Poorly Planned

[Vilhem]

I missed out on most of what I wanted from merch as well because of the poorly organized merch line. After standing for 3 hours, we heard the line was capped over the announcement speakers, but no staff bothered to go by and let the people know that it had been cut off at a certain area, so it was about an hour after that announcement that we finally left.

I got a ticket for 6pm sales, but obviously by then most of what I wanted was sold out. I missed out on an exclusive shirt cause they didn't have my size and the lore books were long gone.

You'd think they'd have learned from last Fanfest's fiasco, but nope.

As a suggestion, offer the t shirts as a bundle purchase with the ticket itself. Most anime and comic conventions do this.

[AcidRainO]

Yeah, I was immensely disappointed with the event in general. I mean, I had fun, but there were so, so, SO many issues. I didn't get to purchase ANY merch (I really, REALLY wanted a shirt or two and a lore book), there were no rewards or anything at all for the trail roulette or special trial (they have done tshirts pretty consistently in the pass, I was very sad about that this time, I have no FFXIV shirts), there were huge gaps of time with nothing to do at all, and Vegas in general is just a shitty place for a gaming-related convention. Everything costs a billion dollars and if you don't like to gamble and get wasted there isn't anything to do.

If there isn't strong, strong evidence of improvements next time I won't be attending.

[Recaldy]

I missed out on most of what I wanted from merch as well because of the poorly organized merch line. After standing for 3 hours, we heard the line was capped over the announcement speakers, but no staff bothered to go by and let the people know that it had been cut off at a certain area, so it was about an hour after that announcement that we finally left.

I got a ticket for 6pm sales, but obviously by then most of what I wanted was sold out. I missed out on an exclusive shirt cause they didn't have my size and the lore books were long gone.

You'd think they'd have learned from last Fanfest's fiasco, but nope.

As a suggestion, offer the t shirts as a bundle purchase with the ticket itself. Most anime and comic conventions do this.

Would've loved to find a spare shirt and do their job for them. Put a bad taste in my mouth dealing with that having to rely on costumer word of mouth instead of volunteers. Were they all volunteers? Poeple mention it elsewhere but it didn't seem like half of these 40-somethings knew what the game was. Maybe that was why I enjoyed the first fanfest more was because the "staff" actually played the game and cared. (Not all the staff but quite enough to notice the effort.) Not to mention nearly all the first day announcements couldn't be heard if you were standing along the back or side walls because the speaker system was all installed from the stage on the opposite side of the convention hall.

[RennyNanaya]

<snip>

They were either volunteers or grunt work. They (or at least the majority of them) had zero affiliation with Final Fantasy. My friend and I had this brought to our attention front-row seats when one person at the trial roulette had to ask what the topaz carbuncle "was supposed to be", and another chimed it that it looked kind of like Pikachu, then another with it looking like the "ugliest-ass pikachu" he'd ever seen. They're laughing and smiling as my friend who really loves carbuncle was devastated by it.
Yes, this is the same carbuncle plushie that was being sold just a few feet over.
No, I am 100% certain without any shadow of a doubt they genuinely didn't know.
I don't expect that every volunteer is going to be perfectly familiar, grunt work is grunt work, but it couldn't have been that hard to find at least a few fans.

[ArkNova]

The merch line being dispersed and capped was due to a fire marshal. Know that wall we all lined up against that was along the proto ultima fight and down to where the wind blows? the line was against the fire exits, that caused the fire marshal to flip out on the staff. Fun fact about half of the staff were temps. I heard the only staff members that were SE staff were the ones watching over the pvp, trial roullete, and proto ultima fight. How do I know? The staff member that looked like a clean Antoine Dodson was talking to my wife and I about it. Also the timed tokens were supposed to be handed out on day 1 but that vital information was not passed down the pipeline resulting in the clusterfuck we had on friday.