North American Fanfest 2023 - Egregious Mistakes and Suggestions for the Future

[Vuro]

Far too many of us are going to miss out on Fanfest.

Inquiries to Showclix revealed that only a total of 15,000 tickets would be sold, which is absolutely bewildering considering the number of active players here in North America and the convention center chosen for the event, which can comfortably accommodate 50,000 guests (its maximum capacity is actually four times that much). Even worse is that the concert won't be streamed, which further excludes a great many fans who wished to attend. We get so few events and promotions compared to our Japanese counterparts despite matching their active userbase, and I was foolishly optimistic this Fanfest might remedy that somewhat. Let's examine some numbers to see how frustrating this is:

In terms of daily logins, Japanese users clock in at about 30% for active players, while the US & Canada account for about 34%. According to the XIVCensus, there are 1,184,415 endgame characters (those who've completed Endwalker MSQ) –385,150 are from JP, 517,145 are from NA. This data shows that NA boasts an active playerbase just as significant (if not moreso) than Japan's, yet Square Enix continues to behave like this isn't the case. While this has gotten better in recent years, exemplified by the fact that we're getting the Eorzean Symphony for the first time, this is still a too-small step –we're still only getting a single date for the Symphony when Japan got multiple days.

The ideal solution would be for Square Enix to sell twice as many Fanfest tickets, but especially for this year's event, I don't see this happening. So, how could they prevent the extreme majority of the community from being excluded from the fandom's largest celebration? I'd love to see a $30-$60 virtual ticket that would give fans access to the streamed concert as well as the goodie bag shipped to their homes. As of this writing, this twitter poll has collected data from ~9,300 people that intended to go to Fanfest. Only 16% of them got a code, meaning 84% of those people have an open wallet that Square Enix could easily dip their fingers in to with a little effort. I'm willing to bet more than half of those who failed to score a ticket to the in-person event would happily buy a virtual ticket –I know I would!

This whole situation has been a lose-lose for Square Enix and FFXIV fans alike. There's a staggering amount of money being left on the table and thousands of fans across the region are rightfully upset. I have no idea if anyone from SE will ever read this, but my hope is that going forward, Square Enix will work harder to accommodate its paying audience overseas.

[AwesomeJr44]

Personally I've never really cared for fanfests or conventions, but the way this one was handled was pretty stupid. Honestly, this would put me off from trying to buy a ticket next year, even if I wanted one.

[SassyAssassin]

Id be more likely to purchase a virtual ticket vs a live one either way, especially with the EU fanfest being held in London, having to travel over or under sea to get there is a big nope from the beginning.

[hagare]

Id be more likely to purchase a virtual ticket vs a live one either way, especially with the EU fanfest being held in London, having to travel over or under sea to get there is a big nope from the beginning.

under the sea? *starts singing*

The only reason for it not going away is because politicians don't want to give up the power COVID gave them

No. COVID is not political.
Or at least it shouldn't be. It's a disease.
Only the people who has an agenda make it political

[Johners]

Inquiries to Showclix revealed that only a total of 15,000 tickets would be sold, which is absolutely bewildering considering the number of active players here in North America and the convention center chosen for the event, which can comfortably accommodate 50,000 guests (its maximum capacity is actually four times that much). Even worse is that the concert won't be streamed, which further excludes a great many fans who wished to attend. We get so few events and promotions compared to our Japanese counterparts despite matching their active userbase, and I was foolishly optimistic this Fanfest might remedy that somewhat. Let's examine some numbers to see how frustrating this is:

Selling more tickets isn't really the solution as you'd then have to actually host enough content/activities to provide value to all of those people. As this is an event just for one game, unlike say BlizzCon where it's an entire publisher presenting several major franchises, I don't particularly see how they can do this. And the only other alternative would be putting the extra people into overflow halls to watch panels on giant screens.

That said, the easier solution would be to sell a virtual ticket like Blizzard did for in-person BlizzCon's prior to the pandemic. That way there's a deterrent, of sorts, to keep people away from wanting to attend the in-person event as the content is easily accessible elsewhere.

[Avoidy]

The actual entry price was nuts for what's being offered, and the member cap was stupidly low. Like there are fanime conventions that let more people in.
On a personal level I really couldn't care less; I think the whole thing's just an expensive super spreader event and everyone paying to go is basically paying to see a really expensive concert and a bunch of SE ads. But I still sit in awe at how poorly it was handled for the people who wanted to go.
Well, it can't be helped I guess. They're a small independent studio, so you couldn't expect Square to handle an event on a large scale.

[Atelier-Bagur]

The actual entry price was nuts for what's being offered, and the member cap was stupidly low. Like there are fanime conventions that let more people in.
On a personal level I really couldn't care less; I think the whole thing's just an expensive super spreader event and everyone paying to go is basically paying to see a really expensive concert and a bunch of SE ads. But I still sit in awe at how poorly it was handled for the people who wanted to go.
Well, it can't be helped I guess. They're a small independent studio, so you couldn't expect Square to handle an event on a large scale.

You do realize the disaster the previous fanfests where with having tickets sold out even if you had your ticket reserved, people waiting in long lines, and reports of people just coming in without tickets/passcode whatever have you.

Seriously you people need to stop ignoring your own damn history. But cant expect much with fans whom cry at every single little thing without giving actual logical thought, the FFXIV community is only just a very tiny minority within the gaming industry.

[Striker44]

You do realize the disaster the previous fanfests where with having tickets sold out even if you had your ticket reserved, people waiting in long lines, and reports of people just coming in without tickets/passcode whatever have you.

Seriously you people need to stop ignoring your own damn history. But cant expect much with fans whom cry at every single little thing without giving actual logical thought, the FFXIV community is only just a very tiny minority within the gaming industry.

This. As soon as someone starts going full-on hyperbole with words like "egregious" for something a small portion of the fanbase is even likely interested in attending in-person, you've lost my interest. There are many more real things happening to real people that are far more serious to use words like "egregious" to describe a fan convention for a video game.

[Catwho]

Another solution would have been to have two NA fanfests, one on the east coast and one on the west coast, but that's twice as much work so I can them not wanting to bother.

I went to two Fanfests. Missed the 2018 one because I didn't get a ticket. Gonna miss the 2023 one because I didn't get a ticket.

Selling us virtual tickets for like $20 or so to watch the events streamed would be a nice consolation prize. We can only hope

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Another solution would have been to have two NA fanfests, one on the east coast and one on the west coast, but that's twice as much work so I can them not wanting to bother.

I went to two Fanfests. Missed the 2018 one because I didn't get a ticket. Gonna miss the 2023 one because I didn't get a ticket.

Selling us virtual tickets for like $20 or so to watch the events streamed would be a nice consolation prize. We can only hope

I would love an East cost Fanfest to the fact it would cost me a lot to just fly to the west coast. I did the math since my static wanted to do a meet-up (be my first fanfest with them since the last one was just online) and between the air fair, hotel, and the ticket I was looking at $1,000 easily. For me, that is way too much for an event so I told my static I would not even try for a ticket. A virtual ticket would be awesome also. I would be happy to spend $60 to $100 for a v ticket and a goodie bad send to my house.