LA Convention Center - all dolled up

As I mentioned briefly yesterday, UgLyPuNk and I are in Los Angeles at the moment. We're here for the 2008 E for All Expo, which is a games show that encompasses a lot of the consumer elements of the old E3 Expo you may be more familiar with.

The event kicked off today - about 12 hours ago - and we spent the morning wandering around the LA Convention Center, to see just what was on show. We chatted to a bunch of people, ranging from hardware developers to community managers to the man who helped introduce Lara Croft to the masses - but while we're working on those words and pictures, it might be nice to let you know a little about what's been going on.

Firstly - an important equation to remember. Putting an event on in a big-city venue does not translate to having a big audience. While today was the first day, and a Friday (and many gamers do have day-jobs), there weren't many people inside the convention center - punters or exhibitors.

(It seems, however, that if you don't have many things to show off, a good way to get around this is to add a whole bunch of competitions and tournaments, on top of the demonstration machines. This does mean though, that when there is no tournament in progress, it all looks a little empty.)

If you look up, it is covered in spitballs.

Anyway. It is worth observing that the crowd that did turn up today were enthusiastic about what was on show - all of the demonstration machines we saw were packed almost all day, with gamers queuing up to play Wii Fit, Shaun White Snowboarding, Far Cry 2, BoomBlox, Battlefield: Bad Company and a whole booth packed with sardine-like gamers, all clamouring for a game of Gears of War 2.

So. The weather here is lovely, a warm and pleasant change from Adelaide, although it's pretty humid along with that. The view from my hotel room is a great one - straight onto the brick wall of the hotel next door.

Tomorrow, we're heading back for Day 2, camera in tow and notepad in hand, to catch up on all the things we missed today. If you want to know more about the international pro gaming situation, then I think you should probably stick around for that, we've got a couple of interviews lined up that you may be interested in.

Until then, however, jet lag is a cruel mistress, and I can hear UgLyPuNk snoring from here.