Sure, now PAX is a big deal celebrating its 20th anniversary at this weekend’s PAX West 2024 — but before it was an international event with editions in Seattle, Boston, and Australia (Yes, I know one of those is a country, not a city), Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade organized another event that paved the way for everything that followed. In order for PAX to run, Necrowambicon needed to walk. Well… stumble, maybe.

“So, Necrowambicon was, essentially, like a fan meetup,” Holkins explained during the Happy Birthday PAX panel at this weekend’s PAX West. “Let’s be very clear: one of the Necrowambicons took place in a foot court. We just met at a food court.”

Why a food court? Holkins had the most reasonable explanation. “We were like, it’s essentially a venue you don’t have to pay for, and there’s food,” he reasoned. “That was our level. The second Necrowambicon was a very different story. That took place up in Vancouver, BC, I believe.”

“I have a vague memory of people bringing a satellite and stealing internet for us all,” added Krahulik. Shockingly, he wasn’t wrong.

“Okay, because it was a Penny Arcade gathering, and because the adherents of Penny Arcade — certainly in this era — were primarily made up of network engineers, we wanted to have a LAN [local area network] very badly,” explained Holkins. “So the second one was essentially a LAN, it had a Q&A, but it was like a boardroom that had a square of tables, and everybody had ethernet plugged in, and it was basically a LAN party, and we were using the hotel internet. Eventually, it was determined — by the participants of the event — that that was not enough internet. So they proceeded to open the window of this room, look out at the other buildings downtown, and steal radio internet with a dish. And that became this LAN’s internet.”

Things have, thankfully, gotten significantly better for Holkins and Krahulik’s event organizing skills since then, as can be seen for all four days at the Seattle Convention Center. PAX West 2024 runs August 30 through September 2. Watch the full Happy Birthday PAX panel below.

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