[disk drive noises]

- Yep, I am done with traveling.

It is nice to be back home.

Greetings and welcome to an LGR E3 thing!

Yes, we're gonna talk about the E3... thing [chuckles]

The big stupid convention that happens every year

in Los Angeles, at least up till this point.

There's talk of it not being in the same location in 2020.

Who knows?

But, I figured it'd be interesting to just talk about

this whole experience and what it's actually like

to visit this ridiculous show

because, I don't know about you,

but, I see coverage of this every year

and I'm going back to the 90s

and I always wondered what it was like.

Now, that I've been there a couple times,

I figured I'd document the experience and share it,

so,my brother Luke and I, we both went there

with a bunch of cameras and equipment

to just capture the entire experience

and I mean everything, from the mundane stuff,

like figuring out transportation and food,

and just getting passes to begin with,

what that will get you,

where that will not get you into

and all kinds of things like that.

And then you know, looking at the booths

and all the cool games and tech, as well.

But, yeah, let's just dive into that,

kind of like and LGR Thrifts episode,

but, instead of going thrifting,

we're going convention-ing.

Or E3-ing.

Or whatever-ing.

I don't know, man.

Let's go do it and dive into E3 2019.

["Driven Electronics" by Niclas Gustavsson plays]

- All right, so as with all good stories,

let's begin at the beginning,

which begins before the beginning began

and that was back in April sometime,

when I first signed up for the badges for E3.

Now, you don't have to sign up beforehand,

but, I highly recommend it

because waiting in line to get them at the show

would just be a friggin' pain.

And there's a whole bunch of ways to get badges, these days,

you don't just have to be industry,

or press and media, anymore,

you can just get in as a gamer, I guess,

is what it's called, the gamer pass.

That only you have to pay for.

I think it's like 300 bucks, normally, before the show.

And the once you're there, it's like 995.

These are not cheap passes, but, you can get in,

however, if you're media, then it is

a little bit of a different thing.

And well, what does media even mean?

What qualifies as media?

Well, a whole lot of things, nowadays.

It's actually easier than it's ever been to get into E3.

I mean, I've never even had a problem getting in

back when I had 50,000 subs.

Maybe the requirements are a little different now,

but, basically as long as you're somebody who covers

some games in some form, [laugh] you can pretty much get in,

if you can be verified and you have over

a certain number of monthly views

or monthly videos being put out related to games,

or I don't know, there's some requirements,

but, the only other stuff that they look for

is just making sure that you are you.

So, you have to provide a photo ID

or a government issued passport kind of thing,

as well as a business card

and if you don't have a business card,

you can just make one up

and then a link to your channel

that shows your face somewhere in a video,

or pictures, or something,

you know what, they just have to make sure

that you are who you are.

And if you're qualified,

then you get the qualified email, here.

Looks something like this.

I've edited it a little bit for privacy.

But, yeah, pretty much just says, "you're in",

you can can get a bar code and you'll be able

to pick up your badges at the show,

a couple days before the show.

They do not ship the badges out.

And from here, it's just the normal travel stuff,

you know, selecting flights and a hotel,

and yes, E3 does have a number of hotels

that they recommend, I guess they have some deals with.

You can get a little bit of a discount doing that.

It's not a huge amount, in my experience,

but, it is kinda nice because

it gives you some extra options,

however, it's gonna be more expensive,

so, Airbnb makes a lot of sense, too.

And if you're media, then,

well, you're probably familiar with a wall like this

of just tons of emails coming in the very moment

that you're approved for those badges.

These are just a few of the more interesting ones

that I've selected.

But yeah, I mean, a lot of these things,

especially when it comes to getting hands-on

with games and such and being invited

to press events and parties,

and those are all invite only.

Same goes for the press conferences.

You know, things that are live streamed by Microsoft,

and Ubisoft, and I don't know, whoever else-soft.

Those guys will get in touch with you

or you have to know someone to get in.

You can't just show up.

I mean, I guess you could, but, good luck with that.

Finally though, it is day negative two of E3,

at least for us.

We decided to travel out Sunday.

The actual show floor opens on Tuesday,

but, there's things happening on both Sunday and Monday

that we were invited to,

so, we wanted to get there in the morning,

so, we could get there in time for those things,

and well,

you know airports,

is just a bunch of bad weather was coming through

for the past several days, at that point,

and we ended up waiting there for about six hours

and just watched the rain.

[laughter]

There's not much else you can do.

This is a tiny airport that kept bumping and bumping

and bumping up the flight as the previous night's flights

were still trying to get off the ground.

Weren't sure if we were gonna be able

to take off that day, whatsoever,

especially when we got to the counter

and the person was like, "you're not even on this flight".

And we're like, "yeah, we are".

And they've said, "Oh, you've been removed

"and they never told you?"

We were like, "nope, they never did".

So, it was just awful.

The nightmares began immediately

and they continued the entire rest of the day,

but, you know, spoiler alert, so.

Eventually we were on the plane, completely unamused

by absolutely anything whatsoever.

Just happy to be in the air, at this point,

even though it had taken six friggin' hours to get here.

Whatever.

Eventually landed in Atlanta for our connecting flight

or it would have been a connecting flight,

but, we were about four or five hours late for it.

[laughter]

So, that meant, making our way over to the service desk

where we had to wait in line

for about another hour and a half, or something,

just to see if we could find a flight to LAX.

And of course, with all the other delays, there were none.

So, we're just like "give us a plane to California,

let's just see what happens."

In the meantime, we just wandered over to other parts

of the airport and got us some nice daggone food

at some daggone place.

I don't even remember what this was, but it was super good.

And thankfully Atlanta has

this nice underground tram system that gets you around

the terminals quite easily unlike LAX, for instance.

They have these outdoor shuttles and they suck,

but anyway, Atlanta's pretty decent for getting around,

which, we had to do a lot

because they switched our departing gate, I think six times.

But, eventually again, we got on a plane

at around 6:45 PM Eastern,

so, we'd already been doing the travel thing

for 12 hours, at that point.

And they sent us to Santa Ana

because there were zero flights to LAX

where we were originally going to go.

Of course, that also meant that my luggage was sent to LAX.

I don't know how, exactly, apparently it took off

at like, two in the afternoon.

Yeah so, that was something to deal with

whenever we got there, but, in the meantime,

it was a pretty nice peaceful flight.

I always like flying over this part of the United States

just to look at all the neat ground formations,

and weird desert things, and mountains, and rivers,

and all this kind of cool stuff.

I don't know, it's just different surroundings

than I normally see over on

the mountainous Appalachian region of the East Coast.

For hours later, we were making a landing in Santa Ana

which, I'd never been to before

and I guess I still really haven't

because we were only there

to find a car

over to LAX

because my luggage was there

and we were hoping it was being held

in some back office or something.

So, we got an Uber or a Lyft or,

I don't remember half of this,

and we went on over to LAX, which, was like,

another hour and a half drive because traffic.

Traffic was just the absolute worst even at night, here.

There were a ton of inbound and outbound flights

that were just getting screwed up and it was awful.

Finally though, made it over to LAX, picked up our crap,

got into another Lyft, or an Uber, or whatever,

and then made it to the hotel and I don't even think I,

no, I didn't, I didn't get any footage [laugh]

of the outside or the inside of the hotel,

except for the room, briefly.

It's just a small little junior suite deal that we got.

It was just, it was what was available

and it was really close to the convention center

and I've stayed here, before, so, whatever man.

Don't care.

At this point, we are just ready for bed.

[sigh]

What a wonderful five hours of sleep

that wasn't wonderful at all, in fact,

it was kind of garbage, but, that's okay,

because we got E3 crap to do, yes.

And that means getting a quick breakfast,

which, I didn't film at all because screw that I'm hungry.

And we just started walking to the convention center,

since, the shuttles weren't running, yet,

and we weren't paying for another ride sharing car,

quite yet.

It was only like a 14, 15 minute walk from the hotel,

anyway, not bad, just down two streets.

You take like a right and then a left

or a left and a right, I don't know, Albuquerque,

and you're there and you get to see some

of lovely downtown L.A.

which is well, only lovely to visit,

and honestly I would never want to live there,

but, that's okay, no offense L.A. people.

Your city's crazy, that's all I want to say about that,

but, I like visiting.