Tickets are all gone for fan fest

[slayerx02]

I have said my personal piece of how I, along with many were cheated out of a ticket we should be in possession of. Today I felt a deep sadness over this mess not just for myself but mostly for all the others who missed out on the 2018 FF!4 Fan Festival. Which now if nothing is done should be called the Fan Wake instead. My sadness is even deeper then it normally would but for the knowledge that many fine and even great cosplay artists, who spent probably one-two years pouring their hearts and souls into the best costume they could make. Of course hoping to be in the contest and even winning. Now those dreams have been dashed by a broken ticket system and cheaters. If you, SE, choose to go the easy route and do nothing about this then this will be a very sad fan fest. All your best fans will now regard you with no trust but only that you only seem to care about the $$ and not the players. What would Yoshi think of this mess? If you don't fix this and figure out a way to cancel the current tickets without hurting those who were legit and lucky enough to get a ticket, then sell them again to us with a vastly improved and secure system then this will be your permanent legacy! I know this post is buried in many pages of comments, I hope you take the time to read this and know this will be a permanent stain on this game and SE and all the Devs who worked so hard to make this a great game.

You make it sound like the cosplayers/players who did get tickets didn’t deserve them. Or that the majority of the ticket sold went to scalpers and not actual subscribers. My guess is, the majority of the tickets went to players who are just as big a fan like you, just as great a cosplayer as those who had the bad luck of not being able to get tickets. These fans you speak of, whose so quick to pass judgement based on rumors and hearsay aren’t really fans then, just salty, entitled kids.
It’s possible that there’s still an open investigation, it’s completely possible to identify ticket purchased by bots or other questionable means and refund those and put them back up for sale, but I bet even if they recover say 50 tickets theres still going to be a lot of angry , entitled folks anyway...

[Alleo]

I still dont understand why they dont take "pre-orders" a bit before selling tickets to see how many are interested in this (without it being final of course) and then renting a location that at least can get near that amount? Yes bigger places cost more money but you also sell more tickets and merchandise and you said that you are doing it for the fans too..

Also next to the disaster of the queue being no queue for a certain amount of time, I dont really understand why the rules to get such a code was less strict than the years before, even though FF14 grew. Before that you needed to be subbed 1-2 months before that, now you only needed to be subbed somehwere in a half year and returners with free game time counted too..why?

[Lainmyst]

The sad thing is I think they really aren't going to do anything. 24 hours without an official response (I refuse to count the forum post because not everyone comes to these forums and are desperate for a solution on Reddit/Twitter/Facebook) makes it feel like they're just pleased with the outcome and the 500+ people who got shafted are just a bump in the road and "it happens". If anything that post felt like salt in the wound because it was an attempt to put out the flames but all it did was enrage everyone because we all know what's really happening.

My post was meant to do what you think it did. I just hope they have some kind of soul with this regard. But I think i am just going to move on nothing more can be done if they continue to ignore reality.

[Avih]

Ok, so SE JP started the Fanfest tour sales last night while we are still waiting for the solid answers from SE.

https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...e7f0ec9733ed98

$3000.00/per person (incl. Fanfest 2day access/touring/air fare(excl.fuel surcharge)/Hotel)
30 limited tickets.

30 X $3000.00 = $90000.00

Friend of mine works at HIS Japan who handles tours. Said these of bundles are handled pretty cheap.
His rough estimates, $20000 for the hotels, $40000 for the airfare, anywhere between $6000-$15000 for the touring and transportations
(touring industry is in heavy competition nowdays. so they'll take whatever the company's offers and just takes it).

That leaves $15000 for SE profit. Not much for SE, but if you see it as $500/each person($15000/30ppl) for the tickets.
Off course it's a rough estimate. But seems like these Japanese fans are paying much higher rate.

I wonder if we get the same opportunities for the upcoming EU and JP fanfest.
Fair trade right? considering NA fanfest is giving up 30 seats for the other regional players.
Not that I can afford it, but just wondering.

[Catwho]

I still dont understand why they dont take "pre-orders" a bit before selling tickets to see how many are interested in this (without it being final of course) and then renting a location that at least can get near that amount? Yes bigger places cost more money but you also sell more tickets and merchandise and you said that you are doing it for the fans too..

Also next to the disaster of the queue being no queue for a certain amount of time, I dont really understand why the rules to get such a code was less strict than the years before, even though FF14 grew. Before that you needed to be subbed 1-2 months before that, now you only needed to be subbed somehwere in a half year and returners with free game time counted too..why?

Someone on the Reddit thread explained that the large venues in Vegas are generally booked up years in advance, and due to the nature of FanFest (only being every 2 years) and the fluidity of the timeframe (they probably won't know exactly when they are gonna hold each fanfest until one year prior, and the time of year is much later this time), the larger Vegas venues are not going to give them an acceptable price. This year tickets were $150 - if 4K of them were sold, SE only has an operating budget of $600,000. What if the hotel wants half of that for a larger space? That's a mere $300K to rent LAN computers, pay event staff, order T-shirts, buy custom swag for the swag bags, etc. That money goes fast.

Hotels generally offer reasonable rates on event space when they have assurances that most of the guests will stay at the hotel, hence the con rates for blocks of hotel rooms. But hotels also want predictability, and SE not scheduling these events regularly, years in advance, means they're not getting the best deal that they could if they were an annual event.

(I know for a fact that Dragon*Con is so big and so regular that hotels give the con chairs a small cut of the hotel profits, because they are 100% guaranteed to be sold out that weekend, and nothing encourages good relationships like permanent business.)

[Avenger]

Someone on the Reddit thread explained that the large venues in Vegas are generally booked up years in advance, and due to the nature of FanFest (only being every 2 years) and the fluidity of the timeframe (they probably won't know exactly when they are gonna hold each fanfest until one year prior, and the time of year is much alter this time), the larger Vegas venues are not going to give them an acceptable price.

Preorders are a good idea to gauge interest, and also to make it easier for players to get tickets.
Yoshi-P seems to like Las Vegas, but there are lots of places they could have the NA FanFest.
I think there were FFXI Fan Festivals in Anaheim and LA, for example.

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/wiki/Fan_Festivals
https://web.archive.org/web/20060203...stival.com:80/

[Alleo]

@Catwho: Its not like they are bound to Vegas. NA is quite big, so there should have been some places. Also seemingly Blizzcon with over 30k visitors still has a ticket price of under 200, so its not really sure that they would need to raise the price much. (Also were did you get the budget from? Was this posted somehwere? Kinda curious)

In the end if they are now already not willing to go bigger, then doesnt that mean that it will always stay that small, no matter how many more people will play it? Wouldnt that just increase the anger of all those that miss it? (Especially since its not every year) Maybe they should get away from such wide fanfests and really do smaller ones through the year in different places, to have people meet up, maybe even meet the staff (it does not always have to be Yoshida) and thats it.

[InkstainedGwyn]

You're not going to be able to book any decent-sized venues less than a year ahead, and a year ahead, a large majority of people aren't going to be able to plan that far in advance, so they'd get woefully inadequate predictive numbers, possibly even to the point of booking something too small. That's also taking into consideration that hired companies who provide things like lighting, equipment, and rentals, often also need to be contacted >6 mo. before the event.

(I work for a convention that runs 11,000-14,000 attendees per year. It's not quite the same, as we have a 10-year contract with our convention centre, but given that they have events booked 10 years in advance it should show you some of the nature of this business. We're also in a small state capital, which means that anywhere larger is going to have even worse issues.)

[Tint]

Maybe they should get away from such wide fanfests and really do smaller ones through the year in different places, to have people meet up, maybe even meet the staff (it does not always have to be Yoshida) and thats it.

that's funny, because we already have kind of exactly that: the Fan Gatherings. it seems the last one was in Helsinki. Don't you have Fan Gatherings in NA? I know there was one in London early this year and we had some in Germany at the Gamescom.

[Boxworm]

- FFXIV "best and worst experiences" story time

Second part is unnecessary. After this fiasco, I'm pretty sure most people attending the unofficial Fan Fest would have the same worst experience story. :P

Jokes aside, I like this idea and I'd definitely attend if it were to take place. If not, well, my crew already has suites booked at the Desert Blue. Those of us who didn't get tickets can just gather up in one of the suites, watch the live stream together, hang out, drink, and enjoy our own private, intimate version of Fan Fest. I think this is the best way to handle such a shitty situation.

I know there are some people who are depressed because all their friends either got tickets, or didn't and cancelled their trip. If you can't cancel your hotel/flight and you have no friends to hang out with... hi! I'm Box. I'll be your friend. ♥