Square Enix Comments on Fan Fest Ticket Sales
Yesterday at noon, tickets for the North American Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival went on sale. About 25 minutes later- they were sold out. Unfortunately, some people who remained in the ticket queue for those 25 minutes, were greeted with a “sold out” message when finally getting through to the screen where they could purchase tickets.
Those who weren’t able to secure tickets are, understandably, not happy. Word quickly spread that some people were able to purchase tickets without using the access code that SE e-mailed out to players last week, which was a requirement to purchase passes. Players then began claiming the tickets were gone so fast because scalpers were able to get them while this code requirement was disabled.
Yesterday, Matt “Bayohne” Hilton of the community team made this post on the forums to set the record straight and let players know what happened.
Greetings,
We would like to follow up on reports that there were Fan Festival tickets sold without users needing an access code. Our ticket vendor explained that they had to temporarily pause the access code requirement while they addressed a technical issue that was slowing down the site. During this brief period, a small number of tickets were purchased without an access code. We investigated those purchases and did not find any evidence of ineligible purchases.
Please rest assured that we have also seen comments on other issues with ticket sales shared by the community, such as claims of users purchasing more than their allotted amount of tickets. We have investigated these concerns, and at this time have not found anything outside of the expected results. Should we discover any abnormalities, we will take the appropriate measures as necessary.
We are humbled by the overwhelming response from those who want to attend the Fan Festival. We made more tickets available this year than ever before and we understand the frustration of not being able to procure tickets. We wish we could accommodate everyone, and so we’ll do our best to try and host even more of our passionate adventurers in the future.
TLDR:
- The ticket vendor (see: not Square Enix), temporarily paused the access code requirement. Not that many tickets were sold through this- and the ones that were, do not appear to be scalpers.
- No one was able to buy more than their allotted number of tickets.
- More tickets were available than previous years. FFXIV is more popular than it ever has been and wouldn’t you know it? More people wanted to go to Fan Fest this time around!
The good news for those that were unable to secure tickets however, is that this year, the Fan Fest streams will be completely free of charge. Those that want to pick up the Fenrir mount and each region’s Minion, will be able to do so on the MogStation.
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