 Well, it's almost time for PAX East 2012 and of course the many PAXes will happen in the future But you know a major problem at least at the last PAX and probably for many PAXes to come was counterfeit badges This was a minor problem in old days because you know PAX mails the bad it's a minor problem for every convention Yeah, but PAX mails the badges way ahead of time So the fact that it was as minor of a problem as it was was nice But at the last PAX counterfeit badges were off the hook They were an incredible problem and anything that sells out right is going to have a problem with this because there are people who Want to get in that just didn't buy their badges on time now The thing is I can understand if this is like a concert and all the tickets sell immediately or you know five years from now When PAX sells out five seconds after it goes open, but we're not there yet We're not there yet I mean PAX and other conventions don't sell out for quite some time in San Diego Comic Con sells out pretty quickly these days At least the hotels especially With the conventions, you know PAX doesn't sell out immediately. It takes you know weeks and weeks So if you wanted to go why didn't you buy your badge the day they went on sale? Especially because you can resell the badges. So if you don't end up going it's gonna sell out You can definitely give your badge to someone and recoup your loss That's right So you should if you want to go buy the badge immediately you won't need to buy the badge from someone shady No risk of counterfeiting right so if you must buy a badge after the fact because there's a counterfeit problem Consider this is sort of PSA to not get ripped off because this is a counterfeit badge We actually got a pile of them from the convention yet the counterfeit badges at least you know are Surprisingly not you know that different here's a real badge The only reason the only difference here is that they're from two different PAX years So the color is different on this part But the counterfeit is very close to what a normal badge from that year looks like you'd be surprised The counterfeiting technology of you know printing up you know these fake badges is pretty good You can be fooled easily. I was we're a newer comic-con last year We're walking down the street and some guys on a cell phone He's got a badge and he's like he's talking to his friend like you know This is some stranger who happens to be standing next to us and he's talking to his friend about it I've got a badge for 20 bucks and I look at I'm like dude that badges counterfeit yo, and he's like no I'm like yeah Like give it to us and we're like yes counterfeit and it was once you realize how to spot them They're pretty easy to spot So this the reason we're doing this is twofold one if you need to buy a badge for PAX Here's how to not get ripped off because PAX unlike last year is not going to help you if you have a counterfeit Yes, do not buy a badge unless you can expect the badge in person before spending money on it Okay Maybe the guy had a picture on his website of the badge and you could tell from the picture that it was real Looks legit, right? Well, wait a minute. Here's a picture of my actual badge. I mail you this one. Yeah, duh duh Duh guys the picture he doesn't have to send you the exact one that's in the picture You can put a picture of a real one send you the fake one now The second part of this is because if you know how to spot them They're obvious to spot and the more people who notice these the harder It is for people to get away with this shit down the road That's right and the reason we do all this is because PAX ran into a big counterfeiting problem And their response was not to stop mailing the badges. They're still mailing the badges I don't know how many of you have been to a non PAX convention like Otacon has more people than PAX. It's gigantic 25 to 30,000 individual people not turns out a count like PAX does It takes like four hours to get your stupid badge because 10,000 people line up Thursday night to pick them up in person That's right Now they're afraid of counterfeiting so they won't mail the badges PAX had the balls to keep mailing them instead and despite of the counterfeiting so you guys Help us out. Help us keep them mailing those badges. That's right because if they stop mailing the badges Well, shit now the easiest way to figure out a fake badge here. Hold this star. We call the fake badges stars Here's a real badge. There is no human way I can rip this badge into unless I am the Hulk There is no way for me to split it down the middle no matter what I do I could like fold the badge. I could cut it, but I'm not going to be able to take my hands and just tear it in Yeah, this was made by a professional badge making company. It's like a serious piece of plastic You know, it's not just like anything that's fake is probably something that came from like a desk jet It was laminated or something like that It's not something someone had done in bulk as an ultra professional job Because no big professional place with that kind of quality printing equipment is going to print something that says PAX weekend pass if you're not PAX All right, it's going to be from a shady place with lower quality equipment The colors are going to be off. It's going to have your it's going to be obviously inferior in quality to the real deal Now from a distance before we get to the final Hulk test There's a lot of things it'll be slightly off The colors will be a little different that little text at the bottom with the copyright and the thing Will be off a little bit usually because of the way the offset printing works The top will be off like everything will be slightly as few but from far away You can't really tell because even consumer equipment these days You know, you can go to the staples and buy a high res scanner and a high res printer And it'll look pretty good But there's one thing they can't do first the new badges this year have Holographic technology, which is at least a little bit harder to counterfeit Yep, you need to get a place that can make you this specific hologram Now watch out at anime cons what I've seen people do is take holograms from other previous badges or even different conventions And put them there because that's because those badges are a holographic sticker Affixed to a paper badge, right if you if the badges it packs I think the new ones I think the hologram is like built into it I haven't actually seen one in person, but other cons the staff are not super diligent So if there's a hologram you'll get away with it But it packs we have it on pretty good authority that if the hologram doesn't match it'll be obvious right away But the simplest test without doing any sort of like deep analysis is to take the stupid badge And grab by the edge and try to split it in two because oh shit They're super easy to rip in two because it's just a piece of paper that was laminated and then cut So it's not sealed on the sides, right? It's it's not a piece of plastic with printing in the middle of it It's a piece of paper that was printed at a cheapo place Which means you can split it open in the paper area So literally the easiest way to tell a counterfeit packs badge is to take it and try to rip it in two Now this of course only applies if they use the same method of counterfeiting So it is highly unlikely that they will have a better method so close to the con because The picture the badges got mailed out kind of late and the badges have different features this year So this is the best test I think also the cost right the cost of counterfeiting Fancy badges can be prohibitively high to the point at which you won't really make too much money by trying to sell them Now one other thing I do want to bring up is that there are other kinds of badges I mean we always have the speaker badge and there's a you know, there's the ga badge and all these other badges The badges that aren't normal attendee badges are not transferable It says here that this is not my badge. This is pax's badge They can take it away from me and I am not allowed to give it to any other human being ever I think it says that on the regular badges, too No regular badges They can take it away because they still own it But you are allowed to resell your regular attendee badge But if someone tries to sell you any badge that isn't a normal three day or friday saturday or sunday badge They're breaking they're violating the to s. Anyway, they're not allowed to sell it to you They probably stole it because no one's going to sell their speaker badge legit No one's going to sell their guest badge. What speaker is going to go into because you can only get this at the con, right? You can't get this mailed to you So who's who is like a vip that's going to show up at the convention get their vip badge and then try to sell it It's will weeding like man. I really need money Seriously, it's going to be fake if it's not a regular badge if someone tries to sell you a weird badge Tell an enforcer because something shady is going on either. They found some poor guest badge They might have robbed it from someone. Yeah, or somebody is really up in the counterfeit game So That's it. That's all we have to say a little psa for packs But I do want to say not aimed at packs but aimed at otacon and all these other anime cons and everything Mailed to god damn badges. That's right. Look at this Pack still does it despite all these problems because it saves so much time and so much money There is no reason to not mail your badges if you're a medium-sized counter bigger And this is to all the conventions out there, right? You need to be really much harsher On the people who do get in with counterfeit badges now stepped up. They have a way better policy now The fact is all right. It is true someone who buys a counterfeit badge Unknowingly and then tries to go into the con is completely innocent. It might even be a little kid, right? Naive at best. That's a crime, right? And it's like did they really do anything wrong? No, however, but You need to just kick them out mercilessly and not let them back in because that's the only way people will learn their lesson Not to spend money now the issue badge is if I go to shea stadium with a counterfeit baseball ticket No matter how nice I am no matter how it doesn't matter It's always a nice old man usher at the or even at the entrance who scan in the badges Or the tickets he is not going to let me in no matter how nice he is That's right Even if you were like the saddest story in the world like a little disabled kid, right? Everyone loves him. Maybe they would be nice and let you in for free whatever, right? But if you walk up with some fake ticket, there's still going to be like no admittance You have a fake ticket, right? So conventions don't if someone has a fake badge just kick their ass to the curb That's it end of story now if you're not sold out Right, it's a non sold out convention then piece of cake. Yeah, all right here. We're gonna buy that Yeah, you want to buy a badge sure buy one at full price like everyone else if you lose your badge Oh, well buy one at full price like everyone else, but if you're sold out, you're done go home