Tickets are all gone for fan fest

[Mani_Wakeling]

Maybe they should make it where people would have to verify an in game mogmail item to show it's someone with an active service account.

I've been humoring the idea of them having people verify their access codes.
"Hey, we see that you purchased your tickets while the access code entry was disabled. Would you mind providing that for us?"
Procure the code that you were sent, go on your way.

The downside, though, would be people who bought tickets for their S/O's... so then it becomes a question of "Do we only get 1 ticket per code?"

As someone who works in ticket sales FT, I agree with other users who've voiced that ticket sale should have been halted until the problem was resolved. Instead of disabling the required element for any length of time. Especially when that code was sent to users as "Here's a reservation of your ticket, so that you won't miss out"--terrible wording on SE's marketing team's part, if they can't follow through.

[Mani_Wakeling]

See as much as I want to do that, I don't want to guilt my friends into missing the event and staying outside in the lobby because I missed my ticket.

Yeah, but think about it this way:
When you go to any convention, how many of those hours are spent constantly with your friends? With -all- of your friends?
They can be independent congoers, and so can you (even if you don't have a badge, you're still "there"). Make time for a lunch date, dinner date, "let me take photos of you on your way to your next event" date. You don't have to keep them from what they're doing or where they're going; it's Vegas, there's probably tons of stuff to do; it's a convention, you're bound to make new friends to also hang out with. Everyone can have fun on their own terms and time.

[OtakuPyun]

I was hoping Naoki Yoshida would fix this shitshow, but nope. We get queued first in 2020. The Fury take all scalpers and bot users!

[RytoEX]

Can they go over what the venue is meant to hold? I do not think they can simply add extra tickets if the tickets they sold were at the capacity on the venue.

But SE can't really open more tickets since they are already near capacity.

well since we don't know how many the venue will hold vs the staff vs the actual ticket count who knows. granted I've heard some know the hotel capacity, but it seems way bigger than the amount of tickets I'd assume.

Legally speaking, most likely not. Most conventions and event venues have to abide by a maximum capacity, as dictated by Fire Marshalls, in order for the business to operate.
Fire Marshal can and will completely shut something down if the organizers exceed that max capacity of humans in the building-- and that max capacity *includes* the staff who work in the venue, and the event staff.

Max seating capacity of the Rio Pavilion is 6,110. There wouldn't be that many seats in the room given previous Fan Fest layouts, but it gives an idea of room capacity. Total max seating capacity for the 4 largest conference rooms at the Rio is 13,899. That doesn't include additional capacities from other conference rooms or from non-conference room areas, and those numbers take (or should take) on-site venue staff into consideration for fire code limits. While it's possible that this year's Fan Fest had a ticket pool of 5,000-6,000, I haven't seen officially posted numbers anywhere. Even then, you probably wouldn't have every ticket holder on-site all the time.

[CosmicKirby]

Greetings,

We are humbled by the overwhelming response from those who want to attend the Fan Festival. We made more tickets available this year than ever before and we understand the frustration of not being able to procure tickets. We wish we could accommodate everyone, and so we'll do our best to try and host even more of our passionate adventurers in the future.

You shouldn't be allowed to call this a "Fan Festival" if the event is THIS ill-equipped to serve the fans in any decent capacity.

[yukaru]

Thank you RyotoEX for the numbers. Now if only we knew the actual ticket sales amount.

[Mani_Wakeling]

Even then, you probably wouldn't have every ticket holder on-site all the time.

Also take into account anyone else staying in the Rio for not-FanFest, and staff, though. It's not just the ticketholders who make up bodies.
BUT even with that knowledge, you're still mostly correct that more likely -that- many people won't be occupying most of those spaces en masse, and there will be a lot of in-and-out for most spaces.

[Hestzhyen]

Sounds like they might have had an issue with the vendor Showclix. I work IT and I support some of our vendors that provide customer-facing services... I can tell some real horror stories about bone-headed decisions and general ineptitude. Either way though, SE owns the event and they need to own the resolution to this mess. They can't make everyone whole, but they definitely need to stop acting like nothing went wrong and start doing some serious damage control. Saying "it's not as bad as you think, please trust us despite all the evidence you see" is more likely to incite rage than anything else. Heck, I didn't even think about going to FanFest and I'm annoyed with how they're handling this.

If they have to leave everything as-is, shameless scalpers and mass reservation cancellations and all, then the absolute least they can do is publish an action plan for next time with lessons learned. That's just the basics.

[Davy_M_Jones]

Please don't let this be your last word on the subject. Compared to last Fanfest, tickets selling out this fast simply doesn't make sense at all.

PLEASE, talk to us. Tell us what went wrong. Tell us how we can help. Anything.

[Kiri_Hadaka]

I know they are just a company, but this situation hurts. SE, you know this situation is wrong. Please don't let down so many of your most loyal fans. Please find a way to do what is right by us!