Suggestions for Future Fan Fests

[Albiere]

When the Fan Fest was announced I was interested in going, however I was a bit apprehensive as there was not much information given about the event before the tickets were made available.

In the end I decided it was too much money for something I knew nothing about, a view I know many others on the forums shared at the time. I decided to leave it this year to see how this one turned out.

Incidentally, the website for the London Fan Fest still has very little information, even now it still reads "check back again, more info coming soon!"

I think a lot of people who wanted to attend this year would have appreciated more details beforehand. Will this be something you consider in the future?

Please feel free to share your views in this thread, especially those of you who have attended one of the events. What would you like to see improved in the future if another Fan Fest is held? Let's leave some feedback here!

[Kelia]

Get more staff in merch

Because from here it seems like 1. Been in merchandise queue since the intro ended, there's nowhere to sit down and the queue has moved 30 feet in the last hour. I'm struggling as my back has seized up but will REALLY feel like I wasted the last 2 hours if I leave

[Unholychinchilla]

Amen to that. If it helps there's seating further for you to look forward to.

[Kelia]

I'm on it. After nearly 3 hours standing uppppp. Revising my estimate of when this queue will be done to 5pm. This is TERRIBLE.

[Kelia]

HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT. I'm still in the queue and half the stuff I wanted has sold out. I've been here over 6 hours and done literally done nothing but watch the intro and queue. This is such a waste of my time and money, half the event has gone by. SE you should be ashamed to put your name to this.

[Kelia]

ONE TILL FOR TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE?!

[Rufalus]

I didn't wait for merchandise Kelia after seeing the length of the line. Left the fan fest asap and came home, my back is still hurting me from the opening keynote which didn't have any chairs and the floor was level so it was difficult to see anything with taller people in front of me. You can't do anything there, it's just too many people in an unsuitable venue.

[Kelia]

The opening part would have been WAY better with chairs. They were there for the afternoon panels I didn\\\\'t get why none in the morning, we were filed in slowly anyway so wouldn\\\\'t have been a time issue. Also would have made it easier to see. I\\\\'d already been standing for 90 mins when we got in :X

the actual layout I thought was ok, it didn\\\\'t feel too crowded inside. Once we finished with merch (at 3.45?!) 4.5 hours later, everyone had a fantastic time. I\\\\'m just sad I didn\\\\'t get to do the uldah, limsa, gridania challenges, or do more of the fun stuff like green screen, alchemy, jewellery making or archery. There was just about enough time to enjoy everything if you didn\\\\'t queue for merch I guess! Still enjoyed myself though.

[Kelia]

It would also be good to have tvs showing the panels for people queuing. There was one for Odin queue but nothing anywhere else that I saw except just outside the main hall. I actually thought the Odin queue worked really well, it moved fast enough and crew helped groups form which was fab.

If there was 1 thing for Odin it\\'d be making sure that people knew what class they could play, putting up a poster of what classes each char was, would be great. I was kind of spaced out after many hours standing. sat down in front of Dragoon Eventj and asked if we could switch classes, crew just said no and walked off. I freaked out, never played a melee let alone a drgbert. He could have just said "go smn" so I could swap with the person who WANTED it, rather than have me hyperventilating for half the setup time trying to work out drg rotation from tooltips.* didn\\'t help that someone had unbound the shortcut to character pane so I COULDN\\'T change class.

*moar heavy thrust?

[Nemausus]

After the keynote speech I had an hour before the first panel so queued for merch. After that hour I was committed to that queue. Perhaps naively I stood there assuming it would improve - as the huge queue to get in was processed in mega-fast time - but it took another 3 hours to get to the checkout.

My back had gone by then. I missed everything but the opening ceremony. The only other thing left was Odin, but I'd become pretty disillusioned by then.

I walked out the exit, the guy on the gate asked me if I wanted to come back in, I said "nah" walked to the DLR and got a much earlier return coach home.

Right now I feel the event isn't worth the money. Mostly I feel angry with myself for standing in THAT queue.

If they're thinking about this next year:

1. Have more than 1 person taking money in the merch room
2. Schedule published much earlier than 5 days before the event
3. More seating
4. Keynote speech in an area without pillars and stands blocking the view?