Hey gang,

PAX West, one of the biggest gaming conventions on the West Coast, is fast approaching! Harmonix is rolling into PAX in style this year, showing off a bunch of cool stuff about Rock Band Rivals and Rivals Mode, one of the new, major features headed to Rock Band 4 this October. Rivals Mode is an asynchronous online gameplay experience, where you can team up with a Crew of up to 10 players and start earning experience for your Crew in a series of weekly challenges. Players of all instrument preferences and difficulties can earn points for their Crew. You can expect to hear tons more about Rivals Mode as we get ready for PAX this week.

As you may have heard, Harmonix has been having some recent heated debates about food, sandwich cuts, even toilet paper preferences…we’ve decided to split up internally so that Team Analog and Team Digital, two Harmonix Rock Band Rivals Crews, can accurately represent our core values. You can rep your Crew of choice using the avatars provided in our blog posts (one for Analog and one for Digital), and get to smack talkin’ the other team online using the #TeamAnalog and #TeamDigital hashtags. You can create your own wrestling-style promo videos, join our Twitch streams to rep your crew, and partake in any one of our recent Rivals polls on our Forums, too.

But what does this have to do with PAX West? Everything!

PAX events are a sacred time in the gaming world where thousands of passionate players come together for a weekend of fun, gaming, swag, prizes, and even a bit of competition. This year, Rock Band is bringing ALL the competition to PAX West – let’s take you through our plans for this upcoming convention.

For those heading to Seattle at the end of this month, we’ve got lots in store for you. We’ll be posted up at Booth #1713 with not one, but two Rock Band stages at our booth, each representing our Analog and Digital Rivals Crews. Want to keep it cool and classy? Get to shredding over at the Digital stage, full of smooth, sleek ambience and some Digital-loving Harmonix folks. Interested in the gritty and grungy scene? Make your way to the Analog stage, where you can rock out with the rest of the red.

Either stage you go to, you’ll be treated like royalty with our fully stocked greenrooms, where you can get a chance to take a pic with your band and get ready for your performance. Then, it’s show time up on stage, where you can rock the crowd with your favorite Rivals Crew cheering you on.

We’ll have all of August’s new DLC available for play on our stages, plus the 12 Rock Band Rivals Pre-Order bonus tracks. You’ll be among the first people to ever play these tracks in Rock Band 4! Don’t forget to take a look at our pre-order bonuses for Rock Band Rivals that are available now, and check out our events setlist for a list of tracks that will be available to play during the show.

Be the first players ever to rock these tracks at PAX!

Now we talked a lot about how we’re bringing the competition, but here’s what we really mean. Every time you and your band play a track up on stage, your scores count towards your team’s leaderboard. At the end of each day, one team must be victorious. What if that team is yours?

Players at the Rock Band stages will receive a raffle ticket that you should be sure to hold on to. Why? Our friends at Fender® are providing us with these gorgeous Candy Apple Fender Jaguar® guitars (the REAL deal) for us to give away at our booth. If you played for that day’s winning Crew, and you’ve got the winning ticket at 5pm and are at our booth, you could win one of these guitars. That’s right, a beautiful, brand new Fender Jaguar guitar can be YOURS, all for playing a song at our Rock Band booth.

Win one of these real Fender Jaguar guitars at the Rock Band booth!

We’ll be heading to PAX real soon, and want to make sure everyone at home is fully equipped with their Rivals Crew materials to get into the competitive spirit over the weekend. Be sure to check out Rock Band’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram this month – we’ll have plenty to talk about between Analog and Digital ideals. See you out there, rockers!