Tickets are all gone for fan fest

[polyphonica]

how did people who were in line after those of us who clicked at the beginning get through first?

If this happened (and it wasn't by somehow bypassing the queue), the most likely explanation is that sales were by lottery, not first-come-first-serve queue. In other words, everyone entered the waiting area, and as space became available they randomly picked people from the waiting area to be served. Arriving early would have increased your chances for being randomly selected, but it doesn't mean that only the people who made it in at exactly the first few seconds would be served.

This is not actually an uncommon way of doing this sort of thing, but I think the main point would have been to explain the sale methodology beforehand so people knew what to expect. (That way, people who did get randomly selected would know to buy for their friends, rather than assuming their friend who queued at the same time as them would also be served.)

[Fawkes]

Remember that little bit about bringing Japanese players to NA for fanfest that Yoshida was talking about?... I wonder how many tickets they have left.

[yukaru]

If this happened (and it wasn't by somehow bypassing the queue), the most likely explanation is that sales were by lottery, not first-come-first-serve queue. In other words, everyone entered the waiting area, and as space became available they randomly picked people from the waiting area to be served. Arriving early would have increased your chances for being randomly selected, but it doesn't mean that only the people who made it in at exactly the first few seconds would be served.

This is not actually an uncommon way of doing this sort of thing, but I think the main point would have been to explain the sale methodology beforehand so people knew what to expect.
(That way, people who did get randomly selected would know to buy for their friends, rather than assuming their friend who queued at the same time as them would also be served.)

thank you for the explanation

however showclix states as your waiting in the queue that your in a queue to be selected.not to refresh, that when it's your turn to make it to the check out you'll automatically be refreshed. it seems to imply or maybe I just assumed it's a virtual line, and that we would move forward in line until our chance comes. then again I heard or saw a post somewhere ( it's getting late I don't remember) where people were talking about cheating the system having like five windows open.

I can only guess that has something to do with the ability some say that once a person made it to check out they could copy past the address of the check out into the browser and skip the line so to speak. now don't know if this is what happened, and squareenix is denying this or just ignoring. can't say anymore. granted that's not how people skipped ahead.. just me falling into another rant.

again thank you for your reply though. it very well may be that

[Avih]

My friend just called Hotels.com to cancel his stay at the Rio because he couldn't get the tickets. The rep didn't mention numbers, but he told me there were lots of cancellation on November 16th and even the rep was concerned about what events were being cancelled. It's not the event, it's "lots of us" who got bulled.

[Avih]

It's crazy that SE insisted us to purchase discounted Hotel stays months before this presales. They really shouldn't have done this promotion even though they specifically stated the tickets are not guaranteed by booking the hotel.
I booked mine on the day of announcement back in December 2017. That's on my own, but for those who actually went through the process of getting their hotel stays through SE but couldn't get the fanfest tickets, it's a double shock right there.

[xJudas]

I don't even play this game anymore and I'm mad.

[BakaGaijin]

My friend just called Hotels.com to cancel his stay at the Rio because he couldn't get the tickets. The rep didn't mention numbers, but he told me there were lots of cancellation on November 16th and even the rep was concerned about what events were being cancelled. It's not the event, it's "lots of us" who got bulled.

Haha, I'm not surprised. I'm holding out for a week or two to see if anything is done since I still have plenty of time for the cancellation process, but it's real crappy that because two of the people in our room got in the queue at 12:00:01 instead of 12 sharp. I wonder if the hotel is going to contact Fanfestwith concerns on how many people from the conblock are canceling.

[Tsalmaveth]

I hope the hotel does get mad about it. As mad as we are, frankly. This response is not only lackluster, it's basically a lie from all the evidence that people have seen regarding queue-hopping, cheating the queue because of their system problems, and people buying more tickets. I'd be more than happy to see this get dragged as openly and long as possible. EU and Japan FanFests don't get screwed over like this... they even had pre-purchases with the merch which the NA fest did NOT... and they give some of the few tickets we had away to Japanese players when they're going to already have a FanFest over there? Nice.

Real nice.

It's all BS. They have their money and now they're just blowing smoke in hopes that it 'goes away' when people get tired and give up. I hope it doesn't and they get dragged. This is disgusting.

[Azurelos]

Don't let SE and showclix get away from this. then please release that "few" that got through. I don't know what the odds are, but at least give us a chance.

I don't fully agree with this as I was ready to purchase with code in hand and wasn't asked for one when I attempted to complete my purchase. Taking my ticket away just because you didn't get a chance wouldn't be a tic for tac. I'd happily confirm my code too if I was actually asked.

[thaedakal]

I honestly think it would better that in the next day or so that we get a more detailed report on the website on what happened than just a small forum post. There is a ton of misinformation being spread around by people and even supposedly from support (presale response) and having a detailed report would be best to quell angry paying customers.

And even reading the official post makes me more confused. Was the demand for tickets really that exponentially higher from 2016, even when considering that "more tickets [were] available this year than ever before"? I think people would like numbers, details, and concrete reasons before they accept any sort of apology. We all wanted to support this game, but this is a huge let-down and honestly I don't see myself wanting to go to the next fanfest if this is how they treat people who've been playing their game for years..