California Extreme is the “Classic Arcade Games Show”. It’s an annual celebration of coin operated pinball machines, video games and other novelties you once found in game arcades. All games on display are set for free play, so leave your quarters in the ash tray in your car. You won’t need ’em!

California Extreme 2024

July 27-28, 2024

Saturday: 11 am – 1:30 am
Sunday: 11 am – 9 pm

Food Policy

We want you to be aware of a new stricter convention center policy regarding food. No outside food, which includes food bought in the hotel as well as bottled water or drinks and any food carried with you, can be brought into any area of the convention center. This means no outside food past the double doors where the hotel leads into the convention center. It is understood in some cases medical needs may require small food items be carried for emergency use.

These constraints are required by the convention center.

You can bring a personal water container, but not a “bottled water” commercially sold as bottled water.  This is a requirement of the Convention Center. Water stations will be provided, and you can fill a personal water container from those or Convention Center drinking fountains, but it MUST be EMPTY before you enter the exhibit floor, so we suggest you simply leave your personal water container at home and use the cups provided at the water stations.

Hyatt Regency Santa Clara

Book your hotel room while they’re still available!
Find other hotel options on our Hotel Info page.

2024 t-shirts now available!

CAX 2024 Shirt Circle design on black

Why A Game Show?

Arcades were once a fixture on the American urban landscape, and games were plentiful in rural cities too. The closest heir of today is the so-called “Family Entertainment Center”, which is populated with myriad devices designed only to take your coins quickly and leave you with a pile of tickets, which you exchange for cheap, trashy toys. This is entertainment?

California Extreme was born with a desire to share fun coin op games that are in the hands of private collectors and to hopefully spread the word that pinball machines were once plentiful, and that videogames were not synonymous with “martial arts” and violence.

Buy/sell/trade! The show is a great place to bring games you want to sell, and also a good place to add to your collection, or even start it! Not all games will be for sale; many collectors bring games to show (or show off!) that they would never sell.

So .. Can I play the stuff? Yes! Everything is on free play. You can play from the moment you arrive until we shut off the power at closing — Play as many games as you want, in whatever order you want to. There are *HUNDREDS* of games, all set to play for free. This is your chance to try those older games, or the newer games that you’d never put money into in an arcade. There are also many games that never got produced, and are very hard to find.