[BlizzCon 2023] Feedback Megathread

[Alisa-1430]

Brief overall thought before I get into details
This was my families 1st ever Blizzcon and I’m glad it was because from what I have read from past years this year was a flop and I have to agree. I enjoyed this year because of the community members I met and the atmosphere of the players. Unfortunately there were so many negatives that left my family questioning why everyone loved coming to this convention.

Positives
-March of the Murlocs was SO FUN and I’m so glad I got to participate. It has been a dream of mine.
-Organizers kinda figured out how to organize inside convention lines on day 2
-WoW classic took over majority of 10.2 computers on Saturday which reduced the line times. It helped so much compared to Friday and that was huge.
-how nice the developers and blizzard workers were when you chatted with them.

Now onto the Negatives and needs improvement

The influencer meet and greets were poorly organized
My critic is that the Influencer meet and greets needed to have longer time slots. On top of that each game should have had it own meet and greet area in its designated hall so it allowed more time slots. You could only take either a picture or have them sign an item not both which really put a damper on things. Preach actually did both for me and the person who ran the event came over to him and reprimanded him for doing both. I even mentioned to Preach before he took the picture how I was told one or the other. Bless him for making my day. On top of that, my dad who spent less time than I did with Tali&E was told by security to hurry it up which felt so bad for him as they were one of the few people he wanted to meet.
One positive to this was that I liked how you could meet all 5 of the influencers if you wanted to instead of waiting in line for just 1 and then waiting again for another. TwitchCon does it that way and I ran into times when I wanted to meet multiple people at the same time slot but had to choose because it was 1 line for 1 influencer.

Opening Ceremony Lottery
I hope you guys never do that again. It really sucked not getting an opening ceremony ticket because I was ready to camp out before they released lottery system. On top of that we didn’t even know if it was happening until 3 days before the event. The lottery really took the fun away. On top of that on Facebook I heard they capped out the standby line for OC, and then enough people didn’t show up so they were just letting anyone in who was there right before the start of the ceremony.
the real slap in the face was the terrible seating available for people who didn’t get into the opening ceremony. My poor father struggled with pain the whole opening ceremony In the WoW hall because all the seats were taken and the options were sit on the floor or stand and not be able to see. We chose to sit on the floor along with a lot of others.
Overall there was not enough seating and not enough screens while watching the opening ceremony in WoW Hall. Please please make more seating available for opening ceremony if you choose to do it in the arena again.

1st Day Entrance Line
Enough has already been said about how terrible the line management was but the employees who were directing people had no idea what was going on. The only people who had a clue about what like to stand in and where portal pass people needed to go where located where you scanned your bracelet. Way better communication was needed for the important job of people moving.

There was not enough to do so everything had crazy lines
As others have mentioned there weren’t a lot of venders or extra things to do so the main attractions had insane lines. Being new: day 1 we showed up to the scheduled meet and greets/panels 15 minutes before and didn’t get into ANYTHING because people camped out for an hour before the event. I even showed up to the walk of the murlocs early and the whole place was full and we had to wait up against a wall.

[Gatts-1318]

The only feedback I can thing of is that plead have in mind people that comes from other countries.
Sometime you bring cash because the exchange rate is cheaper, but by making the event totally cashless you can complicate the experience.
If you have your bracelets, you can do something similar to concerts have some points where you can add the cash to a digital wallet and use the bracelet as a way to pay

[Jillypoo-1342]

Hi. This was my fifth BlizzCon, and while I had a fine time, there were issues that I think need to be addressed.

I think a little careful thought will reveal why certain changes needed to be made, but others are downright inexplicable.

I first felt that the ticket price went up a reasonable amount, considering how prices have gone up across the board - BUT - that was when I was under the impression that the schedule of events was going to be similar to what we’ve seen in the past. As it was, I felt like I overpaid for what was delivered. Not enough to ruin the weekend, but enough to feel somewhat cheated.

I cannot stress enough how angry and disappointed I was that the talent competition was removed. Now, it should be noted that this is coming from someone who regularly competed for a spot, but to take it out and leave the art contest, video contest, and costume contest is just insulting. Blizzard is renowned for its music; why are musicians being treated like second-class citizens?

And I wasn’t keen on eliminating virtually the entire content of the costume content to show us basically two finalists in each category while the hosts yell THEY LOOK SO GOOD for an hour and a half. Let the people who just made a costume as best they could get their moment of fun and camaraderie onstage.

My proposal is this: Friday night sort of petered out into “Wanna go get something to eat? Yeah, I guess.” That’s not fun at all. Move the talent competition to Friday as the first night capstone event, and most importantly - hold it in the main hall. Watching on huge high-def screens is great, but it is still very cold and distant. I can’t be the only one who felt a bit silly cheering for someone a half-mile away in a different building. Give the main hall their show, wrap up Friday night with a bang.

Security staff was obnoxious, with some borderline personality types even giving the ADA folks trouble. That is unacceptable, and I expect better from a Blizzard event.

Speaking of ADA, who in the world had the bright idea of forcing people to make a 1+ mile roundtrip walk to get their “Hi I’m physically disabled” sticker? I was wiped out before the convention even started. Absolute madness and atrocious planning. Either move ADA ticketing closer to the main entrance, or set up a second security point closer to where it’s going to be, OR start getting those little flatbed truck things running back and forth.

Back to content, you need / must get the secondary panels back. I know it is distressing to Marketing and Microsoft, but some of us don’t like Overwatch, and two halls of it was way more than enough. Music panel. Art panel. Voice Actor panel. Behind-the-scenes panels. All of them have been vital parts of the convention for years, and their lack was sorely felt.

Darkmoon Faire. PURCHASE LIMITS. The problems started because selfish resellers were going up there buying hundreds of capsules. Never mind the fact that they were hogging the tokens, never mind that you were even running short on capsules - it’s the amount of time it takes to insert the coin and operate the machine. I was stuck behind some nosepicker with 400 tokens, waiting on my ADA feet while he hogged a machine for over a half hour.

When you get to the register, you purchase a hard cap maximum, and then you get your sorry butt around to the back of the line. If they don’t like waiting, guess what? Neither does anyone else.

Anyway, that’s how I feel about it. I want to come back in the future for BlizzCon #6, but unless the schedule of events gets beefed up, I will probably (sadly) give it a pass.

[Jillypoo-1342]

Oh, and by the way, the Portal Pass needs to go.

I thought we’re all supposed to be equal at BlizzCon? Having people get in front of me in the ADA line because they have more money than I is not a good feeling.

[Aurongodx-1434]

To add to my prior post that is now buried in this thread…

If there is a Blizzcon 2024 in the works, it needs to be announced to the public as soon as possible, waiting until mid May is just unacceptable.

Huge shoutout to the community ran groups and Blizzcon vets for putting together community ran events and parties in the Hilton lobby, they were one of the huge highlights of the week.

Everyone that purchased a ticket through AXS with their email on their account received a survey the other day. Check your spam folders if you do not see it in your inbox. Please fill it out and take it seriously, I love how vocal we all have been here, on reddit, on facebook page groups, make sure your voice is heard in every avenue provided and be honest about what did and what did not work this year.

Nothing will change unless we make our voices heard.

My perfect world vision for a Blizzcon 2024 would be this…

• Internal planning already underway and key vendors notified of an exact date (IE. Wowhead, Con Before the Storm, Ditchcon etc.).

• Public announcement for Blizzcon 2024 with a date between February-April of next year.

• Three tiers of ticket sales, price them however you wish.
  1. Blizzcon Virtual Ticket - $
  2. Blizzcon Standard Admission Pass - $$$
  3. Blizzcon Benefit Dinner Pass - $$$$$

• Regular updates via social media platforms over the next few months (Ticket sales, panel updates, guests, voice actors promoting Blizzcon, virtual campus tours of things to expect at Blizzcon, bring back the Blizzard vault interviews, etc).

• We get a Blizzcon floor map post by September and a Blizzcon app by October.

• The Blizzcon store and the Blink Shopping store have separate inventories.

• Use of every square inch of the Anaheim Convention Center with the 2019 layout, multiple halls with plenty of seating and an opening ceremony spread out over multiple halls so everyone gets to experience some of the live event in person.

• Blizzcon runtime for Friday and Saturday returns to its prior format.

1. Benefit Dinner pass doors open at 9am
2. Standard pass doors open at 10am
3. Show starts at 11am
4. Show ends at 10pm

• New Blizzard themed alcoholic beverages updated for Blizzards new IPs (Diablo IV, Warcraft Rumble, new survival game we may hear about?). These will be served in many themed locations of the past (Warcraft Tavern, Jim Raynors Bar, Fat Goose Inn, etc).

• A jam packed Blizzcon with panels going on in every hall and a return of the Blizzard Arcade in Hall E (Heroes of the Storm, Starcraft 2, older Diablo IPs, Blizzard Arcade Collection games, TLV, Rock n Roll Racing, Blackthorne, etc). The Darkmoon Faire returns to the North Hall with it’s own area.

This is a big milestone coming up for Blizzard, 20 years of World of Warcraft, 35 years of Warcraft, and it’s the 15th Anniversary of Blizzcon itself. With a major new IP on the horizon as well, I hope we can all work together and not collectively screw this up.

[Argent-1824]

More or less all of this. I wasn’t a Portal Pass holder, and I have no interest in eSports, but I can very much second the sentiment that this was the worst BlizzCon out of the… 3? I’ve attended personally. Reduced programming, spacing issues (very limited seating, long and messy lines, difficult navigation between halls, fewer halls), shorter hours, no merch I liked (though I am not much of a merch guy), very little to do on the second day… In general, much about this BlizzCon felt reduced, except the price was increased.

Pretty much the only thing I thought went better this year was Thursday registration (the walk was long, but lines were non-existent), and the increased number of attractions and photo ops (but those felt like they ate into the space for seats so other panels, and that didn’t feel worth it; all the Diablo props were cool, but not cool enough to justify only a couple of hundred people being able to sit down in the Fat Goose Inn). I’d say that watching panels live in the area was better than in past years, but most people couldn’t do that, and the experience they got was worse than in past years, so on average people enjoyed those less. The Blizzard employees on the con floor were, without exception, delightful.

I appreciate that all the panels were (will be? website’s a little confusing) made available to the public, for free though.

EDIT: I keep coming back to the reduced programming… I think one of the big reasons I like BlizzCon is because it always feels like there’s more than I can attend. So I pick the panels I want to attend in person, and then once I get home, I have essentially an extra day or two worth of VODs to catch up, prolonging the whole experience. That very much was not the case this year.

[ChryssiRose-1509]

As a cosplayer and a BlizzCon attendee this year, I actually want to give thanks to Blizzard for hiring so many cosplayers. There are so many of us passionate about our characters that would absolutely love opportunities like this, but they are unfortunately so few and far between. I will admit I applied for the Hearthstone one, but was sadly not chosen.

I remember seeing Sameer as Inarius absolutely swarmed with people waiting to be in photo ops with him. They loved him!

And the little Hearthstone game with the Hearthstone cosplayers that let you get a deputy badge was fun. Easy to play even if you hadn’t played Hearthstone before.

The sacrificial altar was pretty cool, too.

Having a mix of random encounter and line opportunities is great, as people can decide if they want to wait for one, or stumble upon one instead.

Maybe have a few more of these types of activities added? If the DMF was made larger, people could pay to get their fortune told by a fortune teller. The fortune itself could be a random draw item, like a key chain or a poster.

Whether or not more cosplayers are added, I’m glad it was a thing! And I’ll admit that I hope Blizzard reaches out to more cosplayers to be Warcraft partners. My wife and I, the Judgement Paladin and Alexstrasza with Clippy, would hope we could help next year. We’ve begun working on Xal’atath (new expansion) and Maiev (Warcraft Rumble) already and will have time around then open if we are needed for the 2024 event.

Thanks for the con, and I hope Microsoft allows for it to continue.

[Skemeister-2516]

This year was our first with my partner, from EU, on an admittedly overpriced in many ways 2 day conference. We had good and bad moments, and we saw in person people in Hilton for the first time which we will keep close for any following CA events.

As a fan since Silicon & Synapse days, I agree with every single post here. As senior manager in a multi national company my only contribution to this discussion is how my M track brain received Blizzcon this year, and since it happened in LA in a fitting, script, form:

– Activision Blizzard - Internal shot - Meeting room –

Subject: “Planning of Blizzcon”
Date: “Months ago”

• We are planning a hugely public event in the midst of a buyout from MS while a ton of due diligence work and open legal matters are active, lets make plans for an as sterilized as possible Blizzcon, we don’t need any surprises (again)
• Should we even do it?
• I guess yes, it brings a ton of money by boosting cohorts and brand awareness.
• Maybe for liability reasons we can outsource everything to have a scapegoat if we need it?
• Capital Idea, it will contain costs by contract and we can say we did it to reduce workload on our employees, there is no way it will not end up in their plates, but we can say we did our best.
• Let’s also make some arrangements for Media and influencers, as backup
• Cool, done, agreed!

Honestly I am exaggerating, but the point is, and make no mistake, Blizzard took as many actions as possible to not risk the 70 Billion deal on any level. No matter how many answers we post here, they will never be worth as much as that deal. As for the managers that had any conserns, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” always works

But I am optimistic next year things will be better, partly because nothing really bad happened to the stock prices during this year’s Blizzcon ( which builds credibility with the new management ) but also because the experience of the people that left in the past 4 years and was missing in this Blizzcon has started to be acquired by the ones that replaced them.

Mostly though because the MS deal is in place and they can afford more risk…

The best part of the OC for me was that Chris Metzen set up the foundations of protecting WoW from MS by organizing it up as a Long term, Blizzard based Project (lets see how that goes, but at least he tries).

Unfortunately Samwise Didier left, which screams art direction changes in Blizzard (most likely deprio), but hey, everyone has a “my boss changed again” quota

Anyway, it is not very often that I ramble so much about these matters, and I only wanted to provide some educated guesses based on the perspective that really multi national companies focus on, “Assets and Risks”.

P.S

The Suited security guys were completely out of touch and actively worked against the event, from us witnessing the demise of the air beach ball at the entrace, to the the Baboon like repeated yelling of “THE LINE STARTS HERE” to the poor Portal pass people that dared to ask where they can queue for their line and ended up on the general admission one. Some were behaving like being in an army base or something, we were denied taking a shelfie 100m away from the convention center, because the “event had not started yet and only media tag wearers can do so”.

Yeah, nice “Community event” you did there Blizzard,
Yellow card…

As for the reason why I am even mentioning all these… I hope this touches the heart of some people inside Blizzard that might consider all of us “romantics of an earlier time”, No, we are not, we are grounded and work hard to attend a conference where we can finally be our true selves for a while, alongside a company that can spend time and resources to make a space for us, this is the improvement i want to see and feel.

[Araceli-1971]

I did not attend this year. I have attended since 2008. This is the first year I have opted to not go. With that said, I monitor and admin multiple groups, had many friends go and was able to watch and view many threads, groups and discord channels regarding the Convention.

Lack of Planning

• The late announcement, along with the lack of any information really provided outside of the price of the tickets and what came with them, was a huge reason why I did not want to attend. Now, in the past, we don’t get a lot to go on either, but this year just felt off and it felt rushed, as if maybe you all were on the fence about actually having one. A picture of a map did not count as information, and actually helped me decide that I made the right decision in not going.
• The late announcement also made it so that the Parties that normally happen: Con Before the Storm, WoWhead, Ditchcon, Blizznerds, Beer Swap, etc, didn’t happen this year. They didn’t have enough time to fundraise. Even though these events aren’t Blizzard sponsored, they help make the event, and without them, the convention continued to fall short.

The Price

• I have previously purchased the portal pass because I liked an option of where I could be somewhere without the major crowd and still watch the panels and esports. However, the price of it this year was absolutely ridiculous. Even the price of the regular ticket was…pricey. There was no Charity Dinner, no Pre-Thursday night Darkmoon Faire. The backpack was the only thing being given as a “goodie” outside of the in-game items. IN previous years we’ve gotten SO much more than that, and it just continued to feel like a slap in the face.

No Alcohol

• I know this isn’t a big deal to some, but as a company that has in the past, had Blizzard Universe themed beers created just FOR Blizzcon, and threw huge events with beer, given out beer steins, had a huge event with beer tents, this was a complete slap in the face. Yes, your company has had many sexual harassment complaints and investigations and you want to blame alcohol, instead of the people. This is WRONG. Give us back the alcohol, and stop blaming it for your crap employees actions.

The Convention Itself

• Overcrowded with crap security and crap line management. 4+ hours to get into the DMF was ridiculous. People were stuck outside for hours after the Opening Ceremony. No one seemed to know what was going on. The security in suits were quite power hungry from what I heard and were extremely rude to everyone they encountered.
• Portal Pass lacked substance for it’s price. If I had purchased the Portal Pass and came, I would have been insanely angered by the lack of special things.
• Lines, lines, lines, and no chairs at all. What happened to all the halls from previous years? Why have TVs if there’s no chairs to sit down?
• Lack of content. There was little to nothing to do except wait in line at DMF or watch one of, what, like 8 panels? Sure you had the streamer stuff but not everyone is into that. You had no voice actors, no artists, no Q&A, barely ANY esports, no sponsors from previous years that used to set up and have a booth and things to do. Sure, you did the “immersive content”, but again, that’s a Line-Con, and not for everyone.
• Merchandise sucked. Store sucked. I heard lots of people got their stuff cancelled. I like the idea of Blink only, but ya’ll gotta work on that better.
• Community night and Concert on the same night is a terrible choice.

My Recommendations

• Bring back the 2019 Map. It was nearly perfect. You may need to twerk a few things but overall it was really nice. This will solve a lot of the issues you had this year.
• Move Community Night back to Friday, bring back the ONE concert, not the three options, or at least two options. One concert + one DJ on Saturday night.
• Alcohol. Beer. Please. I don’t remember hardly any issues inside the Convention, it was nice to relax, have a drink and chat with other people. Every major convention will have it’s issues, but none of them have banned alcohol. E3, PAX, TwitchCon, Comic Con, Dragoncon, etc etc. Blizzcon is the only one I know that bans Alcohol from it’s convention.
• Tickets: $300, $500-$550 for Portal Pass. Bring back Charity Dinner. Bring back Thursday DMF, make it a party.
• Esports. You know what I miss? The two Raid teams battling it out on the big screen at the convention. I think it was 2009 or 2010 you had it. You made a raid that they hadn’t encountered and we had to watch them learn the fights and see which team won. You just got rid of OW Esports… didn’t have anything Starcraft, no HoTS anymore. What are ya’ll going to do? Arena is cool, but we need something more. You could also bring the Mythic+ Tournament back to Blizzard. What if you even offered it open to “regular” people? Like your cosplay contests, open it up to non professionals for a fun time.

My biggest recommendations is to work with your community.
Reach out and work with actual Blizzcon “professionals” from social media. There are plenty of us, between the Blizzcon 2023 group, the OG Blizzcon 2023 group, the Blizznerds group, the Reddit and Reddit Discord, the Ladies of Blizzcon group, the Beer Nexus Swap, the CBTS team, the Wowhead team, the Ditchcon team. There are LOTS of us that are willing to help work with ya’ll to make BC The best it can be. Why not take us up on our knowledge and experiences?

I don’t know if I want to attend next year, based on the experiences of many of my friends and people I don’t know, the threads I’ve been reading, etc. It will depend also on the date of the convention, the prices, etc. I recommend when you come out with the announcement of Blizzcon 2024, to have EVERYTHING out there. The map, the Schedule, the Merch, etc. Let people know what we are paying for is worth it.

[Satanless-1181]

BlizzCon 2019 is the last one I attended prior to 2023. I would have to say the lines in 2019 had a lot more organization with entering the con and lines such as Darkmoon faire.

Many BlizzCon employees did not recognize that portal pass had additional perks. Many people with ports pass didn’t know they could be first in line. There were a lot of missing elements for the portal pass compared to 2019.

Darkmoon fair should be in the building it was in 2019. Lines for Darkmoon fair on Saturday about 10-11am were lined all the way to the overwatch hall which caused major crowding. To the point many were in line for hours.

However, the art structures were amazing. Being the voice acting panel back!! Much love!

[Blazing-1537]

The Title should give a basic understanding of my overall feelings but to go into more detail.

Portal pass this year was a major letdown from start to finish.
One of the primary advertised features of portal pass was “Separate Security Line” this was not the case there was not separate security line for portal pass users we had the same security line as general admission.
Even when asking around Day 1 for where such line was security doing crowd control? Yelled at me telling me there was no separate line and to stop asking where the portal pass line was because it did not exist. That happened for about 2 hours until I guess word from on top came down telling security they needed to let portal pass though and hold use in a side lane before taking us up to the lounge at 9. But we used the same security line as general admission and only people who happen to be asking or didn’t give up searching for found this out, many portal pass users ended up in general admission as they took security at their word that on line existed.
Unlike in 2019 when portal pass HAD a truly dedicated separate security line by the Hilton that was well known to all security staff.

Once portal pass got up to the lounge we discovered that this year the advertised concessions where not free and nor where they setup for when we got into the lounge as if setting them up was an afterthought they needed to rush into place.

Unlike in 2019 when we were given free basic concessions, tea/coffee/water and as it was Halloween some candy.

Talking about the lounge it only showed “main stage?” or a few min loop of promos, it wasn’t until day 2 that a group of staff (I joke not it was like 8 people) even tried to swap a single TV to the Twitch stream so the lounge could watch (with out sound) the Warcraft arena tournament. They ended up just leaving a laptop with an HDMI connection by the TV with Twitch opened… low tech but goes to show that they really didn’t think the lounge out.

2019 I recall areas of the lounge streaming different stages so people could migrate to the TVs for announcement / events they wanted to watch.

The lounge also was advertised has having “gameplay experiences” note the plural however the experiences was just 10 xbox with overwatch on them. It was clear some people just camped consoles, I also saw a few instances of people slipping into badmouthing each other’s performance color fully… which took away from the relaxing / peaceful atmosphere that the lounge was meant to hold.
While I do not recall Demos at all in 2019, I hardly count this as acceptable due to how it took away from the relaxing atmosphere of the lounge.

“concierge support” the staff at this station had no clue they were going to be at such an information station and where not able to provide any information

Portal pass even lost some of the benefits we had in 2019 such as “The night at the faire” or whatever it was called where portal pass was able to attend the darkmoon faire early to avoid some lines, this year the portal pass was like ~400 more and provided less, honestly portal pass this year paid for the old Benefit dinner price but with OUT are money going to charity just to line blizzards pockets.

Day2 blizzcon seems to have simi understood that they messed up as they tried to appease portal pass users by giving us few TVs to see when blizzard staff might show up at lounge, said they would let us into the main convention floor before general admissions at 10am as a sort of apology that we got onto the floor late Day1 behind general admission.
However all security clearly didn’t get the memo that this early access was meant for portal pass users as less than 10 mins after portal pass was told we could enter the main floor general admission was let in 30mins earlier than they were supposed to be.
Making this “apology” just another slap in the face to the portal pass users

TLDR: Portal pass
The price paid was not worth it, I would never recommend portal pass to anyone based of this year we paid more for less. Even items advertised as part of the pass where NOT provided. We paid to line blizzard pockets.

Convention issues:

Whoever planned the layout needs to be fired on question…. WHY was the Darkmoon faire put on the main flood smashed into the Warcraft area. This was only asking for problems, ANYONE who has ever been to a blizzcon in the past could have told you this, it why the faire was normally in its own building.
So many issues with the faire lines… to be simple, need more turnstiles and limit coins people can buy sooner along with more dedicated staff for line control
Pet store…. Good god WHY and WHO thought it was a good idea to make every single person use 1, 3x3 grid to pull the random pets from this caused such a freaking backup and honestly be amazed if everyone that paid for a random pet was able to collect a chance due try due to how bad the line was.

Security Staff
They need to have more training / not be what I am guessing was several different groups all giving out their own instructions.
they need to understand basics of health and safety, Day 2 when getting the darkmoon faire area line sorted I saw a security guard holding his flash light at eye level, set to a quick strobe light honestly we are luck that I didn’t see anyone have an epileptic seizure due to his actions.
More painful about that however was when I called him out and went to the area he was he darted into the faire and the staff at the line refused to chastised him as “he could be looking for someone” as if that was a perfectly acceptable reason to use a strobe light in the dark at eye level in close proximity to people.

Security did not seem to care about the floor layout, example would be Day 2 I tried to reach the inclusion Nexus however security roped off all entrances into the arena lobby, the only way to reach the nexus, to control lines for the arena and not seeing the irony at all that they locked people out of the INCLUSION nexus area.
This lasted until a blizzard employee also being barred from reaching the nexus joined the group at the now “exit only” being bared by security and a manager was requested. However I think they just let our group though then blocked off all entrances again.
This sends a message that I do not think blizzard wants but it is, Blizzard does not care about the inclusion Nexus as it was put such an out of the away area that it can be forgotten about and band to accommodate other events.

Also to rub last bit of dirt in the wounds, when I went to the general information desk to leave feed back at blizzcon, I was told that the forums here was the only place to leave feedback so that blizzard can “check my account” aka it was implied by staff that my feedback would only be considered if they saw I was actively buying / spending money on blizzard products.

TLDR:
Worst blizzcon I have ever been to,
• Security clearly had no internal training and to many different goals conflicting.
• Convention layout was made by someone who has never attended a blizzcon
• Portal pass was treated as cash cow by blizzcon to pull as much money from us while provided as little service as possible.
Will I attend blizzcon in future? I want to say I will, however with how poorly blizzcon was handled this year a lot of big changes must happen and true apologies and compensation given by blizzard to for how bad it was as this honestly for portal pass boarders on fraud in my eyes.

-I am highly dyslexic and bad at English I am sorry for any spelling / grammar errors.

[Schrei-1124]

I recorded a video since typing it all up would be a lot, but I can summarize the main points here too. Link to video - about 20min long.

• Communication between the contest organizers and contestants needs to be dramatically improved, and any major changes from norms (Saturday instead of Friday, exhibition not being a solo moment on stage, our entry text being used for a script, etc etc) need to be communicated ASAP instead of last minute.
• Judging needs to be fixed. Either use internal employees who are very familiar with cosplay and recognized community members, or bring on professional costumers with the correct experience for this type of contest. One hour for judging isn’t sufficient either.
• Exhibition needs to be treated with more respect and given their individual time on stage, or told beforehand that they’ll be on stage so briefly. I know personally if I was given the choice between how the exhibition went this year vs not participating at all, I would have chosen not to participate.
• Post-convention communication needs to happen as well. We still have questions that are unanswered.

[Jillypoo-1342]

I’m still waiting for mine so yeah.

[Skemeister-2516]

This video really adds so much on this thread points from the cosplayers perspective - that really make the community night special, especially on how the organization of Blizzcon this year was completely out of touch with the Community that made it so big.

I got very emotional watching it, it provides objective points, first person experience, historical Blizzcon mentions and clear improvement suggestions, even proposes what to do now, after the Blizzcon.

To the ones that moderate this thread, please be bold when providing feedback to your internal channels, you have to act faster than waiting for a better next year.

[Aurongodx-1434]

I watched every second of your video and while I am not a cosplayer myself, I do have friends that put months if not years of work into perfecting their cosplay and I did get emotional listening to how poorly you all were treated this year.

I suggest everyone that reads this thread watch your video and that you post it on the Blizzcon reddit as well where others are sharing their feedback.

Also for what it’s worth, the community will always support you and thank you for the work you all put into your cosplays. It is really one of the major highlights of going to Blizzcon and hopefully this will not deter you or others from future conventions.

[tabescrux-1604]

I have to agree with so much said here.

Problems started before the con even started, axs had no warnings that vpn would mess with your ability to get into their system and buy tickets, I only realized this after a phone call and being on hold with them. I also bought a ticket for a friend off someone on axs, but the blizzcon goodie codes were all sent to the original purchaser not the person holding the ticket after transfer. Thank goodness I had messaged this person off Facebook and talked directly with them and not through one of the raffle ticket places where I would have no idea where I bought from. The person I bought from recieved 2 opening ceremony tickets and couldn’t transfer the second to me. I had to BATTLE with third party security and eventually found a blizz employee to explain to them that I needed to meet him in order to get into the opening ceremony and he kindly let me go find them so I got in but he was the 10th or more employee I had asked what I needed to do.

Portal pass was a scam for those that bought it but I saw that from the beginning. I attended the first exilecon and spent the 1k on the super vip ticket, vip’s got to go to a special dinner at a fully booked out restaurant that was dinner paid for, tons of devs and streamers and vip/super vip the night before the con. No GA. There were actually clearly designated vip lines and treatment, seating for the opening ceremony. Super vip got a special event the day after the con, blizzard could have had an amazing special portal campus tour in Irvine or another restaurant thing but for the extra hundreds what they got was so disappointing.

I was in the arena for all the wow panels, while the Anduin cinematic was beautiful the first time I didn’t necessarily want to see it 1000 times over the course of 2 days. Or the other 3 cinematics recycled ad nausea. Why was there not any wow guild clash being broadcast in the arena while we waited for wow for panels, or overwatch cup stuff before the overwatch panel? Giant missed opportunity there. Food trucks imo were fine, oc tacos is one of my personal favs and I was happy to see them there.

[Naobi-1654]

This was our second Blizzcon and we found it very unorganized and underwhelming compared to 2019. I wrote out a whole post on what each day was like with the confusion and miscommunication and then I realized it was 4 pages long and tried to condense it into a couple of main points.

Communication:

This is definitely where many of the problems stemmed from. It was very poor for the whole event. None of the staff knew anything and we were often directed incorrectly or told the wrong information. \ Constantly throughout the weekend we were given inconsistent information, the biggest example being that there was no separate entrance for portal pass holders or there was depending on who you talked to– I still don’t know if portal pass people had a separate entrance for Community night or not as we asked quite a few people and got quite a few different answers.

The “lottery” to the open ceremonies was very confusing with very little communication from Blizzard. We finally figured out through the Blizzard community sites and social media chats that some people got extra tickets on the AXS app however it seemed to be random and many people who bought multiple tickets had some tickets get in and some not meaning that they would have to split up to watch it. However it was subsequently posted that the line was being let in that the staff weren’t even checking tickets for it so basically it became a first come first serve anyway.

Many of these issues could have easily been fixed by having staff a little bit of organized prior to the event or even just better communication to the attendees by putting up a couple of well placed signs (Orange “portal passes line” signs pointing the way would have been helpful) and posting things on the official Blizzcon site. I’m glad I joined many of the social media/community pages as that is where the majority of my information came from.

Community Night: This is always the best part of the convention and the community is really what makes Blizzcon worth going to. I’m not sure why it was decided it should be stuffed into Saturday with the overwatch cup and the closing ceremonies/band this year but that not only made it very hard to attend but made Friday feel extremely empty.

DMF and content: Obviously DMF shouldn’t have been stuffed into the corner of the WoW/Hearthstone/Rumble hall. I’m not sure who decided the layout but Diablo definitely did not have enough content for its own hall (which was disappointing in itself) and Overwatch definitely didn’t need 2 full halls. This could have easily been rearrange to have Diablo in the corner and DMF in a hall by itself. In 2019 DMF was by itself and portal pass buyers got early access, which I feel really helped keep the line times down. In total I spent maybe 30 minutes in the Diablo hall only used the Overwatch halls to walk through and spent the rest of my time in the WoW/Hearthstone/DMF hall (with the exception of watching the opening ceremony and the community night in the portal pass lounge) standing in lines for plushies/capsules or demo’s.

Store and Merchandise: Basically the amount of stuff available was underwhelming and the actual merchandise seemed cheap and poorly produced. The Blizzcon sweater I bought is starting to peel after 1 wash and the plushies seem cheap with many of the accessories being cardboard or lower quality fabric/stuffing and look like they were returns (dirt on them). Also some of the stuff available at Blizzcon was put on sale and available cheaper in the online store after the event – which really didn’t make it seem like you valued the people who were there buying your merchandise at all.

Portal Pass: This was an absolute waste of money this year, there was little to no communication on how to get our “perks” or what they even were as they seemed to change depending on who you asked. The staff again often gave out incorrect/contradictory information or had no idea that the portal pass even existed. Signs and staff who actually knew there was a portal pass line needed to be posted much farther from the entrance for the opening and the perks needed to be better defined and consistent. Free coffee/drinks or even the appropriate number of vendors in the Portal Pass lounge would have been nice as lines were taking longer than an hour for coffee. Noone seemed to know whether we had special access to anything and the only demo’s available were a couple of X boxes with Overwatch. I looked around the first day and didn’t plan on coming back to the portal pass lounge because it didn’t seem to be anything special. While I appreciate that Blizzard did seem to realize this and tried to make it up to us on Saturday by having staff pull us to the front of the demo lines and giving out some free merch in the portal pass lounge it was poorly communicated and honestly too little for the price paid. I really hope Blizzard offers people who bought this some sort of incentive, such as a discount on next years pass, because a lot of people who bought it were not happy.

[Renegarde-1985]

I was directed by the Blizzard support to share my feedback in here. Seeing so many folks go through what we did shows the extent of the shortcomings of this Blizzcon which was our first. Highlights for me is I knew better from working conferences all my life that if something is amiss, ask and investigate. This was our saving grace that allowed us to still experience a majority of the conference despite the numerous issues. I was super persistent knowing that the staff was in the dark and rolled with it best we could. Was it worth the extra $1000? Absolutely not. There’s an opportunity to make it right to every portal pass holder whether it be in the form of a free upgrade to a portal pass next year or in the form of a credit of sorts. Regardless of everything, we appreciated the experience and its the community of gamers that truly made this a memorable experience. I hope Blizzard will try to make this right for all portal pass holders.