final fantasy 14 fanfest
I am back from attending Final Fantasy XIV’s fan fest in Anaheim, CA. It was our first time going! There are many things I would do different next time but ultimately it was a super fun weekend that I got to spend with my friends!
Highlights:
- Watching the Keynote Live was AMAZING. Reacting in real time was such an experience
- I was able to snag a ticket for the Meet and Greet (it was lottery based) for Masayoshi Soken (wahh!!)
- Having a weekend to spend with my friends IN PERSON is just something I am always grateful for.
- We got to meet up with some our friends who now live in the Anaheim area.
- I managed to take care of my body (food + sleep + etc) so I haven't gotten the con crud (knock on wood!!)
Not-so-fun:
- Had an “interesting” uber ride (at the beginning of my trip at least) where the car broke down in the middle of the trip on the 605 which delayed me about 1.5 hours - TBH I am still dealing with customer support on this. Obviously in the moment I was thankful to have resolved everything safely, but now that I have a couple of days to reflect it’s super upsetting that uber’s AI customer service feature was no help - and I also would have wanted some kind of compensation for the trouble.
- I didn’t manage to get some of my wishlist pieces (but that that is also OK).
Thursday
I moved my flight up from my original plans because I was getting stressed about sorting out my registration/pick up (I’m definitely more Type A when it comes to trip planning).
I brought my oshi but they stayed in my bag most of the time lol.
Reading activity on the plane! I also love getting tomato juice on a plane haha. Actually my library book expired the very next day but as I didn't connect to wifi I was able to finish reading it.
Managed to pick up my tickets quickly after that delay.
Aside from my uber mishap, everything went super smooth and I remembered to feed myself so I wasn’t too hungry. I treated myself to some wine and drinks too. Also an afternoon coffee.
We met up with our friends who moved back to California a few months ago - SO HAPPY TO SEE THEM! They suggested eating at the Anaheim Packing District food court which had lots of options and casual seating to choose from. I got a rice bowl dish.
Friday
We lined up at around 7am for the keynote (doors opened at 9) - We managed to pick a spot that wasn’t too crowded (relatively) and just chatted amongst ourselves.
Keynote was amazing. We sat next to a few inconsiderate people (person behind us kept whistling their excitement which was too overstimulating - we had to turn around and tell them to stop). A person a few seats next to me kept standing up to take photos of the front (I’m sure the people behind them hated that). Luckily no one was too stinky near us (unfortunately I do know that there are some attendees that did not have very good hygiene).
I think FFXIV has a recap of their keynote stream somewhere. For those of you who don’t know - this was a fest organized by Square Enix (not fan-made like other anime conventions) - the North American leg usually has the first teaser for the upcoming expansion.
After that we got food, went to more panels/activities, and finished off the night with the Piano Performance by Keiko.
Jollibee cutting in line right before taking our group photo was a funny moment.
Saturday
I was able to win tickets (it was lottery based) to do a Meet & Green with Masayoshi Soken (main composer of FFXIV). So fun!! You don’t get to select who you meet so this was a super nice surprise. Since I was the main ticketholder and my friend Bus was on my ticket reservation, we both got to go.
Soken decided to hold my Fennel DIY plush, and pose like an Animal Crossing character. So cute! Thank you to the camera person who also caught the moment I passed my plush to him.
After that we met up again to take more photos/activities.
I'm not really a photo person but I like making the effort so that the photos exist.
We headed back to our hotel to rest a bit before going back to the venue and finished with the Primals concert + ending note.
Sunday
I headed back in the morning and everything went smoothly this time around :)
My cats were happy I was back.
Other
I prepared some treats/gifts for my friends to make the experience more fun, as I had heard that there were lots of fan led interactive things like making stickers to exchange as well as little freebie ribbon and such.
Freebie stickers - I drew and ordered some stickers of our WOLs. I ordered about 30-ish as I’m not very social sometimes and didn’t anticipate I would use up all my stickers (lol I didn’t) but my friends were able to exchange most of theirs (I was tired of chatting with new people).
We also got to add our stickers to the Signature Wall.
I made little keychain plushies of the same design as the extra surprise gift.
I also made DIY “badges” since we were just given wristbands this year. It was also really nice since they had some basic info about our characters in case anyone asked.
We managed to trade stickers with Petite Cat who is one of the main organizers of a “hunt train” that runs on our server. Philafel is active in the hunt community so it was nice to put a name with a face.
Anyways, that was Fanfest in a nutshell! There are things that I would do differently if we are able to go again (I hope we can!!) but I was really happy to have gone this time around. Super excited for what is to come for Evercold.
Also here is the bigger version of what I put on the front of our badges + the back side (which is a random quote that Dorn left in a livejournal comment ages ago).
