Many Warriors of Light showed up for the North American Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest general sale this morning and were greeted by their little stick dudes racing to the end of the bar, but a large majority of those who were hopeful that tickets would land in their carts were disappointed when after 20 minutes, the tickets were gone.
Those who wanted to buy tickets aren’t entirely surprised that it only took approximately 20 minutes for the tickets to sell out. Ahead of the general sale, players who had active North American service accounts were able to enter a lottery for a chance to buy tickets for the event, but not many were selected. Instead, most people’s last hope was the general sale.
A message popped up on the Showclix website alerting purchasers that they could still wait in the queue, but that all tickets for the event were in carts. This message came a few minutes after reports on Twitter started popping up that people who were getting though the queue were unable to buy tickets because the event was sold out.
The event is set to take place in Las Vegas July 28 and July 29, and is the first in-person Fan Fest since before the pandemic. Interest for the game itself has increased since the release of Endwalker, so it’s not surprising that the event sold out so quickly, especially since there were reports that the convention center was booked out for other events and therefore would only sell 15,000 tickets.
Some people did report on Twitter that they were able to get through the queue and get tickets, but the large majority of those who tried were unable to secure a ticket to the event. Many are already frustrated with Square Enix for not anticipating the interest for the event, especially if they only reserved a small portion of the large convention center, which can hold several thousand more people than the tickets reportedly allocated.
Tensions are made worse by the fact that only a few tickets were sold during the lottery period that was meant for players who had live subscriptions for a North American account. A poll conducted by Dot Esports indicated that over 80 percent of people polled didn’t receive an email to buy tickets, so many are confused as to why Square Enix would run a lottery period if the majority of tickets would be sold in the general sale anyway.
For those who didn’t get a ticket, they’ll now have to watch from home since the event sold out faster than Emet-Selch could snap his fingers.
