Tickets are all gone for fan fest

[Mihana]

Well this... was stupid. I suppose I'm glad I chose not to go after all. This whole fiasco reminds me of when housing first opened up on the game. I can respect that it wasn't SE's fault the merchant screwed up and sold the tickets without an access code due to "technical issues", but their response is pretty much "Too bad, better luck next time! We'll try harder in the future." and that's it. Meanwhile those who waited fair and square get screwed.

[Selenara]

I like how some people were like "well at least the live stream is free" yeah but you can't buy the merch online at all and can't go see your friends on the live stream. Well looks like I am going to be saving up for the fan fest in paris... "more tickets were available this year" is really hard to believe when the paris hotel in 2016 was bigger and tickets took what 12 hours to sell out? on top of this you guys opened a deal with the rio wayyy in advance and now a lot of people have to get their money back on. This is insane and really this needs to be addressed so this doesn't happen. Even though i live in the US i have an EU account so i was out of a code so i didnt even try to get a ticket. Hence why I am going to try the one in paris.

[Rita1989]

Maybe they can live stream the concert as an apology for this debacle.

[Avenger]

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.

Bayohne, thanks for your response. Would it be possible to answer a few of the questions people might have? It would be great to know the answers to questions like:

- How many tickets were there this year compared to the previous fan festivals?

- How many of them were sold in a presale before the regular sale? What were the conditions to get into the presale?

- What was different this year that caused people who queued at 12pm sharp to not be able to get tickets?

- Why did SE apparently underestimate the demand so much? How do you estimate demand, and what went wrong?

- Is there any truth at all to the rumor that some people were able to use software and bots to buy tickets?

- If there is massive unmet demand - as there seems to be - why not make the events larger (maybe more like Blizzcon) or more frequent?

[Avenger]

Also: will there be any secondary sale of returned or canceled tickets?

[ShadowHunterrX]

For me, this was about a chance to meet one of my former static members, and my EB partner, at somewhere we'd both be able to enjoy ourselves and feel safe going to. Given I'm UK and she's Finland, there is no chance in hell we're gonna go somewhere to meet up unless there's an event we're both going to. I hope the EU one isn't this catastrophic.

With all respect, but you sound like a wuss here. Come out of your comfort zone. If you really wanna meet someone, you wont make these lame excuses and would do anything to meet her. If you need events to both have fun, you guys clearly dont know each other well.

[JunseiKei]

With all respect, but you sound like a wuss here. Come out of your comfort zone. If you really wanna meet someone, you wont make these lame excuses and would do anything to meet her. If you need events to both have fun, you guys clearly dont know each other well.

No reason to take your anger and frustrations out on someone unrelated to the issue. We're all upset at how this issue was mishandled, and many people were planning to meet up for a myriad of reasons.

[Athral]

I like how some people were like "well at least the live stream is free" yeah but you can't buy the merch online at all and can't go see your friends on the live stream. Well looks like I am going to be saving up for the fan fest in paris... "more tickets were available this year" is really hard to believe when the paris hotel in 2016 was bigger and tickets took what 12 hours to sell out? on top of this you guys opened a deal with the rio wayyy in advance and now a lot of people have to get their money back on. This is insane and really this needs to be addressed so this doesn't happen. Even though i live in the US i have an EU account so i was out of a code so i didnt even try to get a ticket. Hence why I am going to try the one in paris.

To you, and anyone else who didn't get tickets: I definitely recommend going to Paris Fan Fest if you can!

Last time, I was at both Fanfests: Las Vegas and Frankfurt. And I'm telling you, Las Vegas was awful compared to Germany. Frankfurt Fanfest - or more specifically any european FFXIV-related thing - is organised by an entirely different Team than NA Fanfest.

• They had a much larger, much more beautifully decorated venue.
• They had an entire extra hall for merchandise, which you could preorder specifically months before the con and only had to pick up via a code you got so you would get any merch you wanted without having to stand in queue for hours.
• My personal favorite: There was actual daylight in the venue. Do you know how awful it was running around Vegas Fanfest without seeing daylight for the better part of like 12 hours? Never knowing what time it was?
• They had a ton of minigames in Frankfurt for you to pass your time with friends, they had a lottery (cactpot) even, a 'wondrous tales' sticker card that you could fill for small extra goodies by doing those minigames.
• There were locker rooms/changing rooms on site with lockers for you to store your purchased merch or your bags in.

TL;DR
EU Fanfest 2017 was the most perfectly organised convention I have ever been to. If you didn't get a ticket for Las Vegas, all I can tell you is that you're actually not missing out on that much, concerning only the convention itself. Try to grab a ticket for Paris Fanfest instead. You won't regret it.

[Athral]

(Wrote this reply to someone else just now, but here it is for you too)

To you, and anyone else who didn't get tickets: I definitely recommend going to Paris Fan Fest if you can!

Last time, I was at both Fanfests: Las Vegas and Frankfurt. And I'm telling you, Las Vegas was awful compared to Germany. Frankfurt Fanfest - or more specifically any european FFXIV-related thing - is organised by an entirely different Team than NA Fanfest.

They had a much larger, much more beautifully decorated venue.
They had an entire extra hall for merchandise, which you could preorder specifically months before the con and only had to pick up via a code you got so you would get any merch you wanted without having to stand in queue for hours.
My personal favorite: There was actual daylight in the venue. Do you know how awful it was running around Vegas Fanfest without seeing daylight for the better part of like 12 hours? Never knowing what time it was?
They had a ton of minigames in Frankfurt for you to pass your time with friends, they had a lottery (cactpot) even, a 'wondrous tales' sticker card that you could fill for small extra goodies by doing those minigames.
There were locker rooms/changing rooms on site with lockers for you to store your purchased merch or your bags in.


TL;DR
EU Fanfest 2017 was the most perfectly organised convention I have ever been to. If you didn't get a ticket for Las Vegas, all I can tell you is that you're actually not missing out on that much, concerning only the convention itself. Try to grab a ticket for Paris Fanfest instead. You won't regret it.

[AsamiJinkuen]

So, a canned response taking no responsibility for a slight on the community and absolutely nothing addressing the fact that people could just skip over the queue completely which locked out tons of people who were in queue immediately on the hour.

I don't know why I expected anything more.