NA Fanfest 2018 Debacle

I'd also vote for Orlando.

I don't know why they couldn't just sell the tickets directly through the mog station and limit the tickets / account for people who have been subsrcibe for a minumum number of days. Hell even give priority based on veteran level. Just a thought.

They don't host ticket sales on their own site so they're not liable for anything that goes wrong.Anything that does go wrong is the fault of the host site selling the tickets, not SE

FanFest was absolutely packed and is almost certainly the largest one they have had in NA. The root cause seems to be that not nearly enough tickets were available to satisfy demand, which was greatly underestimated.

I would like to see an advance preorder/preregistration ticketing system so they could size the convention appropriately to meet demand. This could be helpful whether demand increases or shrinks. Other conventions have advance preregistration as well as multiple rounds of ticket sales starting 9 months or more on advance.

A larger convention does make it harder to get that coveted personal interaction with the FFXIV principals, but huge conventions usually manage that with either lotteries for autograph sessions or paid autographs. I missed most of the autograph lines this year anyway as they were instantly capped. I would be OK with a lottery for autograph sessions and a larger convention so that more people could attend.

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

They don't host ticket sales on their own site so they're not liable for anything that goes wrong.Anything that does go wrong is the fault of the host site selling the tickets, not SE

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Showclix worked fine for PAX - something like 35000 tickets. Not sure why they mis-sold 500 FanFest tickets without a code, but the actual event was utterly packed with FFXIV fans.

The root cause of selling out in 2 minutes or less is demand greatly outpacing supply. If SE had done a better job estimating demand then they could have made the convention larger with more tickets available.

Ooh I do like the idea of a fanfest ticket slot (redeemable at the venue) being a possible veteran reward.

I think a good idea would be better information gathering before a venue is selected. Conduct a survey asking the playerbase if they would like to attend Fanfest that year and see how many responses you get. If you notice "Wow, that's a lot more than we expected," you can still do something about it.

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Originally Posted by Avenger

Showclix worked fine for PAX - something like 35000 tickets. Not sure why they mis-sold 500 FanFest tickets without a code, but the actual event was utterly packed with FFXIV fans.

The root cause of selling out in 2 minutes or less is demand greatly outpacing supply. If SE had done a better job estimating demand then they could have made the convention larger with more tickets available.

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They really need to hold the NA Fanfest in an actual convention hall and not in a hotel's venue in Las Vegas.