Suggestions for Future Fan Fests

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Originally Posted by FJerome

One of the staff at the till mentioned that they had this same set-up at Gamerscon and didn't have anywhere near this problem because everyone brought cash - if you're not really equipped to handle a lot of people bringing credit cards please just tell us not to bring credit cards?

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I for one only brought enough cash to cover food since they did accept credit credit card and I didn't want to exchange money and then to find out I had too little to buy what I wanted or too much left over.

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Originally Posted by Gamina

The one thing I have seen lots of people complaining about is the venue. In my opinion it was perfect for the size and scale of the event, for the ambiance and the feel of Eorzea. People have cited Earl's Court (which is being demolished anyway), Olympia and Excel... I see MCM being cited as the reason for the 14 FanFest not being in a bigger venue yet lets be realistic 75,000 people attended MCM at the weekend... even if people attended only one day of MCM thats still ten times as many on a given day than were at FanFest.

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The Worldcon was at the Excel, there were about 7000 attendees total across five days. It used a really small fraction of the Excel. The FanFest would have fitted into one hall.
Tobacco Dock was great and there were several unused rooms, so it could be expanded if need be.

*Sees suggestions for future Fan Fests*...

COME TO AUSTRALIA DAMMIT!!! WE HAVE VEGEMITE, a +16 booster for Vitality (Max 32 points).

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

-Guild room/art display was pitiful. (Not the gallery, the fan art)

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Originally Posted by Denyer87

I really hope you're not being serious here as that is quite possibly the most idiotic thing i have ever seen written here.

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I have to agree that the quantity and quality of the fan art submitted was weak. There were precisely two pictures which were brilliant that I would have been excited to have hanging on my wall at home. But hey, art is subjective right?

Which brings me to my suggestion - purchase of fan-artwork. Put crew with a tablet and the facility to accept payment in the room. Crew takes an order and payment for various size/print/digital download plus postage of the pieces people want. Orders are created post-event and sent out within the month.

As for the money raised, after deducting the cost of making the prints, the remainder of the funds can be donated to a charity by S-E.

Letting the artists know how much they had essentially raised for charity through this might even provide them with encouragement to create another piece for the next year. Letting the fans know through Lodestone would be cool too. A press release to that effect could paint S-E in a positive light whilst also spreading awareness for next year's event.

I see there are complaints about the location......I thought it was WONDERFUL! Please don't change it! With the inclusion of all the Eorzea-related elements I found it to be incredibly immersive, especially when dressed up as well! Top marks!
On the downside my friend and I spent over 3 hours in the merchandise queue, and we were the lucky ones! As we finally paid for our artbooks and moogles, we heard that there wouldn't be enough for the rest of the queue, which still looked to have several hours of waiting left to do. Surely it was obvious that the merchandise would be so sought after?
Other than that it was a magical day for me. :)

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Originally Posted by Mjollnir

I have to agree that the quantity and quality of the fan art submitted was weak. There were precisely two pictures which were brilliant that I would have been excited to have hanging on my wall at home. But hey, art is subjective right?

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I think that very few artists were even aware of the competition untill very close to the deadline. Same applies for cosplay competition. If announcements had been made sooner then maybe there would be more high quality entrants? (Not dissing any of the art that WAS entered at all, I just know that some artists were dissatisfied with their own work due to the hasty nature in which they had to be created!)

In fact, it would be great if information in general had been more forthcoming. I barely knew what to expect of the event before arriving. (Loved it, though!)

We need a shirt with "Please look forward to it..."

There was a concert at the end? Man, that's so annoying! After spending like 3 hours in the queue, we ended up just rushing around to finish all the quests before leaving. Looked at the queue for the closing ceremony and thought "Nope, not again". Sad that we didn't hang around in the end I guess.

I feel it was nice that Yoshi and co in the end decided to do signing to appease the people in the queue... It's a shame we were like 5 minutes too early and ended up being let inside before they popped out. The stock issue was very unfortunate though. Ended up waiting in line for everything but the book to be out of stock by the time we arrived at the end. Was looking to spend like £150+ on merchandise but ended up spending only like £30. No post moogles, no soundtracks, no plushies, no mugs. It didn't help that after the last 60 moogles were announced, somebody bought 5 at once.

Kinda bugged about the people complaining about the Fan Art Gallery while there where so many beautiful pieces hanging in those two rooms. I'm not saying this because I got into the Art Gallery myself (art is subjective indeed), but I've seen some AMAZING drawings there and I've met some of the lovely people who made them. Please be respectful to those artists. I noticed someone said that only two pieces looked brilliant enough in their eyes. I kinda feel like asking all these people to submit something themselves. I wonder if it would look as beautiful as many of the pieces in the current Fan Art Gallery. Also, SE clearly made the distinction between a FAN ART gallery and a CONCEPT ART gallery. Don't you just want fans to express their love for Final Fantasy through their creativity? I think a lot of fans did a great job. I would love to congratulate them for bringing some eye candy to the fan fest.

Man, some people just complain and complain about the silliest stuff. XD

I have another suggestion: Please come back next year!!!

Venue was awesome in my opinion. Do it there again! If possible though, kit out the empty rooms too with a few more bits! I think we could have had a few more cool ideas made and done. I would have loved some secret hidden places shop/event we would have to find ourselves!

I really loved everything apart from a few things;
It should of been 2 days.
There should've been more than 1 person on a till selling merchandise. The man was extremely incompetent and changed my friend £9 for a Play Arts Kai figure instead of £65. Also 3 hours and a half in a queue is ridiculous just to buy merch.
The rewards weren't on par with the Las Vegas fan fest and after finishing everything there should be been an extra prize instead of "Well Done".

Thats all really, everything else was fantastic! If they did it again next year I'm going to make sure I get the VIP tickets ASAP.

I think an addition of a special super exclusive item that only Fan Fest goers can get should also be in order.

Hildibrand and Nashu exclusive figures plsthxbye /mandervilledance

hehe my plushie is gonna be here in a min im so happy :) brilliant day i dont think anything was really wrong some more things to do would be nice though

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all your feedback. We really appreciate it and are reading all your posts carefully.

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Originally Posted by Zirael_Foxfire

I had fun.


- I don't think German or French community team was present? Well, not that I've looked too hard, but I noticed quite few DE/FR people and it would've been nice if they had someone from organisers speaking their language to talk to. If EU reps were around and I didn't notice you, my apologies. But maybe make yourselves more visible next time?

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- I haven't noticed much Dev/community team presence on the floors. I know you guys must be tired from all the travelling, interviews and event preparations and I wasn't present everywhere all the time, so maybe I missed you.

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Bayohne, Elmoria and I were around all day. We were wearing red "Crew" t-shirts. Maybe next year we can wear Fat Chocobo or Moogle crowns like in the video to stand out more :cool:

In regards to French and German speaking staff, most people in red "Crew" tees that were stationed in the gaming rooms spoke at least two languages. I do apologize if it wasn't obvious and players felt lost. We will certainly keep that in mind for the next time (flag stickers, anyone ? =D)

Yes I saw I talked to you Sasunaich! I recognise you straight away away it was nice talking to you. :D I was with my wife and I was asking you about the treasure map hunting after being told it's people I need to ask for it so when I found out it's a pic of a chest I needed to find. I fell bad now for pestering so many people XD

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Originally Posted by Martin_Arcainess

Yes I saw I talked to you Sasunaich! I recognise you straight away away it was nice talking to you. :D I was with my wife and I was asking you about the treasure map hunting after being told it's people I need to ask for it so when I found out it's a pic of a chest I needed to find. I fell bad now for pestering so many people XD

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Oh yes I remember! Did you have a successful treasure hunt then ?

Yes it was ^^ We ask people there on where to find them so we found it ok.

An other suggestion:
Make the VIP EU comparable to the VIP in US.
Here's a small image to compare EU and US. (the last one doesn't count, as its location related and I'm not sure if the EU VIP attendees did get a free drink during the event, didn't ask / hear)
http://i.imgur.com/O6vtgqQ.jpg

I understand that we had the "one day earlier" event to meet everyone - but in the end it was the exclusive signing session NA had.
In the end the ticket (vip or not) didn't feel "worth it" as it was the same prize as the NA ticket for less.

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Originally Posted by IrealiTY

An other suggestion:
Make the VIP EU comparable to the VIP in US.
Here's a small image to compare EU and US. (the last one doesn't count, as its location related and I'm not sure if the EU VIP attendees did get a free drink during the event, didn't ask / hear)
http://i.imgur.com/O6vtgqQ.jpg
I understand that we had the "one day earlier" event to meet everyone - but in the end it was the exclusive signing session NA had.
In the end the ticket (vip or not) didn't feel "worth it" as it was the same prize as the NA ticket for less.

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Erm, we got a party with a free bar and free food, a signing session with the devs, a photo with Yoshi-P, a shinier event t-shirt and early registration - all for an extra £20. I thought the VIP ticket was amazing value!

Yes we had the VIP Event day earlier with free drinks. I was poiting to the "1 drink during the main event at the bar" thing - which is obsolete as its not comparable with a casino bar. Ignore this point.

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Originally Posted by FabledFox

Please be respectful to those artists.

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I enjoyed all the art, and I appreciated it all the more because I cannot do that myself. I like to see how other players are inspired by the game, and I would not like them to be discouraged if they haven't been through art school or whatever. I can see professional art any time - this art was from the community of FFXIV players. A lot of effort goes into each creation; thank you for it.

Please come to Australia Next year! :3

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Originally Posted by FabledFox

So, apparently, SE will keep the drawings (they don't get thrown away!) and they will expand their little collection of fan art so they can display them again later!

Knowing there's apparently a big chance that our drawings will be displayed elsewhere in the future, I was really happy that SE didn't want us to take them home. ^^

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Huh, the guy didn't say that to us. He seemed fine just giving us them as long as we weren't the winners (as they obviously needed to sort out the autographs...)

The guy was super friendly, but even that one person is giving conflicting information. From the start the art contest has been a mess!

I agree with whoever said they were disappointed with the quality of work submitted, but only because I personally HATE my submission and know with more notice I could have done something much better. (some of the work was amazing, but the general standard could have been so much higher) Not to mention my partner spent 2 minutes on MS paint as a joke and was a finalist... I get that they wanna be inclusive and for all they knew it could have been from someone with not a lot of skill who still worked very hard on it, but in a contest you can't just include a broad selection when you're trying to find someone to actually win in each category.

I feel very sorry for those who did not make it in the top 40 who will see that joke entry and wonder why their work lost out to that.

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Originally Posted by NoF2P

I enjoyed all the art, and I appreciated it all the more because I cannot do that myself. I like to see how other players are inspired by the game, and I would not like them to be discouraged if they haven't been through art school or whatever. I can see professional art any time - this art was from the community of FFXIV players. A lot of effort goes into each creation; thank you for it.

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This is such a beautiful comment and that's exactly how I see it, as well. I'm glad the players were given this opportunity and it sure made a lot of fans happy to see their drawing at the Fan Fest. Thank you. ^^

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Originally Posted by yazpanda

Huh, the guy didn't say that to us. He seemed fine just giving us them as long as we weren't the winners (as they obviously needed to sort out the autographs...)

The guy was super friendly, but even that one person is giving conflicting information. From the start the art contest has been a mess!

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Lmao, I couldn't take mine home! Booo! :P Conflicting information, indeed. Did you take yours home then? Grats on getting into the gallery! That Titan joke entry made me laugh, though. But I think SE wanted to include "all ages", y'know. They might have thought it was someone's kid who drew the Titan and that's pretty charming, isn't it? XD (I've seen another "kiddy" drawing and I found it so adorable! Not sure if the artist was really a kid, but he/she obviously did her best and I loved it!)

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Originally Posted by yazpanda

I agree with whoever said they were disappointed with the quality of work submitted, but only because I personally HATE my submission and know with more notice I could have done something much better.

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I feel very sorry for those who did not make it in the top 40 who will see that joke entry and wonder why their work lost out to that.

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My entry didn't even meet minimum DPI and still got displayed so my feelings on this are similar to yours.

That said I'm not too worried we shoved aside more worthy competition, I think we all got displayed because with the way the contest was run almost no one submitted.

1. All seated press conference. - standing for so long was not easy.
2. Have a few more seats around. - stone steps, outside, benching, café, stairs or under the heaters, you cant go far wrong with a few nice benches.
3. Open up all of the venue. - there was a whole area at the back of glass fronted units that would have made great merchandise outlets.
4. Consider a click and collect shopping system. - where people can reserve items before attending then collect them while attending.
5. Snacks - nice to have a couple of barrow (market) carts around selling hot and cold snacks and drinks. (dark pretzel anyone)
6. Make it over two whole days - many of the problems came about because everyone wanted to get it all done inside one day.
7. More - the events were good, the theme was good, carry on with the Limsa theme, we all agreed that the ships outside would make amazing airships if they were just kitted out with a few very large balloons and sails.

I mentioned this on the US thread before but it's more appropriate in this one.

I didn't go to the Fan fest because I refused to spend the standard ticket price for a 1 day event. It seems that my decision not to go was the right one as i probably would have spent £65 to stand in a queue by the sounds of it.

my main gripe with the cost is how they can justify it. £65 is roughly $105 when converted, considering that that is just $15 short of a ticket to a 3 day event in Vegas. the cost for the one day event in London is just plain ridiculous

I really enjoyed the event. I felt that the loot bag felt a bit empty, and I didn't even get a look in at the merchandise store, but I think possibly that the event could be improved by:

Utilising the whole venue. Tobacco Dock is a hidden gem, my partner lived in Shadwell when I met her and I didn't even know it was there. It's perfect for the event, but so much unused empty space made it feel a bit tiny.

More food options. Just having three possible food options from one restaurant made it feel like SE weren't really expecting lots of people.

Chairs in the press conference. I suffer from a bad back and standing for the press conference part at the beginning got me off to a bad start and this detracted from the rest of the day.



1/2

More merch options. Not just at the event, but leading up to it as well. I would have bought a t-shirt or something to wear to the event had it been available, but it seems FFXIV official merch is both thin on the ground and over-priced.

MOG HATS. I saw them in the video, and wanted to take some home for my kids. Not that I like to brainwash my kids early into liking the things I like *looks at three girls in LFC kits*

I agree that controllers and keyboards on all stations would've been a good idea, but one of my FC has now converted to keyboard after the Odin fights.

I think perhaps some kind of prize for trying ALL of the activities would have been good, this might have encouraged people to try everything instead of endlessly queuing for Odin, battle roulette and merchandise.

On the subject of the art contest, I know a few people who wanted to enter but couldn't due to time. These should have been announced much earlier. Perhaps on a properly updated website?

2/2

How is anyone supposed to have a good rant with 1000 character limit? pfft

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Originally Posted by Geckojas

How is anyone supposed to have a good rant with 1000 character limit? pfft

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Editing your original post lets you get around the limit.

With regards to the unused areas, most of the venue was open to the public, theres also bits needed for staff and venue needs so its not as easy as you might think, also we need conan at the next fan fest.

Loved the event, it was a lot of fun and hope you return next year!

I think the venue worked well for the FF theme and it was nice that there were rooms set aside for just little things like fan art. My favourite was the aetestation, having my hair done up pretty by the salon technicians was a real treat. I even saw a man before me with lengthy locks that were flowing like Fabio when they were through with him. The aeythsite crystal in the middle was also very cool.

As for improvements for next year, I would really like to see the event extended to two days. I saw several people from different countries that traveled extremely far to attend but it was completely impossible to actually go to all of the events. For instance, each major event was about every hour, yet a line for the merchandise or Odin battle could be upwards to 4 hours. We had to purposefully miss out on most of the activities and didn't get to do much. I hate that I missed out on a lot of the event just because it was entirely impossible due to the timing and amount of people. Two days would have allowed for it.

As said before, more registers at the merchandise area, or at least spread merchandise between different booths scattered around. It would have been nice to also have more variety of merchandise.

And also mentioned, seated events would be nice. I could not see over all the tall men holding their cameras high above their heads in the standing events. At least request that everyone sit on the ground if nothing else so everyone can see the stage.

Lastly, I would like to see an area set aside just to get signatures from the dev team and other game related celebrities. It was stated that crew members would be out on the floor for the sake of dishing out autographs, and we even received a book for that exact purpose, but not a soul was to be found anywhere. It seemed like something only reserved for the VIP members which was a real bummer. I even bought the art book hoping to get Yoshi-P to sign it but we never got to see him or anybody else for that matter and that was a real let down.

Please consider two day event next year so that we can do all the things!