Fanfest Las Vegas 2018: Merchandise Considerations and Feedback

[Vastyne]

It looks like the EU updated site includes preordered purchases in their FAQ. It shouldn't be hard for the NA Fanfest to do the same thing especially given the demand for tickets this year and the fact they are debuting the second lore book at the event. I don't think those tickets they gave out in 2016 for coming back at a later time will work well this time unless everyone gets a ticket for a timeslot in their goodie bag or something.

[Wolftamer]

It looks like the EU updated site includes preordered purchases in their FAQ. It shouldn't be hard for the NA Fanfest to do the same thing especially given the demand for tickets this year and the fact they are debuting the second lore book at the event. I don't think those tickets they gave out in 2016 for coming back at a later time will work well this time unless everyone gets a ticket for a timeslot in their goodie bag or something.

If they don't guarantee 100% stock of every item (and size) for every attendee then the timeslot tickets are still very crappy. Take two years ago. I spent between the two days a total of about 16 hours in lines related to Merchandise and by the time I got to the booth they were out of 90% of the stuff I wanted. That was literally hundreds of dollars I wanted to give SE that instead went to the blackjack tables. It also ruined my Fan Fest spending so much time in line, missing a lot, and walking away with practically nothing. It's the reason I didn't even bother with this year's ticket fiasco because they didn't announce any pre-sale before hand. I refuse to give SE my money for another Merchandise Line Savage.

[Avenger]

It was my understanding that after the horrible Merch Line Savage disaster of NA FanFest 2016 (including 5+ 16 hour waits (see above) wasting time during the actual FanFest, hundreds of people cutting in line, a failed ticket system where they gave out (and ran out of) all tickets hours before the appointed time, being sold out of lore books - and almost everything else - on the first day, closing merch purchases the second day, and everything else that went horribly wrong) they figured out that a preorder system was a much better idea, and switched to a preorder system for subsequent FanFests.

But now I'm worried, because apparently the FanFests are organized by the local community teams rather than the mother ship, and the NA FanFest might not be guaranteed to be run as well as the others apparently are - certainly ticketing was a mess as demand was vastly underestimated, ShowClix melted down, and the code system did not operate properly, resulting in a great deal of unhappiness and disappointment.

Could someone from SE/Community Team confirm officially that there will be a MERCHANDISE PREORDER SYSTEM for the 2018 NA FanFest (and presumably the others as well) and that it will apply not just to the new lore book but to all items?

Given that the euro FanFest has merch preorders, the awful disaster of non-preorders demonstrated in 2016, and the fact that a new lore book is being rolled out, it would be insane and horrible to not have merchandise preorders for the Las Vegas FanFest 2018, so I really, really hope they will be happening!!

(But given the ticketing disaster, there are no guarantees....)

[Avenger]

If they don't guarantee 100% stock of every item (and size) for every attendee then the timeslot tickets are still very crappy. Take two years ago. I spent between the two days a total of about 16 hours in lines related to Merchandise and by the time I got to the booth they were out of 90% of the stuff I wanted. That was literally hundreds of dollars I wanted to give SE that instead went to the blackjack tables. It also ruined my Fan Fest spending so much time in line, missing a lot, and walking away with practically nothing. It's the reason I didn't even bother with this year's ticket fiasco because they didn't announce any pre-sale before hand. I refuse to give SE my money for another Merchandise Line Savage.

Wow, this is shocking and completely unacceptable - even worse than I thought it was.

Time slots really do not work.

Preorders are the only way.