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the merchandise accessibility was straight up horrible. We had some pretty disappointed members. There should definitely be a way for people that went to Fan Festival to purchase the items. I mean we didn't even get a shirt or anything for going this year.. =(
Agreed - online preorders + assigning a time window.
Here's one way it could work: during time window, they scan your QR code (automatically checking that you're showing up for the right time slot), hand you a tag, and then text you when your stuff is actually ready to pick up. At pickup line you just give them the tag and they find and hand you your bag. Done and Done.
If there's a delay for some reason, they could text you to let you know there's a delay and when to show up, much as airlines do if your flight is delayed.
If you don't pick it up in time, they could possibly assign you a second-chance pickup time window, but hopefully that would not be necessary.
Another thing they could do is offer optional merch pickup the day before the main conference, with the same system - checkin time windows and texting you when your stuff is (or will be) ready to pick up.
There is a huge misunderstanding about "the merch line was bad". Having to wait a few hours is to be expected, sure. For fanfest, people who were lined up at doors open were still not taken care of by doors closed on day one. Half-way through the day they stationed Staff at the end of the line to prevent people from getting in line anymore, then handed out tickets to those still in the line when the first day was over.
Day two there was no "merch line". If you didn't have a ticket from day one, you weren't even able to attempt it. So trying to be pragmatic and waiting until the crush was gone just meant you got absolutely nothing. The merch line was abysmal, and a lot of us are very very burned by not being able to buy anything as fans who (in my case) spent several thousand dollars to attend.