A personal review of the Final Fantasy Festival in London

[Evenstar]

This is a personal review of the Final Fantasy Festival in London. Let me start by saying it was an amazing day and it was worth every penny.

Opening Ceremony
Good stuff! We arrived just when the opening ceremony was about to start (whoever decided to work on the Circle/District line during a weekend where there was a NFL game, Comic-con and FFXIV Festival should be fed to Titan for breakfast).

The room was big enough, lots of screens, so hard to miss anything. Some recap of the old information, lots of new information and a nice presentation along it.

Not much to add, keep it up!

Merchandise
Right after the opening ceremony I went to the merchandise store with 2 others. We were shocked at the crazy queue that was already there. When we found out there was just one cashier we simply could not believe it. Did Square Enix really think one cashier was going to be enough for an event this big. Especially after selling out so quickly during the Las Vegas event?

We found out some of our guild members were standing a lot closer than we were, so we gave our lists to them and asked them to get our merchandise. This was the only reason we were able to get our stuff without having to stand in the queue for over 5 hours.

Making people stand in a queue of over 5 hours is simply not acceptable. I can not believe Square did not organize this better. There are so many options to make this go smooth the next time, so please evaluate this part of the festival and make sure this never happens again.

Just to name a few options:

1) Simply get more cashiers. Have more cashiers and people picking the orders. Let the customer give a list of merchandise he wants to person A. Person A gives the customer a number and starts gathering the order. When person A got the order gathered he delivers it to cashier A, including the number of the customer. Customer gets his merchandise, pays and is happy.

If you have two guys gathering the orders per cashier you can work pretty fast like this. Have 5 cashiers and 10 guys to gather the orders and you already would go so fast there hardly will be a queue.

2) Make two seperate rooms. One for pre-orders, one for general sale. Let people who buy their tickets online pre-order merchandise. Give them a number to pick up their merchandise in the pre-order room. This way they will not have to wait in the general queue, will know for sure they are getting the items they want and do not have to rush to the store the second they arrive or it opens. You will spread out the people wanting to get merchandise, since they would know their package is ready for pick-up anytime.

There are lots of other options, but those two looks like the best to me at this moment.

b]Odin[/b]
Awesome! Good fun fight and the crew knew what they were doing and what the fight was about. Everyone was really friendly and helpful. We got enough time to set-up our stuff and the queues were amazing. Absolutely no complaints here.

A big thanks for this event and the shirt! Met some fun people in the queue also!

Roulette
Can not comment here, since I did not do any. From what I saw the queues were pretty good, nothing too bad.

Goodie Bag
Nice shirt, awesome USB chargers, nice notebook. It felt a bit empty to me. Not complaining since the USB charger alone would have been cool enough already! They still could have added a few small things to the bag.

The bag I got was missing the USB charger unfortunately. I went back to the Quartermaster, explained the situation and got an USB charger. They were really friendly and made no issue out of this at all. No second guessing or questions. Thanks a lot for that. Missing out on the USB charger would have made me a sad panda.

Challenges
Did a few of the challenges for fun. Short queues, fun events. Not much to add to be honest.

Riding that damn Behemoth was harder than it looked. Did not last long and hurt myself a bit in the process. Lets say they are war wounds :P

Closing Ceremony
A M A Z I N G

I did not spoiler myself by watching the Las Vegas stream or anything so most of the songs were surprise for me. Koji doing Moogle song was amazing. The Primals were also spot on, what an energy! As a metalhead I really really really enjoyed everything, but especially the Titan theme!

I was sitting right in front of the stage, having lots of fun and I think Soken saw that and interacted a few times with me. Which really made my day

"Ssssh Titan is the last song" (after me and the people in the front shouting for Titan song)

"Fat Chocobo is not a primal" (after me shouting they should play that song)

"Which song you want?" (just before they started Titan for the first time)

... and many more interactions.


Conclusion
It was an amazing day. Except the merchandise problems I really have no complaints. I hope to see another fanfest really soon (2015?).

A few more tips:

1) Please do annouce the date of the fanfest earlier so people can plan ahead, buy tickets, book hotels etc.

2) Get a few more food options. It was a bit limited in my opinion.

3) A bigger location might be wise, but the atmosphere of this location was beyond amazing.

4) More Titan!

[NoF2P]

Yes, I agree with everything you said. All of the Crew were so helpful, and the guides posted all the way from Shadwell station were really appreciated (the Mandeville dance was a clue we were going in the right direction). Even the disappointing and (for many) futile wait in the queue for merchandise was compensated by Yoshi-P appearing at the shop in between events to sign things and pose for photos!

[Evenstar]

Yes, I agree with everything you said. All of the Crew were so helpful, and the guides posted all the way from Shadwell station were really appreciated (the Mandeville dance was a clue we were going in the right direction). Even the disappointing and (for many) futile wait in the queue for merchandise was compensated by Yoshi-P appearing at the shop in between events to sign things and pose for photos!

I did not know that, that is awesome of him!

It really adds to the vibe I got during the whole event. They seriously care about the fans and want to make the game and Eorzea a nice place for everyone. Showing up at the queues to sign stuff to make it worth the long wait really deserves a /bow.

[Denyer87]

I did not know that, that is awesome of him!

It really adds to the vibe I got during the whole event. They seriously care about the fans and want to make the game and Eorzea a nice place for everyone. Showing up at the queues to sign stuff to make it worth the long wait really deserves a /bow.

I queued for 4.5hrs and by the time i got to the front most stuff was selling out. I saw Yoshi-p but as i was inside the room when he showed up i didn't get the chance for a photo or signature as he was up by the cosplay room. I was sad but i appreciated the fact he took the time to apologize and spend time with people.

I have to say that i loved the whole day, the queue was made all the more fun by interacting with the friendly community of Eorzea and can i just say, we are a fantastic community. Everyone i met was amazingly kind and helpful.

I'm looking forward to the next one now.