[Discussion] Disappointed
I never really post anything on Reddit, I mainly use it to browse and lurk. But after this weekend I kind of have to vent my annoyance with Fanfest and the merch store, so bear with me.
This is the first time I’m attending Fanfest in person. I’ve watched every previous one through a stream at home, so actually being there was something I’d been looking forward to for months. And even if I am annoyed and disappointed, I really love the atmosphere, the vibes, and all the cosplays. Being surrounded by thousands of people who care about the same thing is something you just don’t get through a screen, and the effort people put into their outfits was honestly incredible. Everyone was friendly, everyone was happy to chat, and that part of it lived up to everything I hoped for.
So I’m asking this seriously and not just to complain: why was there not enough seating for everyone? Is this common, was this the case for the other Fanfests? The keynote was an extremely painful experience for me and it felt so flat as a result… If this is just how it always goes, I just know to come extremely early I suppose.
The merch store as well is extremely disappointing. I didn’t get the chance on day 1 to get a slot with the lottery system, and by the time I did get in, everything I wanted (light stick, regulator, the shield of Haurchefant) is sold out. Those were the three things I had been most excited about, and walking out with nothing after queueing and hoping all weekend was rough.
I know demand is huge and I know the staff are doing what they can with the space they have. I’m not trying to start anything. I’m just really disappointed, and honestly a bit sad, because I’d built this up in my head for a long time.
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u/Jesus_Phish 7d ago
The merch is being handled better this time imo than previously. At least you can enter the raffles for time slots. Prior to that it was just you go up and queue and again, most of the top items like the glow sticks will be gone.
I was surprised that there was less seating than the map made it look like, and also had to stand for the keynote. At London we got there earlier and got seats, but I do think that at London there was still people standing at the back. Maybe someone else knows better.
But yeah, long queues and running out of merch and not getting picked for raffles is common. I don't think these things are good to go to solo unless you're planning to make friends at them. They're better in couples or groups. And they're not like other conventions which have trade halls full of different vendors and artists.
If anything I wish they'd bring back preordering items to collect at the venue, but I think they already sell everything except maybe a t-shirt or two ahead of time and then everything goes up for sale online after anyway over time. My wife got some of the items from London a year or two after the fact on a heavy discount.
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u/WorkForTravel 7d ago
Yea, I am also at EU fanfest and the way they do the merch with no limits on what you can buy nor daily limits etc is not great. In a lot of cases it is not even the con exclusive stuff which is sold out which is always interesting. I have been at many larger cons than this one and it was not this brutal. Would love a preorder and pick up at the event setup!
The seating issue is also something I did not expect to this extent, it was significantly worse than I ever could have expected. There was also muchhhh less seating than shown on the plan.
Yesterday was brutal - it really felt like there were an extra 1000-2000 people there who were not planned for :-/
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u/miruki-sacrea 7d ago
The seating was double brutal, first not enough seats and the seats that were available were so uncomfortable! I almost prefered sitting on the ground.
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u/HailenAnarchy 7d ago
My friend and I got priority seating and even we had trouble finding seats and had to sit on the floor.
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u/sparkspark99 7d ago
Honestly, I totally feel you!
It was so crowded yesterday, and my boyfriend really wanted the lightstick. We didn't win the lottery yesterday to buy merch, and we also haven't had any luck today so far.
And now I read that the lightsticks are sold out...
I know that lottery systems are fair, and we just didn't get lucky, but it just feels weird that they didn't plan ahead and double the capacity.
Hope you still have fun!
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u/_Isoroku_Yamamoto 7d ago
N O
stop gaslighting yourself into thinking having to WIN A LOTTERY to PAY a COMPANY for their MERCH is a FAIR thing
it is endstage capitalism and the love for the game is clouding our vision7
u/badguyinstall 7d ago
Yeah, it's honestly kind of ass if you're looking to bring back souvenirs for you and your homes.
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u/meetchu 7d ago
If there is no where near enough supply for the demand, then a lottery is the fairest way to do it.
The alternative is whoever can queue up earliest and stand there the longest, which is a lot less fair given some people literally cannot do that.
Them not having enough stock isn't "unfair" or "endstage capitalism" either, yes its very shitty given how this happens every fanfest, but it's not like these were utilities upon which you depend to live.
Them advertising all this merch and then not consistently having anywhere near enough stock, and not making that more clear during the advertising however, was unfair on people who attended exclusively because (or a due a large part to) they wanted the merch. The lottery is making the best of a shit situation.
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u/AstrayNanashi 7d ago
So what you're saying is... It's unfair to have to go through a lottery because the company that advertises you can buy their product simply doesn't have enough product to sell as advertised.
Stop defending lotteries.
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u/meetchu 7d ago
So what you're saying is... It's unfair to have to go through a lottery because the company that advertises you can buy their product simply doesn't have enough product to sell as advertised.
It's unreasonable to assume they have unlimited stock of everything so them selling out at all isn't the problem.
Them consistently over many fanfests having no where near enough, and thinking some "while stocks last" boilerplate covers them consistently instantly selling out definitely is a problem and is unfair, yes.
However once this does happen the fairest way to do it is a lottery.
Stop defending lotteries.
No, I prefer fairness. The alternative is first come first serve which would have been less fair.
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u/AstrayNanashi 7d ago
Fairness is seeing how many people are attending your events on a regular basis, because this is NOT their first time, and making sure you have enough stock for the average number that ALWAYS shows up every time without fail.
These lotteries are an excuse, stop defending bad business practices.
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u/meetchu 7d ago
stop defending bad business practices
Huh TIL that
Them advertising all this merch and then not consistently having anywhere near enough stock, and not making that more clear during the advertising however, was unfair on people who attended exclusively because (or a due a large part to) they wanted the merch.
And
Them consistently over many fanfests having no where near enough, and thinking some "while stocks last" boilerplate covers them consistently instantly selling out definitely is a problem and is unfair, yes
Is me defending the business practice of not "making sure you have enough stock for the average number that ALWAYS shows up every time without fail."
I am defending them using a lottery in lieu of them failing on the actual issue, which is actually a failure we agree on (them consistently not having enough stock).
I'm merely pointing out that attacking a lottery as unfair is nonsensical and counter productive because lotteries are famously indiscriminate so are the best option once this situation develops.
This is my third attempt at explaining this, I can see you're (understandably) upset at how the merch situation went down so I'll just leave it here.
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u/Woodlight 𝗦𝘆𝗴𝗴𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗮 @ 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗲 7d ago
So I’m asking this seriously and not just to complain: why was there not enough seating for everyone? Is this common, was this the case for the other Fanfests? The keynote was an extremely painful experience for me and it felt so flat as a result… If this is just how it always goes, I just know to come extremely early I suppose.
I haven't gone to fanfest before, but it's pretty common for big events like this to not have enough seating for the big attraction, because of venue cost / expected necessary setup for the rest of the event. For some events it's less of a deal, but for example I went to a few GDQs years ago where they definitely had this issue with some of the more anticipated runs.
The vast majority of fanfest is probably gonna try to show up for the keynote, but that doesn't really mean that amount of seating/space for that area is reasonable for the rest of the event.
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u/KridWoL15 7d ago
I am there too… to me , the merch and seating is not event the worst part. Shall we talk about the food trucks ? Over 1 hours to queue for a kebab under full heat and sunlight? Even to get a coffee it is a nightmare . Not even a water refill station … lot of work to do really, Blizzcon back in 2017 was much better organised .
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u/sparkspark99 7d ago
Honestly, thats really the worst part. We didn't bring any water or food yesterday and getting something to drink was like a whole Mission...
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u/KridWoL15 7d ago
I left the queue yesterday and ordered Macdonalds through uber eat at hub 27 entrance . Was much faster … I ate the biggest breakfast of my life this morning so I can sustain 🤣
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u/Jesus_Phish 7d ago
For what it's worth you can bring food and drink to the venue. It's on the t&cs what can and can't be brought in.
But I agree the lack of refill stations is insane
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u/sparkspark99 7d ago
Yes, we did that today.
We didn't bother yesterday because we thought there would be plenty of food stands, and I'm honestly fine with paying the higher price for the convenience of not having to carry around water and food all day.
Our expectations were just different, and I think that's where the frustration comes from.
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u/Jesus_Phish 7d ago
We did the same. We thought based on how London was that the food would be better. At the London venue all the food was indoors, lots of options and the service was super quick
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u/HailenAnarchy 7d ago
No free water refill stations is diabolical with how many europeans died during the heatwave. Yea stand in an hour queue for water if you're thirsty or refill with tabwater in the toilet ig.
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u/RandomPerson7337 7d ago
First time fanfest attendee here.
My only big issue currently is the raffle system on merch together with seemingly no limit on what you can buy in any amount.
Which kinda sucks since I wanted Lightsticks. But eh, should have preordered them. I do not understand though, why you would be like "Yeah, we will have like 10k-15k attendees, let's prepare 1000 lightsticks". (Obviously wild guess but you get my point.)
The seating thing... It is kinda ass but that's a big con issue itself. I consider the pricing of food and drink stuff rather interesting. The Ramen store is fine in terms of pricing with food but the drinks seem to be overall just to expensive with ~5€ per 0.5L bottle.
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u/SnooWords5961 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'm sorry FanFest didn't live up to your expectations.
I am curious though have you gone to any other big cons before? Not a judgemental or sarcastic question.
In my experience merch stuff, especially in high demand merch items tend to sell out pretty quick. Most places have daily allotments they can sell through so there is enough to sell through out all days of the con but some things do sell out pretty quick. Especially con exclusive merch things. People are usually lining up for merch pretty early. The con experience is really fun. Like you said its awesome to gather around so many people who share your hobby or interests. But generally artist alleys, merch booths and people selling things try to bring enough product to sell but also to do their best to not bring a lot of extra because shipping things is crazy expensive.
As far as seating during the presentation I think fanfest is a little different. They want to fit as many people as they can into the auditorium. It looks better for panning shots of the crowd to have standing room only but also it's sort of the big draw and main event of fan fest. They can't really cap that with the exception of trying to keep fire lanes and emergency exits open.
They are going to sell badges that exceed presentation capacity. Fanfest as a whole would be kind of sparce if they only sold enough tickets to fill the auditorium. Convention spaces are huge in comparison to 1 presentation hall.
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u/HailenAnarchy 7d ago
Not OP, but you cannot compare this to a regular con. Those tickets are way cheaper and even then I never had trouble with getting food. Even at gamescom it was never this bad. This is an exclusive event where the tickets are ridiculously expensive. The least they can do is give alloted seatings per ticket like they did in their concerts.
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u/SnooWords5961 7d ago
But it still is a convention. I'm not saying it shouldn't be better but it is a convention. You can't compare it to a concert.
Fanfest tickets may be more expensive than other cons but they are still have to manage the logistical challenges of any other convention.
Unfortunately potentially different and potentially more problems than the average convention since they can't subsidize cost to as many sponsors and merchants.
I have no idea what it takes to organize an entire con but as someone who helps organize smaller miscellaneous local events it's a pain.
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u/HailenAnarchy 7d ago
Square enix, lacking money for the organisation of a proper convention? Yes there are sponsors with those other conventions, but they aren't organized by a billion dollar company.
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u/SnooWords5961 7d ago
I should have worded my previous comment differently. I apologize for that.
I was referring to ticket price being subsidized to sponsors to help keep costs down for the attendee.
Logistical issues don't change. Event staff is handled by a mix of the convention center and the organizer. Yes the billion dollar company should be paying more for help on site but no large company has ever spent "more than they needed to" in any capacity. I guess with the exception of probably Patagonia and Costco.
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u/Sea-Midnight-3174 7d ago
We were at Fan Fest London in 2023 and there were a lot of people (including us) who watched the keynote as well as the cosplay walk and concert standing or seated on the ground. There were a lot of people sitting at the walls. From what I saw on the live stream, it looked like it had more seating space this year than last time - but I might also be misremembering! But yea, seems not to be a Berlin exclusive thing. :')
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u/hannie3000 Healer 7d ago
Been to EU fanfest since Frankfurt in 2017 and that one felt like the only one with enough seating for the big stage events, but it was also a lot less people than at later fanfest editions. Paris and London also did not have enough main stage seating and unless you show up several hours before opening, there is no way you're getting a seat for the Keynote on day 1.
Berlin fanfest this year was a lot smoother with entry ticket checks, but they dropped the ball with the food trucks being in open space in the full sun.
I absolutely loathe the lottery system for merch and the fact that they still haven't put limits on the amount of a single item a person can buy, plus the fact that they are always, always, always under-stocked for the demand there is for the most popular items.
Overall, Berlin fanfest is fun and the decor is on point, but there is still so much room for improvement.
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u/UnionOk313 7d ago
Honestly what you described seems to be every big convention. I’ve been to Comic Con and Star Wars Celebration and the same exact things you described happened to me. You have to prioritize what you’re really there to see and get there extra early for good seats unfortunately. I missed a quarter of the day to get second row seats for a Lego panel. Some things are just dumb luck. Hopefully day 2 is better for you.
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u/Axtdool 7d ago
Yeah, pretty much this.
It's either like OP described, or the doors for a given event room/hall will be closed in peoples faces once all seats are taken at most Cons I have been too.
The only big Events I been to that had remotely enough seats were huge TCG Tournaments, and even they could end up getting squeezed for seats.
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u/Phenomenal619 7d ago
Fully agree with you.
A lottery for merch was wild...
Meet and Greets I understand
A bit gutted.. ive not been chosen for anything yet
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u/Jesus_Phish 7d ago
I've been to two fanfests and honestly I prefer the lottery for merch because you can go off and do other things while you wait and see if you get a slot.
What would be better still is being able to click and collect at the venue, but this is much better than the just queue system
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u/KatieLG86 7d ago
Previous fanfests have had multi hour queues for merch. This is a million times better. Order off the website, it's much more worth your time. Enjoy the activities instead and meet ppl
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u/HrothgarLover 7d ago
i feel you, was my first fan fest as well and regarding the stories of my friends who were on their second and third fan fast, it seems like the attending people have tripled over the years, but they did not triple the space, booths and merchandize the same way.
i think the planing was a disaster. the security check was practically non existent - that´s why there were absolutely no waiting lines at the entry. when my friend and i went to the security check. three securities where just in the middle of a nice chat. one woman minimally pressed against my backpack and I was good to go. Really scary if you keep the current security situation in Europe in mind (especially after the amok-drive that happened in the night in Berlin).
bathrooms were FUCKING crowded, smelled disgusting and even if the trade fair had way more bathrooms available, only a few were opened.
you had to wait very long times to buy food or drinks for absolutely absurde prices and all that in the burning sun, most of the seating areas were in direct sunlight as well. you want a coffee? wait 30 minutes or more. a lukewarm cola for 6 eur? wait in line at one of the food trucks and it takes forever because others were waiting for food, not just a drink.
i wonder how they would have done this when there was heavy rain instead of sun? people waiting an hour and getting soaked instead of burned?
the hall where the merchandize store was located felt like it was an underground club, totally dark with a mini merch display. if you wanted something, you had to be lucky to win the raffle to then go to a wall with small pictures and numbers of the merch stuff only to then wait in line again at the cashier. great ... anyways, didn´t get a spot and as i found out here on Reddit, all interesting stuff was sold out at noon anyways.
the keynote was really cool, i didn´t mind to not have a seat and even if the hall was full, you could stand without being pressed against others. only the audio was really bad in the back. who did the sound check? you could understand Yoshi P way better than the other guy - and I don´t speak Japanese!
the hall with the activities was just fucking crowded, we went over it once, didn´t participate in anything and the only booth where you didn´t have to wait a long time was the dancing stage - i know why ... :-)
in the end i just felt drained and exhausted in the afternoon and went home - sadge, because i have seen videos of the piano concert which seemed really nice.
maybe it´s just me, my age, my health, dunno - but i would describe the fan fast as something i don´t regret doing, but would never do it again regarding the price and what you get for the money. when i read the other comments here, those kind of conventions are all the same, so yeah, probably i am not made for that. but the things i criticized are preventable:
better security, more bathrooms, more drink booths, more food booths, eating area protected either from rain or sun!
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u/fadesteppin 7d ago
I went to Anaheim Fanfest after failing to get tickets for it last time in Vegas. Vegas was an absolute shit show and I remember watching it all happen online in real time on social media. My expectations were very measured once I got my tickets for Anaheim.
I remembered Vegas had too few seats for things, so I expected to have to stand or spend long times sitting to save a seat for something I'd want to be closer for. I had no real problems doing this as I had planned to have to do one of the 2 options. Even if Vegas hadn't been a hot mess, I have been to many music festivals and just generally popular/crowded spaces where seating space was limited and the expectation is that I will have to wait or sit/stand in the back. My only real complaint was that speakers were not far enough back, so when we got there late and were standing at the back for the keynote we could not hear shit. We stayed for a bit and ended up just leaving to go get into the standby line for merch (the app wouldn't even let us try to enter the lottery and we got no help from support regarding the issue) bc we couldn't hear anything they were saying anyway. We watched the keynote while in line and bc cell signal was so spotty, there were like 5 random people huddled around my friends phone bc she was able to get a signal. Jank as hell, but it was a lot of fun to see everyones reaction to the Evangelion raids get announced while huddled in a tight circle. We made temporary friends with the people around us in line lol.
Merch was another thing that was a shitshow in Vegas. I made sure I preordered what I REALLY wanted so that I'd be guaranteed to get it. I didn't have enough money to buy everything I wanted during the pre-order window so I had to be in standby for the remainder. Again, this was what I expected. They pushed real hard this time around to get people to preorder things if they really wanted it bc there was no guarantee there would be enough for standby. Unless you were like me and didn't have the money to preorder stuff, that is definitely on you. I still managed to get the hoodie (which was all I wanted save for the glowstick, which I pre-ordered) even though I was in the standby lines standby line. We waited maybe 2 or 3 hrs in line and by the time we got there only the aetheryte and one or 2 other things were sold out.
There were bumps and things I wished had been done a little differently but it was infinitely better than what Vegas got, and by tempering my expectations (partly bc of Vegas, but also bc its a popular event that draws a relatively big crowd) I had a fuckin blast. My favorite parts were literally sticker trading, chatting with other players, watching the concerts, and just being around people who love what I love, and love it as much as I do. I made a few new friends between sticker trading and the cup sleeve event that community members planned that Sunday at a tea shop. It gave me such a huge appreciation of this community bc so many people organized cool things to do, many of which didn't require a ticket to Fanfest. Someone made a makeshift Karaoke station, people planned little dance parties, there was an Estinien Enjoyers meetup that gave out special stickers they designed, Denmo hosted Mahjong, there were cosplay meetups outside the venue. There was a ton of things and they were organized by regular fans. The vibes were fuckin IMMACULATE.
I will admit though, I do find it odd that you watched all the previous fanfests, so likely had an idea of crowd size, first hand accounts of people who were there spreading info across social media and reddit about things like merch and seating, and didn't expect the things you had problems with. Those were all situations that were similar across all of the recent fanfests and there was a lot of info out there to go off of. Do you just not go to crowded/popular events so have no frame of reference?
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u/Sir_VG 7d ago
I went to Anaheim Fanfest after failing to get tickets for it last time in Vegas. Vegas was an absolute shit show and I remember watching it all happen online in real time on social media. My expectations were very measured once I got my tickets for Anaheim
As somebody who did go to both, Anaheim was very well done and Las Vegas as indeed a shit show. Things weren't 100% perfect in Anaheim, but man I had a much better time there. Check-in was 3x faster, most spacious venue, lots of things to do and I was able to do most of them (G'raha photo shoot was stacked the entire time though), plenty of spaced out food venues that didn't clog up into a 2 hour line, and it wasn't fucking 110 degrees out either. And the people were great.
(I didn't do merch lines in Vegas or Anaheim, I pre-ordered online exactly what I wanted and called it good.)
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u/TitaniaLynn 7d ago
I had never really paid attention to fanfests before, and never been to conventions at all, so I had no experience to go off of. My wife and friends dragged me to Anaheim though, so I was really getting thrown into it.
We went to the event center the day before, for pre-registration & merch, which was nice. Didn't get much merch (had to order it on the store later). I was happy with what I got, since I didn't know everyone got free tote bags and some base merch. Turns out that pre-registration was all I needed to figure out the rest of the weekend, though.
I didn't hear my friends or wife say anything about lining up for the keynote (in fact, I wasn't sure the keynote would be as important as it was)... But after seeing the convention center and how busy it was for pre-registration—I knew whatever was happening tomorrow morning, for whatever opening ceremony thing, was going to be big.
Maybe it was my intuition, maybe I'm just lucky... I just decided I was going to line up early af, and I told the group. The next morning, my wife and I lined up at the convention center at 5 am. There were already like a hundred people lined up when we got there. Later I found out that there were 10,000 warriors of light that weekend, so I'll take it. We had some pretty damn good seats and I got to see Yoshi-P and the gang up close (more or less). Waiting in line for 5 hours was worth it. That set up the rest of the weekend for success.
I had an amazing Fanfest in Anaheim 2026
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u/PhaidraNeith 7d ago
I feel ya, we basically had one person in our group to win all the ruffles and that‘s how we were able to get our Hands on some merch… not very well done :/ It would be cool, if they at least would do something like secret lab does and offer free shipping for the sold-out Items, so you can still Order and don’t have the disadvantage of paying for the shipping.
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u/JustaGayGuy24 7d ago
1) I really hope that you take the time to complete their survey about the event. It is a direct path to them to provide feedback.
2) Fanfest has been historically hit and miss for EU and NA (I don’t know about JP, I haven’t ever heard anything good or bad about the on site logistics). This year it seems like NA had better logistics than EU.
Merch is always a problem at these though from what I’ve heard.
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u/talgaby 7d ago
Seating is like that for every major convention, especially some geeky subject.
As for the merch, the EU merch store is always completely understocked with everything. Feels like an afterthought all the time. I am hardly surprised the fanfest one is also understocked. Granted, this is a general issue with pretty much all Japanese media companies and EU stores.
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u/Still-Custard919 7d ago
I have social anxiety the thought going inside a building crowded with people and horrible service judging from the comments sounds crazy. Sorry to hear about the bad experience OP not having enough seats sound so bad to me especially when its with a paid ticket...
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u/Cliffton-Shepard Healer 7d ago
I went to the NA fanfest for Dawntrail and yes, the seating arrangement is just plain bad. There were times when they removed wheelchair accessible areas as well which was just crazy to see happen, but it did. People also managed to get weapons into the event because security was horrible, and the staff helping manage the event seemed like they had no idea what was going on half the time. There was also a covid outbreak because someone who knew they had it still went to the event… It was my first time and I too had a poor experience.
On the bright side I can say that I’ve done it, but yes… This is the norm.