So over the weekend, I attended my first-ever Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest, going to the first leg of the 2023-2024 tour in Las Vegas. It was an…interesting experience.

Firstly, to say the obvious, I have no prior grounding in Fan Fest to guide me, but I have been to almost every Blizzcon, a handful of other small and large nerd cons, and used to work directly on cons in convention housing and registration. I’m not going to claim a high degree of expertise, but I will put forward that I have at least a reasonably good sense of what a well-run convention should look like. I also, which will become important, went with a group of players from my Free Company and our orbit, so the social end of my experience was a part of the whole package.

That being said, you can see the title and have a sense of where this is going, yeah? Let’s get into it.

Venue Choice

Picking Las Vegas and the LVCC specifically was…a choice. Picking that in July during a record global heatwave was…also a choice.

The problem with the venue is multifold. LVCC is a building just off the strip, and as far as convention centers go, it’s kind of an island unto itself. There was no direct connection to any hotel at all, with the closest property being the Westgate, which requires going to a back door and through a service road. This means there is no escaping the outdoor heat of Las Vegas – at some point, you have to go outside. The front entrance of the convention center has a negligible amount of shade trees and shading architecture, and the much-touted Las Vegas monorail is a fully-outdoor solution without station air conditioning or any sort of comfort short of shade and hopefully a breeze. The station at the LVCC is about 1,000 feet from any door to the convention center, meaning that you will have to bear the heat for a 5-8 minute walk, much of which is unshaded.

Square Enix has a history of having Fan Fest NA in Las Vegas, but in the past, it was always in a casino-attached convention center, meaning you could stay mostly indoors and had multiple ways to dodge the heat. It was also typically in mid-fall, which also took the edge off the weather to a point. This year’s event had none of those benefits, so it was fucking miserably hot and there were so few ways to actually stay out of the heat. The originally-planned Endwalker NA Fan Fest that would have been in November of 2020 was scheduled for San Diego in the SDCC, a smaller venue that has much better overall planning with a better array of hotels, milder weather, a large restaurant district immediately outside, and a more robust transit infrastructure. The Anaheim Convention Center that Blizzcon always uses is my gold standard because it is built to accomodate the attendee experience very well. It’s flanked by hotels on all sides, has easy access to multiple restaurants within a few hundred feet, has a handful of drug stores with stocked grocery sections in easy walking distance, and is built with a shaded courtyard for entry.

So the Las Vegas venue was just not up to par with those other options. But thoughtful planning could mitigate it, surely, right? Surely, no one would be made to stand outside in direct sun in 100+ degree weather…uh oh.

Planning, or a Lack Thereof

Fan Fest was a clusterfuck from the get-go. The registration line snaked around on day 0 with no clear demarcation or signage to direct you to the actual line location, and it took staff a long time to get people coordinated and to the right place. On day 1, the line snafu got worse, because the pre-opening line went outside and was stuck there. I had heard (unconfirmed) that the fire marshal had kicked people out of the building for code issues that day. Fan Fest was in the North wing alongside Jam On It, a youth basketball event, with no clear separation of entrances or lines and a lot of confusion mingling in the entryway. After waiting outside in the hot sun and way too hot temperatures, there was a single entry point with about 10 metal detectors and overwhelmed security staff waving people through without regard for the policies, which seemed to change moment to moment. You could bring a sealed water bottle, but also a half-full one? The metal detector was supposed to deter threats of violence, but a Redditor had posted saying a friend with a concealed carry firearm made it through security and into the building?! The wristbands for access were seldom checked, so you could, if you wanted, just wander on in, and the wristbands, unlike when Blizzcon did them in 2019, had no security feature like an NFC chip or anything, so you could just theoretically find the image and make a fake.

But once you were in, great, right? Nope! With an attendee base of around 15,000, the main and only stage where all panels and events took place had, roughly, 2,000 chairs. ADA support was so bad that people in wheelchairs and ADA seating were jostled about and often told to move on short notice. Attendees did that asshole thing I hate at cons where they put their feet and items on multiple adjacent chairs to save seats for friends who often never came, which you could watch happen in real time, so there was just a lack of consideration for other attendees that isn’t really the fault of planning, but come on – seats for less than 20% of the attendees?! Are you fucking kidding me? The merchandise and battle trial lines were one entity with no separation, and the merch setup was so bad that they were usually done within an hour of opening, which, at least, the app for the festival would notify you of so you wouldn’t bother wasting your time. The event’s space utilization was poor, with a bunch of carnival-style minigames along the back and side walls behind the seating for the main stage, with a large patch of empty space where people often just sat on the floor to watch panels. The merch and battle trial areas were in a single hall with a large amount of empty space, which is confusing as to why the lines for both pushed out into the lobby area in a single mass of humanity.

The battle trial had you make a reservation through the app for a time, but then you still had to wait in-line to get to your time, so you could miss it or be too early because you misgauged the line, and then the staff would nudge you to a standby line which just meant waiting to fill out someone else’s appointed time when a group had gaps. The peripheral loadout on the stations was a mix, so if you liked playing on controller, good luck since not every station seemed to have them. The trial was also on real servers, so players in the actual game could just come out and see you standing around, which was kind of funny. I played on a station that didn’t seem to have any form of sound hardware or a headset, which is a bummer because the trial has full voice acting and was ready for prime time (it is very likely to be in 6.5x as part of Hildibrand, based on a lot of context from the trial as-shown and the Hildibrand quests to date).

The other parts of the convention – the quiet rooms mostly, were outside of the designated secure area and upstairs, with cool FFXIV x Pusheen stickers and visuals, but so few attendees went there that most saw them through social media later (it’s me, hi, I didn’t go into the quiet room it’s me). In terms of food and beverage, getting anything that wasn’t a vending machine drink at the festival was an ordeal on day 1, with not enough inside food court options open and only two food trucks outside, with over hourlong waits in the hot sun on a 115 degree day. One of the food trucks just straight up ran out of food early and had to bail!

Things did improve on day 2, as the entry line was brought inside and directed around the building by staff to keep people from sweltering in the hot Vegas sun, more food court options opened up, and the entry line in general was a lot better set up, but the issues with lack of seating, lack of merch, confusing line placements and overcrowding continued. Screening was still quite lax (my FC group brought probably a handle-worth of vodka in for the Primals concert, which was a good time), but things were generally better buttoned-up on day 2. Still, though, I think the overall issues were with main planning on Square Enix’ part, which was very poor. I know that convention center cannot possibly only have 2,000ish chairs, and there was so much straight-up empty space in the main hall that feels like it was made for seating that just never got setup. It was baffling, and it put a huge damper on the experience. I know some ADA folks on Twitter (I refuse the rebrand) were noting their experiences and it was just a mess on all fronts, affecting those attendees even more but generally being an issue that everyone encountered at some point.

There is one good thing about the lack of planning, though – the basketball event’s “No ball handling” sign was setup in a way that could easily sneak into cosplay photos and Fan Fest event photos in humorous ways.

The Problem With A One Pony Show

I keep comparing a lot to Blizzcon because it is my gold-standard con experience in terms of how dialed in everything is. Sure, Blizzard has their issues with planning too, but generally, going to Blizzcon has a well-defined process, a reasonable line thought through intelligently, and for whatever event you want to see, you can generally find a seat and chill. Maybe the main stage is full for opening ceremony but there are rebroadcasts to every stage so just sit down somewhere, lines are well-defined, there are multiple food options per hall of the con and a food truck procession about 12-16 trucks deep outside (I think it was higher in 2019, like 20+ trucks), and the event has carefully considered venue, season, weather, and making sure that attendees aren’t placed in unnecessarily high risk of heat strokes or other health complications.

One thing about Blizzcon, though, is that the value for money is good if you just like, say, two Blizzard franchises. Sure, tickets at $200 or this year’s $300 are steep, but if you like Warcraft and Diablo, or Overwatch and Diablo, then you have a full slate of events to see, demos to play, and fun to be had. It’s rare to question if you got your money’s worth for a base ticket to Blizzcon unless you like, skip half the day and watch Avengers on TV at the hotel.

Fan Fest this year was $199, a marked increase over the originally planned 2020 Fan Fest which would have been $90. The problem I have with that is simple – it didn’t feel like it was worth the cost, not at that price. Most of that comes down to the poor planning – it was hard to just get to what you wanted to do and enjoy yourself, after all – but another component of it is that it’s a full two-day event for one game, with a small number of panels, novelty carnival minigames and displays, and a single gameplay demo that lasts about 10 minutes. Short of panels and the concerts, you could, conceivably, see everything in a couple of hours sans lines, and even with lines, you could get through reasonably fast and be at 100% completion for Fan Fest with tons of time to spare. I don’t think a show packed with too much is great, either (Blizzcon sometimes suffers for being overwhelming if you like, say, 3 Blizzard games), but there’s a happy medium in there somewhere, I am sure.

So you pay $200 for a series of panels that are free on YouTube, a couple of very neat and very short little sideshow experiences, a preview of a trial that will be in the game in short order (in all likelihood), and the two concerts (the best value proposition the show offers). If this was planned excrutiatingly well, I’d be onboard – but so much of my experience of Fan Fest was just fighting against poor planning – no seat to be found, sitting on the floor feeling every part of closeness to the age of 40 I am, sweating from heat, wanting food but not wanting to wait in a long line, trying to find where the correct line starts for the things I want to do, and every step of the way fighting against the venue choice and the issues with it. Because of all of that, it tilted for me towards not being worth the money, because it was just a constant struggle of wanting to stay against being tired and worn down from the rough edges and lack of care in the event. It is exceptionally rare to call Blizzard a standard for anything, but Blizzcon has a full-time planning staff whose sole responsibility to the company is to facilitate that show, and it is absolutely reflected in the differences in end results. Fan Fest can and should be better than it was – but these are also not even new problems, to my understanding, as prior years have had a lot of the same issues with lack of planning, lack of seats, and general issues with managing the show.

I don’t want to try to solve it here, because I wouldn’t dare to say I’m qualified, but it seems like they could have made this so much better by just literally renting the last unused hall in the North wing and expanding the main stage to be two full halls with nothing else, or even taking the carnival game section and tucking it into the unused space in the Merch/Battle Trial hall. All the space that grants could be used to provide vastly more seating and get a lot closer to having actual seats for nearly all the attendees that were sold tickets. A lot of the other failures are bigger issues, but having pre-marked a line location and putting up more signage would have gone a long way to helping the issue!

My Experience

So overall, I think I have two things I can say about my Fan Fest experience. I was disappointed, but I would consider going again and probably would do it given the chance.

Firstly, I have to acknowledge that choices I made are a part of the negative aspects of the experience I had. Coming in on Thursday before the con, I barely slept – 3 hours that day in total. I had lunch before leaving my home airport at 2 PM, and did not have dinner until 9 PM that night, and I powered through with no naps or breaks to check in at my hotel, take the monorail to the convention center, get registered, and stayed with my friends from that point until nearly 1:00 AM, at which point I walked too long to the convention center monorail when there was a closer one and made the trek back to my room. I barely slept that night, and I am not in particularly good shape, so the walking took a toll coupled with everything. In the end, I barely saw the fest day 1, because I stayed through the keynote and opening, and once lunchtime rolled around, I bailed and wrote the day off so I could catch up on sleep, rest my feet, and dedicate to staying all day on day 2 and doing all the things I wanted. I mostly did it, although I did go back for a quick nap and reshower on day 2 before taking an Uber back to caatch the Primals show. Had I been in better shape, worn better shoes, made self-preservation efforts to get more sleep and protect my sanity on Thursday, I probably would have had a better time on day 1, that is absolutely true. I wouldn’t say it would have avoided all the issues, many of which were due to the setup and planning of Fan Fest, but I would have had a fighting chance at least!

However, I also had fun. I think that this post tonally sort of had to be one of disappointment, because in truth, I was and am still disappointed in how Fan Fest was run. I think that if your absolute most profitable game is throwing a big event and you plan for 15,000 attendees, the accomodations and overall setup should reflect what you were prepared to sell, and I think they didn’t meet their end of the deal there. But they did provide a good show, good concerts, and an overall positive energy that kind of cut through the bullshit of how Fan Fest just generally was. Was it worth $200 as it was? No. Was it an often-frustrating experience for no good reason? Yes. But all of that fades away in the glow of the Primals concert – maybe the dancing was fun, maybe it was the ungodly amount of vodka my FC and raid-static leader threw at me during the concert, but by the end of it, I was having a good time and I was sad to see it end. If I had gone completely alone, I would never go back, would never want to even entertain giving them the light of day for just how poorly planned and executed the show was. But in the end, I still had fun, it was still enjoyable, and a lot of that is thanks to people I play FFXIV with.

In fact, like a lot of the MMO space, the differentiator is community. I have fun at Blizzcon because I know there is a group of people with shared interests and shared hype, and I come down to the show with people I play with who I can bounce off of in gaining that energy. I came to Fan Fest and met up with people I play with, who were excited for the new things to come, and we got drunk and sang along to the Primals, played fighting games (I’m a decent Testament player in Guilty Gear Strive, who’d have known?), and ate pizza. Fan Fest wasn’t necesary for most of that, sure – but it helped coordinate it and set us on a path to be in the same place at the same time.

So I guess my hope for 2025 is simple – better venue, better time of year/weather, better planned and executed event.

Which, I suppose, means that I’ll probably be trying to go again in two years’ time.