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.