E3 Opens To The Public with 15,000 Tickets For The First Time Ever

For the first time ever, E3 is opening its doors to the public. The Entertainment Software Association, which organizes the event every year, announced today that an allotment of 15,000 tickets will be made available for anyone to buy this coming Monday, February 13.

The tickets will be priced at $150 as an early bird discount, but if you miss out on that then you can expect to pay $250. It will provide gamers with access to the show floor, panel discussions, and other events that are expected to run throughout the week that E3 will be active. This decision finally addresses the call by the public to make E3 more accessible for those not in the industry.

or years now, there have been calls to open E3 to the public. The ESA conducted an experiment of sorts for this in 2016 with its E3 Live event, which was free and open to the public. It was located outside of the Los Angeles Convention Center, the site of E3, and attendees could go hands-on with upcoming games and take part in other events. There was "incredible attendee enthusiasm" for this event, the ESA's senior VP of communications, Rich Taylor, tells GameSpot. So the next step was to invite fans to actually walk the halls of E3 and get closer to the action.

E3 is a constantly evolving show. It isn't known yet if E3 2018 will be open to the public, but Taylor says you should think about this year's event as a "commitment of where [the ESA is] heading and [its] desire to respond to exhibitors and consumers."