn’t originally exclusive to Boston, but recently Penny Arcade signed a deal to keep the convention in Boston for the next decade. Hopefully fan response is strong enough to convince Penny Arcade that the Alamo City is a suitable home for PAX South in the long-term. For more information, visit east.paxsite.com.