Suggestions for Future Fan Fests

[yazpanda]

I agree with whoever said they were disappointed with the quality of work submitted, but only because I personally HATE my submission and know with more notice I could have done something much better. (some of the work was amazing, but the general standard could have been so much higher) Not to mention my partner spent 2 minutes on MS paint as a joke and was a finalist... I get that they wanna be inclusive and for all they knew it could have been from someone with not a lot of skill who still worked very hard on it, but in a contest you can't just include a broad selection when you're trying to find someone to actually win in each category.

I feel very sorry for those who did not make it in the top 40 who will see that joke entry and wonder why their work lost out to that.

[FJerome]

I agree with whoever said they were disappointed with the quality of work submitted, but only because I personally HATE my submission and know with more notice I could have done something much better.

[...]

I feel very sorry for those who did not make it in the top 40 who will see that joke entry and wonder why their work lost out to that.

My entry didn't even meet minimum DPI and still got displayed so my feelings on this are similar to yours.

That said I'm not too worried we shoved aside more worthy competition, I think we all got displayed because with the way the contest was run almost no one submitted.

[WispaGreentop]

1. All seated press conference. - standing for so long was not easy.
2. Have a few more seats around. - stone steps, outside, benching, café, stairs or under the heaters, you cant go far wrong with a few nice benches.
3. Open up all of the venue. - there was a whole area at the back of glass fronted units that would have made great merchandise outlets.
4. Consider a click and collect shopping system. - where people can reserve items before attending then collect them while attending.
5. Snacks - nice to have a couple of barrow (market) carts around selling hot and cold snacks and drinks. (dark pretzel anyone)
6. Make it over two whole days - many of the problems came about because everyone wanted to get it all done inside one day.
7. More - the events were good, the theme was good, carry on with the Limsa theme, we all agreed that the ships outside would make amazing airships if they were just kitted out with a few very large balloons and sails.

[Mattlex]

I mentioned this on the US thread before but it's more appropriate in this one.

I didn't go to the Fan fest because I refused to spend the standard ticket price for a 1 day event. It seems that my decision not to go was the right one as i probably would have spent £65 to stand in a queue by the sounds of it.

my main gripe with the cost is how they can justify it. £65 is roughly $105 when converted, considering that that is just $15 short of a ticket to a 3 day event in Vegas. the cost for the one day event in London is just plain ridiculous

[Geckojas]

More merch options. Not just at the event, but leading up to it as well. I would have bought a t-shirt or something to wear to the event had it been available, but it seems FFXIV official merch is both thin on the ground and over-priced.

MOG HATS. I saw them in the video, and wanted to take some home for my kids. Not that I like to brainwash my kids early into liking the things I like *looks at three girls in LFC kits*

I agree that controllers and keyboards on all stations would've been a good idea, but one of my FC has now converted to keyboard after the Odin fights.

I think perhaps some kind of prize for trying ALL of the activities would have been good, this might have encouraged people to try everything instead of endlessly queuing for Odin, battle roulette and merchandise.

On the subject of the art contest, I know a few people who wanted to enter but couldn't due to time. These should have been announced much earlier. Perhaps on a properly updated website?

2/2

[Geckojas]

How is anyone supposed to have a good rant with 1000 character limit? pfft

[FJerome]

How is anyone supposed to have a good rant with 1000 character limit? pfft

Editing your original post lets you get around the limit.

[raelgun]

With regards to the unused areas, most of the venue was open to the public, theres also bits needed for staff and venue needs so its not as easy as you might think, also we need conan at the next fan fest.

[Kio]

Loved the event, it was a lot of fun and hope you return next year!

I think the venue worked well for the FF theme and it was nice that there were rooms set aside for just little things like fan art. My favourite was the aetestation, having my hair done up pretty by the salon technicians was a real treat. I even saw a man before me with lengthy locks that were flowing like Fabio when they were through with him. The aeythsite crystal in the middle was also very cool.

As for improvements for next year, I would really like to see the event extended to two days. I saw several people from different countries that traveled extremely far to attend but it was completely impossible to actually go to all of the events. For instance, each major event was about every hour, yet a line for the merchandise or Odin battle could be upwards to 4 hours. We had to purposefully miss out on most of the activities and didn't get to do much. I hate that I missed out on a lot of the event just because it was entirely impossible due to the timing and amount of people. Two days would have allowed for it.

As said before, more registers at the merchandise area, or at least spread merchandise between different booths scattered around. It would have been nice to also have more variety of merchandise.

And also mentioned, seated events would be nice. I could not see over all the tall men holding their cameras high above their heads in the standing events. At least request that everyone sit on the ground if nothing else so everyone can see the stage.

Lastly, I would like to see an area set aside just to get signatures from the dev team and other game related celebrities. It was stated that crew members would be out on the floor for the sake of dishing out autographs, and we even received a book for that exact purpose, but not a soul was to be found anywhere. It seemed like something only reserved for the VIP members which was a real bummer. I even bought the art book hoping to get Yoshi-P to sign it but we never got to see him or anybody else for that matter and that was a real let down.

Please consider two day event next year so that we can do all the things!