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.

[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.

[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.

[VelKallor]

Japanese users 30% - US & Canada 34% = difference is 4% so extreme majority = NO.

SE is a Japanese company., the game is Japanese first and foremost, it makes sense they focus closer to home. In a way, hearing this is hysterically funny, as I seem to recall the VERY SAME sentiment back in WOW where we were told "This is an American game..for Americans".

US companies treat others as second or fourth class customers.....ALL THE TIME.

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.

Not to mention the cost.

we're still only getting a single date for the Symphony when Japan got multiple days.

At least they are making the effort, whereas Blizzard ( an American company) have NEVER had a Blizzcon outside the US, never attend Pax Aus ( oh wait yes they did, but there were no staff, they scuttled off and left a tacky cardboard cutout as "representation". SE however, had a HUGE expo and a new raid for people to play. )

I find it..almost schadenfreude...when i see Americans complaining about not catering enough to them..when some of the largest American games companies treat anyone who isnt American just as badly..............if not worse.

[rainichan]

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

While I'm salty over other issues with this particular Fanfest, of note: that same weekend the LVCC is hosting another convention there. I have no idea how large it is (though the floor plan shows the entirety of the downstairs filled up, which is a HUGE amount of space, you can see it here) which means we'd be on the second or third level, which holds much less - I've been there before and when some rooms can be sectioned off for panels etc., that's not really needed in this particular instance like it would be for an anime con, so the larger room will be opened with stage stuff there, and if the smaller rooms are there for merch or whatever else that aren't stage happenings, that'd use the space effectively, but it's much smaller than the ground floors.

I do wish they had extra space for even up to 20k people, but if their hands were tied in that particular instance, that's not something I can be mad at them for. As it is, this is already almost double the amount of the attendees for 2018's Fanfest (which was a much bigger crapshow in getting tickets which is why we have the JP-style of lotteries for them - I'm still mad over how 2018 was handled) so they know there's a demand, but it's not particularly feasible to find a place that they can rent out for 100k people or more when they may not hit that number. Ticket prices would have to go up for a much larger venue for that amount of people, and $200 is already a fairly painful price point.

So there really are pros and cons (heh) to this situation. I would love more people to be able to go, but pricing would go higher, not everyone would be guaranteed a spot still, and logistics would still likely be a nightmare. They can still learn from this going forward, but as long as there's no f[kupo]kery with tickets that are supposed to be capped out and are NOT in another repeat of 2018's ticket sales for scalpers and people buying up more so they're sold out in a matter of minutes, I'll be happy.

And yes, 2018 ticket sales were so bad that in a JP-only Live Letter at 3am PST, they had an English apology about the ticket situation. It was terrible.

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

I only went to 2016 (and pretty sure I saw you there in your Matoya cosplay ) and it was P A C K E D. Glad they went away from casinos for more people but I would be happy with virtual tickets like they had in the past that got you all of the stage stuff + concerts. I guess they want the concerts to be exclusive or not have people pirate stream them out to people who haven't paid up, but it's a little silly to me that they wouldn't have a free option for the keynotes + panels and a paid option to add in the concerts for that extra $$$ but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯