Tickets are all gone for fan fest

[Kanzer]

You're right, it was silly of me to think that some people don't have that amount of cash on them at all times. You've enlightened me kind sir.

You had literally months to prepare for this. This is how it's gonna be from now on, FFXIV Fanfest is a now a popular con in high demand. There are certain preparations you're going to have to make if you want to increase your chances of going. This includes collaborating with friends and pooling money together so that the first person who gets in can buy for everyone. Since I've started doing this I haven't missed a particular con I want to go to(Though I recognize the chance is definitely still there!). Take it as a lesson learned and better luck next time!

[Lufkin]

Lot's of people did get tickets and this is just how these cons get as they get more popular. Hell Blizzcon is so popular now you have to have extremely good luck to get tickets.

I would argue that Blizzcon is more of a video game convention, not a fan festival. For every fan who gets a ticket to Blizzcon, you can find two people there who are representing the video game industry. I might be naive, but I think Yoshi and team actually care about their fans and want to celebrate them directly. And I think they want to accommodate as many people as possible. All they have to do is get a bigger venue and sell more tickets. In vegas, that is easy to do.

I'm happy for people who got tickets legitimately, and we all should be. But SE needs to understand our anger and disappointment so they can do better. They fell short, it seems.

[Tsalmaveth]

It's not 'this is just how it gets'... that's BS. This is 100% a failure on SE/Showclix's part for how they handled ticket sales. 10hrs+ compared to >20min? Pretty obvious there was more than just shenanigans going on but they don't want to try to fix it because it would be costly for them, possibly something showclix is not willing to deal with, and they can just wave their hands and wait for the little white knights to come in and try to shut down the outrage so it can just 'go away'.

They failed at the BASICS of how they advertised to players tickets were going to be handled. There is proof of that. And this 'answer' is bs AND tone-deaf to boot.

Don't just give SE a pass on this and don't come in here trying to white knight for them, either. They certainly don't deserve it in this situation one bit.

[Boxworm]

This is an utter disaster. Like countless others, I was over-prepared, incredibly hyped up, completely ready to snag my tickets. Entered queue immediately at 3:00, sat in queue and had 'reserved tickets' (lol) for 28 minutes before receiving the 'sold out' message. People who entered queue a few minutes after me got tickets. People were able to purchase tickets without needing to input a code. Many reports have been made that people were able to COMPLETELY BYPASS THE QUEUE, as well as buy more than 4 tickets. Tickets were being posted for sale at least by 3:45, at 2-3x the original price (or even more).

FACTS:
- You should not refer to it as a 'queue' if it is actually a lottery-based system. This is incredibly misleading.
- You should not refer to them as 'reserved tickets' if they aren't actually reserved in any way, shape or form.
- There is absolutely NO reason for ANYONE, not even ONE PERSON to be able to purchase tickets without an access code. This renders the codes completely obsolete. Never mind the fact that MANY people have reported being able to purchase without a code.
- There is absolutely NO reason for ANYONE to be able to BYPASS THE QUEUE by ANY means. That is COMPLETELY BROKEN.
- If the stated purchase limit is four tickets per code, this needs to be enforced for EVERYONE, not just some.
- In 2016, tickets took several hours to sell out (I'm hearing 10-12? Not sure, but in 2016, my friends and I certainly had no issues purchasing). The fact that this year they were all sold out in less than 30 minutes is suspicious and worthy of being looked into.
- THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. Huge errors were made. You cannot just brush this under the rug. Yes, the technical issues are on Showclix, but that does not mean it isn't YOUR duty to investigate and ultimately make things right.

There was a huge amount of heartbreak and anger in my group last night. I think something like 5/15 of us got tickets. We have collectively decided to meet up in Vegas anyway, as many of us have been planning this literally since Fan Fest 2016 ended. We've already saved up, booked hotels and time off work. We are deeply disappointed, not just in not being able to attend Fan Fest, but in SE's response to this disaster. Perhaps you got your money and that's all that matters to you, but know that this has deeply affected the way your community views you and that will eventually have repercussions.

I'm so disappointed, SE. I didn't think you could top the Merch Line 2016 fiasco, but here we are...

[ExKage]

I hope the community team, the FFXIV devs, and Square Enix can see that FFXIV FanFest is in incredibly high demand and that they need to invest in its growth. If they're so set on Las Vegas, Nevada, look towards University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Hell, look to the Long Beach Convention center like Square Enix is using for Los Angeles FanFesta for Brave Exvius.

There can actually be huge shifts in demand. 2008 Blizzcon to 2009 for example. Anime Expo's Premier badge sales went out in a minute earlier this week compared to a time that was far longer than that last year.

Edit: I'd like for actual purchasers of 4+ or 20+ tickets to step forward. Here. Not on a random place like 4chan where people generally love to shitpost to stir trouble or to troll you. Square Enix's statement is that they didn't find anyone doing that.

As it is, a large portion of my friends all got tickets for themselves/groups of theirs. Several friends groups will be going. Telling them they have to go through it again would be horrible and cause far more trouble. More people would be unhappy. I'm glad I already set myself up for "You have high chances of not getting a ticket like 2014, just take a vacation since you haven't done so in awhile other than the recent trip a year ago."

[Naria]

Are the people in Paris pretty fluent with English or shall I start taking lessons for French?

Parisians would rather set you on fire than speak English with you. Though for Americans maybe they'd make an exception? For the English it's certainly not going to happen.

I'm American and when I was in Paris a few years ago the only people who spoke English with me were hotel concierges, tour guides, the help desk at the Lourve and the people trying to sell me overpriced souvenirs (ofc I was also traveling with someone who spoke basic French, so that might have influenced them). That said that's pretty standard in my experience for non-English speaking countries. If you are really serious about going I'd at least pick up a phrase book or find a podcast for traveler's French or something.

[Rakuko]

I'd like for actual purchasers of 4+ or 20+ tickets to step forward. Here. Not on a random place like 4chan where people generally love to shitpost to stir trouble or to troll you. Square Enix's statement is that they didn't find anyone doing that.

I'm afraid this may be anecdotal -as I'd rather not throw the person who organised this under the bus as he had good intentions- but I was asked during AX if I was willing to join a ticket pooling group (buy 4 each and redistribute the remaining 3 to his friends who didn't manage). Unfortunately I don't know how many people were involved, or how many tickets he ultimately bought (but I know it's definitely at least 4), but I do know that after I declined to join, he went ahead and did this in the end.

[JunseiKei]

Have ya'll never tried to buy tickets for something popular before? This is the norm for most big name events. The only difference is that you can't buy tickets from scalpers/third parties later if you miss the direct buy window.

It'd not be so worrying if not for the allegations of being able to bypass the queue, not requiring an access code (because ACTIVE accounts during a certain time period was supposed to be required), and being able to circumvent the limit of 4 tickets per code are the main culprits to our ire. Not simply the demand was greater than the product. If it's a norm to have these things happen at "big name events," then I don't know why more people aren't up in arms on a broken system. Even if then, the statements of "more tickets than ever before" doesn't match up with the amount of time it took to sell-out, as compared to the events that took place 2 years and 4 years ago, that should make people question if what is being said is true (which granted, Bayohne is just doing their job and shouldn't be the target of anger).

[Boxworm]

As it is, a large portion of my friends all got tickets for themselves/groups of theirs. Several friends groups will be going. Telling them they have to go through it again would be horrible and cause far more trouble. More people would be unhappy.

I don't think the majority of us are calling for a total re-do. We fully recognize that many players did in fact legitimately obtain their tickets. It's not their fault if they were able to purchase when someone who queued 5 minutes before them was not able to. It's not their fault if they weren't prompted for an access code. It's not their fault if they were one of the lucky ones.

What I personally would like to see is, at the very least, an apology and an admission that things went very wrong and a promise that this will not happen again. Ideally, I'd like to see customers' e-mail addresses run (or contacted) to verify they had a legitimate access code, and if any codes were found to have been used multiple times (which apparently was also possible), those transactions should be investigated.

Without a doubt, anyone who cheated the system by skipping the queue deserves to have their tickets revoked. If a customer entered the queue as they were supposed to, regardless of how long it took, and can verify they had a code, then the sale was legitimate. Unfair, but legitimate. I don't know exactly how the sales worked over 4 tickets; I'm not sure if the drop-down list allowed for greater amounts or if people perhaps refreshed the page or something to gain access to more. It's possible it was the latter option, and that's why SE claims to have no evidence of excess ticket purchases. It's possible those purchases were made 4 tickets at a time. Yes, it could just be people trolling, but with everything else that happened -- in particular, the fact that the URL could be used to bypass the queue -- I wouldn't be surprised if using that URL could also allow the person to make multiple transactions using the same or no access code.

[Akira]

do you think SE will release more tickets at a later date?