no responses from blizzard.
hands up, anyone who’s surprised by that.
2 Likes
Sadly I had the same experience. This was my first so my only comparison was from others before me.
Drawings for the opening ceremony? Huh, we just walked in at about 10:45 and had great seats. Found out about the drawing after the event. I would say that the arena was 70% full when the ceremony started. The opening ceremony was grand and it all went downhill from there.
Next we went to the store. It was in a giant hall across from the Arena. So many people in so many lines! leaving the hall with thoughts to return we heard that many of the more desirable items were already sold out. We came back later and after much asking around figured out that we had to stand in line to stand in line and, yes indeed, the good stuff was all sold out.
The decorations in all the halls were great!
We wandered through the 4 halls and found Darkmoon Faire to once again stand in line to stand in line to buy a plushie for my granddaughter. Turned out the plushie selection was random. $25 for a chance at getting one you liked. Fortunately a one month old doesn’t really care. She got an Onion? I guess.
Free swag was one of the things I was looking forward to. Got a nice daypack, thanks.
Everything else had a pricetag. I didn’t find any free pins
The 5 minute overwatch demo was cool. Wanted to do more demos, BUT THE LINES!!!
1 Like
I gotta say this was my first experience and just because a buddy of mine paid for most of it and was VIP pass was it a great time. It was a bummer he paid all that and we were not let in that early first go and some concessions were not included.
I feel bad for loads of people stuck in lines. we “lucked out” waiting an hour and half+ waiting to buy coins but had to save them for the following day where they actually let us in earlier, but everyone else in his guild and many many more seemed to run into the hours of time wasted away in the queue.
All that aside; it blew me away! The designers went all out and there was more than enough for me to geek out. This exp. has me wanting to play all the bliz games i was hooked before. Even got a new rig!!
This was my 5th blizzcon and my only time I was disappointed,I left saying never again will I go. As a Canadian it’s just so expensive with the exchange, I used to say it was worth it but not even close this year. Everything was just one disappointment after another.
My first time friend I brought and I both didn’t get a seat for the opening ceremonies and my friend who had a portal pass felt so bad for us that he gave up his good watching experience to sit with us in some random hall and watch from a screen with not even a good view. I tried 4 times to go see the DMF and never managed to get it just turned away because there were too many people. The line ups were so long for everything I tried to do and I ended up sitting on the floor trying to watch panels and the World Cup finals, I’m not young any more so it was distractingly uncomfortable as my legs keep hurting and going numb (I don’t recall having to sit on the floor at blizzcon before) where was all your seating?! There were so many computers set up for Mauga and live Warcraft which barely anyone went to play because they will both be playable in a few weeks anyway. And No alcohol this year so I couldn’t even numb my bad experience with that and just watch the OW games. Why is there only one ESport? It took a lot of the excitement out of things and left everyone trying to squeeze into the same space. I tried to get food at the food trucks and I had to wait for 35 mins for my order as they got it wrong 4 times in a row and wouldn’t just return my money (I know this isn’t blizzards fault but still just added to the comically bad time I had). A number of times I just didn’t know what to do because the few things there was to do were packed with people and inaccessible so I just stood around or went outside. There seemed to be much less for panels so you had to go very early to the ones they did have because the arena ran out of decent seating so fast.
It may sound like it here but I’m not even a complaint kind of person I’m quite easy going and easy to please it was just that bad this year. I’m quite certain I would have enjoyed blizzcon much better from home this year since nothing seemed exclusive anyways. The back pack was nice but in past years they gave us lots of little fun things like stickers and action figures, plushies and posters etc, I expected something to be in the bag but just empty, wasted opportunities…it just seemed low effort this time with just the backpack. I stood in a 40 min line for a temporary tattoo which they advertise to be the size of a softball and when you get it 40 mins later it’s the size of a nickel and couldn’t even make out what it was, just a little smudge of ink, I felt so awkward for the girl who put it on, so she spent the whole day disappointing people? Was this device even tested or thrown in last minute?? Even though it was technically free I still felt like I was scammed out of my time.
The wow announcements were amazing, actually the developers all seem to be doing a great job right now with fixing their games. Most of my complaints are about the con organization. But I could have seen the announcements even better from home as I didn’t get to see it live anyway. I’m sure the DMF was cool but I couldn’t get in so… The list goes on of negatives this year. Even my friend who had never gone before says he was disappointed. You left me feeling embarrassed that I convinced him to come because my past experiences were so amazing. I can’t believe this Blizzcon cost me an extra $100 USD per ticket (this is a lot of money especially for us non-Americans) more from previous years so I was expecting it to be more epic than ever before not to be a much lower quality experience!
Edit: the year where they had each game do their announcements on different stages was a much better experience.
I spoke to a Blizzard Online CS manager while there, a few times. They are absolutely reading and absorbing all of this. He specifically requested feedback to be posted here on the forums so this feedback was given in the best possible place. I watched him send feedback up the chain on his phone in real time. They are listening, they are acting. We saw improvements to entry line, ADA, and Portal Pass treatment on Saturday. Not enough, but we saw it.
Companies cannot respond to all feedback. But they want it. They always want it. Blizzard makes money on making us happy. Their jobs depend on it. So they’re always going to want to improve.
Let me preface this by stating I am a second time blizzcon attendee after attending the 2019 edition as well. This is also written via phone so apologies for hard to read layout.
General remarks:
As a person flying in from Europe, I felt tickets could go on sale slightly earlier than they did. Airline ticket prices were fairly steep by the time ticket sale dates were announced.
I really missed not having a Blizzcon app for this edition. The 2019 app was a huge +. IIRC you had the floor map, schedules, blink store (and even streams unsure?) All contained in a simple and nice to use app, with free wifi available (which is a godsend for people traveling from Europe who do not have roaming data in the US unless they want to take out a loan to pay for those crazy rates). The app could have been a good place to push announcements or visualize where people had to queue up (this is a common negative feedback I have heard concerning Friday opener).
The general layout was not ideal, I agree with having the single large stage for all announcements and panels as it undoubtedly makes production and behind the scenes work much simpler.
However from what I could tell the overwatch stage was complete overkill it absorbed an ungodly amount of space that could have been put to better use (more on this to follow).
I felt that the portal pass added little extra to the experience (hence I did not purchase one). Meeting people who did have portal pass access in general confirmed there was little extra value of having the pass.
I feel that the lottery system for the OC could have been handled cleaner. People arriving with their significant other and only 1 of the 2 has the OC access is not a good look. I would have rather seen it happen during your badge pickup where if you or your SO get lucky, you would then both be given access.
Area/space feedback:
Your top IP (warcraft) felt very cramped for space. I was extremely lucky to get into the warcraft hall as early as I did and managed to snag a spot on one of those wooden benches right Infront of the big screen (on the other side of that sword). The benches were hugely uncomfortable but after standing in line for 3+ hours I definitely did not want to stand or sit on the floor until OC started/ended. It felt really bad overall to see the very limited seating options throughout the wow hall
I played the BFD demo where we killed all 3 bosses with 6 minutes to spare. The wait time was not very long as I got in early and you had a good amount of playtime.
The retail demo looked empty most of the times I passed by. I do not really understand the need to demo a 10.2 patch.
The Darkmoon faire is and will always be hugely popular it deserved probably twice the surface area (maybe use the downstairs hall where the blizzard arcade was in 2019?)
The hearthstone area was fine, same with the rumble corner. Moving the Darkmoon faire out to a separate area would have probably allowed sufficient seating to be possible in your main IP hall.
As I eluded to before the 2 halls dedicated to overwatch was complete overkill. Moving from the Warcraft to Diablo halls multiple times a day and it felt weird moving through the OW sections and seeing it empty the majority of the time.
The Diablo hall was visually stunning but I feel also here some additional seating could have been a +. I spent most of my Saturday in the Diablo area to follow the more in depth panels and luckily I did have the beanbag for the WOW panel as the other seating options are closer to torture devices than actual seating. Majority of people having to sit on the floor or stand was not a great look.
The activities in this hall were all visually stunning and well laid out. I did not want to get a tattoo so I can not provide feedback on that part but I heard some people got shafted with conflicting information. Streamer area was a big +. Not having anything playable was a let down.
North hall was fine. I came in early on Thursday and never had to wait for anything to pick up badge/lanyard/backpack. Slightly confused how I ordered Blink store merch very early yet still had to wait multiple hours for my pick up, earliest slot I could choose was over 3 hours later. But this gave me plenty of time to socialize and enjoy the weather outside on a day where there is limited other things to do.
Things to participate in/content:
I missed the blizzard arcade it was a fun area for those in between moments.
I felt diablo expansion could have used a dedicated art panel or art exposition.
I did not see anything related to to a wow mythic+ tournament nor arena tournament. A classic hardcore mak’gora tournament could also have had its place.
Rumble demo area was fine, same with the hearthstone tavern/demo area. I did not like how StarCraft and HotS are suddenly dead and buried.
Other:
Food and drinks at the venue was more than acceptable.
Security was OK and as an early bird I never experienced any issues with standing in line for excessive amounts of time.
3 Likes
Good point, I missed having the app too.
Preface: purchased the Portal Pass and have been to every in-person BlizzCon since 2007 (only missed the first in 2005 and no BC held in 2006).
Getting the wristband + lanyard was easy enough on Thursday morning (~10:30AM) - plenty of staff to point me in the right direction and had literally no wait to get the items.
Entering the con on Day 1 was weird: staff would ask if my friend and I were general or portal pass and they’d direct us to the North hall… despite us showing them we already had our wristband (for those who didn’t know, you didn’t actually need to wear the lanyard). Otherwise, entering felt so much nicer than past cons post-9/11: just walked right through security checkpoint, didn’t even need to take off my backpack.
Portal Pass lounge
Nice place to sit down and rest. Had a bag claim area too which was great to drop off purchases made at the store. Aaaannnndd that’s it: anything else offered in the lounge was pitifully bad. Food and drinks? Free water at the water cooler. Some of us paid $800 per pass to get in there and you couldn’t have at least had bags of (Halloween) candy or chips or cookies or anything? The food selection was interesting: Korean tacos, ramen, banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich), Leeroy Jenkin’s hot chicken (buffalo sauce chicken tendies + mac n cheese), and frozen slushe drinks themed after the Horde/Alliance (bland and almost flavorless). Unfortunately, these just didn’t feel any more special or premium than what was already offered on the show floor - I actually ate more food from the convention halls than I did from the lounge. Side note: the chicken tendies from Leeroy Jenkin’s was room temperature/cold despite being in those hot serving trays…
The private viewing area in the lounge was laughably bad. A bunch of rows and columns of chairs (~100+?) parked in front of a TV screen that had wasn’t even larger than a home-theater screen. I don’t know why anyone would even want to sit there when the screens in the lounge by the seats and couches were much closer and offered a much better viewing experience. Devs signing, which from the looks of it were quite pleasant and cordial, but no signage or schedule on who’d be there and when.
imo, best perk were the bathrooms. Odd, I know, but when you’ve got a place to just go to and not worry about waiting for a urinal or stall… it’s magical.
Apparently on Day 2, during times like the Community Night + Le Sserafim concert there were high-ranking Blizz employees (e.g. Blizz Pres. Mike Ybarra) in the lounge giving away plushes and other swag… which irks me greatly because it felt unfair for those of us trying to actually partake in the convention’s offerings and be anywhere else but there. You couldn’t have just given PP-holders some extra swag as part of the registration process? Remember, many of us paid $800 for this lmao
Final take: portal pass was not, in any shape or form, worth the money and anyone considering it in future BlizzCons (will there even be any future BlizzCons?) should only do so out of desperation or if they have disposable income.
Blink Shopping
I don’t understand how after 10+ years the merch store is continually a terrible experience. The whole idea of “blink shopping” is that you place your order via the app and then get an email when the order is ready to be picked-up; in 'n out with no hassle. Except year after year it’s just going to an area and waiting 30-60+ minutes for someone to retrieve your order. There’s plenty of shopping, but no “blink” in it.
Consider contracting Amazon to handle this because if there’s one thing they know it’s how to handle ungodly amounts of orders from customers and getting it to them in an almost impossibly efficient manner.
The email process seemed to be iffy as well. In my case I had two items (the Murloc shoulder buddies) caught up in customs, leaving the one OW2 Kiriko lanyard to be picked up… except I never got an email for pickup at the designated time (4PM Sunday) and had to go to customer service, which took 1hr 30min to resolve. Just for a lanyard. In hindsight I should’ve just eaten the cost ($10). Oh, and my email to actually pick it up didn’t arrive until 8:25PM Sunday night… you know, a good 4 hours after the scheduled time and well after the con floor had already closed; fair point: I don’t actually know what time the store itself closed so maybe I could’ve gotten it after 8:30PM (???), but it’s just stupid to get the email that late.
The products, too, have been noticeably in steady decline. Earliest BlizzCons - back in the 2007+ period - had a wider variety of trinkets and little things to buy. Then things got bland. Cute but Deadly figures had a lot of potential, especially when there’s armor sets and alternate skins in WoW/Diablo/OW/HotS that could’ve been used, but I guess making the molds and going through quality control wasn’t cost effective enough? Or sales dropped?
Funny and sad that the Series 10 pins were just repeats of past pins, but now shaped instead of being flat 2D art. Again, your games have alternate armor sets and skins for many beloved characters, there’s so much potential for new pins to sell to us and a lot of people more than willing to give you their money.
Dark Moon Faire
I’m so glad I stuck it out on Day 1 and got both my tokens and capsules because Day 2 was atrocious. For those who weren’t there: the fire marshall, apparently, had to get Blizz staff to close the area for a while because of how many people either in or trying to get into the hall. A number of people got their tokens Day 1 and thought it’d be better/easier to redeem them on Day 2. Big mistake. Some people were eventually able to get in to either buy or redeem their tokens, but others weren’t and are seemingly left with unspent tokens.
Waiting to get tokens shouldn’t take as long as it did; waiting to get capsules shouldn’t take as long as it did either. That you’ve only got 2 registers to handle token sales is so amateurishly bad it’s unfathomable how it was decided on that number. You’ve literally got people lined up to give you money; spend a little money to have more registers for sales and you’re guaranteed profit. The fact that tokens could only be sold after they’d been retrieved from the capsule machines is funny too because it creates an unnecessary delay that could be resolved by selling the capsules directly to attendees. It can be fun putting the token in and turning the handle, but doing it for 20, 30, 40, 50+ tokens makes the process take long and results in super long lines.
Are the people planning this not on the show floor, looking and taking notes on how space is being used or seeing how many people, year after year, actually go to the DMF? It’s easily one of the most populated areas out of the entire convention.
Arena
Imo, it makes sense to have all the dev talks in one singular area: makes for easier planning. But it isn’t nearly as convenient for attendees and it ends up eliminating the possibility for so many panels; granted, there were definitely a lot of panels in the past that did not draw a lot of attendees to sit and watch, so there’s likely some level of justification in their elimination. Getting in and out of the arena, though, is cumbersome when people can line up either outside or inside and that leaves the staff with the burden of trying to coordinate how many from each side can enter.
Diablo hall
Visibly it looked great, but having almost all the attractions be lined up against the walls created a strong limitation on space for attendees to queue up. So much of the middle space was for, what, seating to watch a giant screen? I get that there wasn’t anything new to demo, but it really made it look like a desperate attempt to offer anything for Diablo fans to flock to and in reality still didn’t have much. Could’ve/should’ve considered doing what past Blizzcons did and have demo stations with a con-specific build with a random (low) chance to drop a “BlizzCon Artifact” item that would then reward a dev-signed poster or something else.
Also, the Loose Goose Inn or whatever it was called… was just a generic drink stand?
Overwatch halls
The arena, given how it’s a place for competition (by name), would’ve been so much more appropriate for the World Cup. The main OW hall itself felt like it was missing so much compared to years prior. I remember one year there was a spot made to look like a diner and you could get something to drink and going through the experience got you an OW-themed shirt. Was really nice. This year it felt like there was little care into truly showing how important the OW IP is to Microsoft-ActivisionBlizzardKing.
WarCraft hall
Tbh, I stopped playing WoW years ago so this was just a place to walk through to get to and from the Dark Moon Faire. It seemed busy enough, so I guess others were interested in WC Rumble and the overall offerings? Given the expansion news it seemed like a good time and place for WarCraft fans.
Overall
It really felt like this should’ve been a skip-year: a time when you, much like you’ve done in years past (under Mike Morhaime’s leadership), skipped holding a BlizzCon so that there’d actually be brand new, future content playable as an on-site exclusive demo experience. Instead you had practically nothing to justify being there. Mauga for OW2? People at home could play him the same as con-goers. WC Rumble? Available worldwide on mobile phones. WoW experience? I think it was just the latest patch content or something?
You can do better.
6 Likes
Great post, I read through the entire thing. I concur with pretty much everything you said.
I did really love the Diablo area though. I do wish there was demo-worthy content, of course. But the vibe of the Diablo hall was killer. We found ourselves just walking through it for fun. The pews, lighting, music, and art made for a fun Hall to wander around.
3 Likes
It breaks my heart to say that I totally agree. I’ve been going to Blizzcon since 2010 and haven’t missed one since. It was great to see my friends and spend time with the community but man I really had to work overtime to convince myself it wasn’t a huge waste of money.
I’ve purchased upgraded tickets in the past and enjoyed to perks, dinner with devs and limited edition art which I cherish to this day. But this year the portal pass was extremely disappointing. I feel incredibly taken advantage of, I upgraded my ticket and one of my friends as a gift and it feels like a HUGE waste of $1,000. The running joke the whole weekend was trying to justify the cost. “Skipping the registration line to save 10 mins : $50”, “Getting to use a less busy bathroom: $100”…
I am an incredibly loyal Blizzard fan, happy to go to blizzcon and proudly wearing horde gear even though I haven’t play in nearly a decade, and I have never in my life requested a refund because I’m frankly a bit of a pushover customer, but this makes me frustrated to the point where I want to demand some sort of refund from Blizzard.
1 Like
Echoing all sentiments in this post as well, I do like some of those smaller panels though, or having those smaller stages for those panels. Also highly bummed about them announcing stuff with nothing to really show or play, a far cry from all previous BlizzCons where they’d announce the new thing and have it ready to demo/test and leave feedback for. In my opinion, this might be the most unacceptable thing about the whole experience, don’t pay $800 to not play the cool new demo alongside the rest of what I’d normally experience.
Also been to all BlizzCons except for 2005s and 2008s.
1 Like
My god, the decorating, set design, and lighting in the Diablo area were absolutely mind-blowing. I can’t say enough good things about it.
WoW was pretty good too. Overwatch, obviously they weren’t going for immersion.
But Diablo…wow. Just wow.
Blizzcon 2023 was a poor experience. I’ve been to 4 previous and without a doubt if it wasn’t for the friend group and people I talked to I wouldn’t even give you a chance at another one. I say this in this way because the way things were done is going to further alienate new people and kill this event unless you take note of all the feedback everyone is providing. It would be sad and terrible after everything you’ve built.
The Good
- The people, they were still amazing as ever.
- More WoW expansions with good advance planning.
- More classic WoW in several different directions.
- Chris Metzen absolutely killed it.
- The theming was possibly the best I’ve ever seen at Blizzcon.
The Bad
- The merchandise this year was absolutely underwhelming. Starcraft had almost zero representation. The existing franchises being featured were even extremely light.
- The food and drink vendors were extremely poorly placed and at times were even nearly blocking foot traffic.
- Lack of quests as have been done previous years.
There was the mountain dew thing giveaway which was neat but wasn’t advertised. However when they went to announce the winner first the crowd was way more massive than the area allowed. Then finally someone realized oh wait there’s a place over here with a mic but it was exactly one thing given away for what had to be several thousand people.
The Ugly
- The layout was designed like an on the rails trade show. It felt a lot like whomever planned it wanted you to look and move on rather than linger.
- There were no seats to be had anywhere to watch the events. The lone place was the Overwatch Arena.
Previously there were plenty of things going on and tons to do but this year didn’t feel that way at all. It felt like nothing was going on other than in the Darkmoon Faire, Opening/Closing Ceremonies, Overwatch Arena, and WoW area. - The line management and confusion of the people conveying information was an absolutely trainwreck.
- The lack of interactive community events was sorely disappointing. Even having some type of open or invitational tournaments with a community funded prize pool would’ve been better. Also where were the submission for the contests viewable, I never saw anything except what was on the closing ceremony stream.
- Navigating between Hall B and Hall A was nearly impossible due to the layout. It was one extremely small choke point.
- 0 Starcraft or Heroes of the Storm representation it seemed like you want people to forget they exist.
- THE DARKMOONE FAIRE
The lines to get in were absolutely terrible. 4 hrs to get in, get tokens, then get capsules. Out of the 150 capsules we opened on Day 2 none of them had a prize. The old random lootboxes at least guaranteed 1 in game code plus things like patches. There were 0 screens showing anything in there. So you couldn’t even do anything but wait. It should never be located next to WoW with all the traffic both get. - The closing Ceremonies and Costume contest should never be on the same night.
There should probably also be a certain number of lottery seats so you don’t have to camp or spend all day waiting to get in. - The opening ceremony lottery needs to have a way to set your group size.
What were people meant to do between events? Where were the screens? Where were the chairs? What happened to all the things of years past that worked? Where was the art, the Blizzard Museum Stuff, the Blizzard Arcade with an awesomely themed bar?
10 Likes
I am going to write my own review, but I will be echo-ing a lot of this. Well said!
1 Like
This was my first time at a Blizzcon event. I completely avoided the Darkmoon Faire after seeing the massive line. It really should be in its own, much larger region. The line itself was stretched from the Faire, through the WoW section and BOTH overwatch sections.
My husband and I were lucky enough to BOTH receive Opening Ceremony Tickets, which was awesome. For a 2 day event, I expected shorter lines in regard to trying out the new content. We did watch some of the competitions on some screens, but it was standing room only. Your above statement:
“What were people meant to do between events? Where were the screens? Where were the chairs? What happened to all the things of years past that worked? Where was the art, the Blizzard Museum Stuff, the Blizzard Arcade with an awesomely themed bar?”
I’d be very interested in that.
There was seating at the massively large screens, but not near the smaller areas. Also, would love to have the Quests be more visible. Same goes for food. I didn’t know of any food areas EXCEPT the food trucks. And that was chaos right after the WoW What’s Next Panel. Many people had just stood in long lines since breakfast, seen the Opening Ceremony, then stayed for the Whats Next Panel, and everyone was super hunger after that. Tiny area with a lot of hungry people.
I did love that all the artwork and statues were on display and all the themes. Loved Chris Metzen returning! Really looking forward to a story that is told without the constraints of one expansion AND is focused on select characters. I love character arcs. Curious to learn if we get “WoW History Lessons” via Dungeons (thinking back on Black Morass and Helping Thrall escape).
Lastly, why was a whole section taken up by something that would be getting released in less than a week? Seems like it would have been smarter to have both sections being used for the WoW classic revamp to test out and provide feedback on. Or use up more space so more people are try it out.
2 Likes
Echoing the sentiments here, the severe lack of panels was also a huge problem for me, where were the voice actor panels and lore panels? HoTS and SC as well as the other older games having no place was also disappointing.
Way too many people were congregating in several different areas because there was a lack of things to do, Blizzard was given feedback years ago to treat this like it’s a cruise ship in that you can’t possibly do it all, and while it’s true you couldn’t do that at this BlizzCon either it still felt very underwhelming in terms of panels as well as news in those panels. Why announce D4s expansion with nothing to truly show for it in the end other than some of the new zone?
Speaking of that, why did the WoW expansion have no demo but there was a demo for 10.2s patch that comes literally 4 days after the fact and now it comes tomorrow? Who would want to come to BlizzCon for $300 for $800 just to play PTR content that’s been on the PTR for 2 months+ by this point and comes tomorrow. The answer is pretty much no one.
Could go on other personal gripes like the fact that OWs monetization is clearly not going to improve ever and we’ll never get the PvE game that was announced and promised in 2019 but I’ll leave it at that.
Other misc stuff, having people walk around the entire convention center just to get badges was poorly done, and parking was also a nightmare which is a given most of the time. Merch was low on options and quality, $10 for pins is stealing when they were $5 each in all previous years. Also felt like this one had the most people, possibly 80k+ and the whole place was just too hot/warm, put the A/C on next year at least.
And adding one more thing, severe lack of esports tournaments/finals all of which usually conclude at BlizzCon. While I don’t watch the stuff, some people really enjoy seeing the championships at the end of the year while being at BlizzCon. Having only OWWC was not enough at all. Oh and put the main stage back into Hall D lol.
Came back to add, that the goody bag is disgraceful too. Basically $800 for an empty backpack where in all previous years you’d get something in them, not even papers or maps or schedules or anything about vendors/sponsors were inside this goody bag.
1 Like
I have been pretty understanding and tolerant of Blizzard’s missteps this time around. I disagree with the tone of your post, but on the facts, you are pretty much spot-on across the board.
You hit on the big ones. Lack of seating for the events that were streamed live within the convention center. DMF was an all-but-complete disaster. Lack of live, interactive panels. There were also many ADA issues which were addressed at the time but should never have happened.
I do think there were a lot more demos than people gave it credit for, but they were WoW demos. So if you didn’t play WoW (that’s my game), they were limited. People definitely wanted more to play with of forthcoming Diablo and Overwatch content.
I enjoyed the hell out of it, and Blizzard did some great things to make it good. But it had big gaping holes, too. And you caught most all of them.
I’ve mulled over my experience with Blizzcon on my flight home and I’d go again. I think this year was a fluke.
Last time I went was 2018. Like others have pointed out, they held the panels in different halls so there were more seats. The experience was way better.
I know they held stuff in the arena for production value purposes. But hopefully next year they have it better set up. Go back to more seats in the other halls.
This year came across as a learning experience. They haven’t done it in few years. So I’m giving their teams who organize the even the benefit of the doubt.
I’d purchase the portal pass again. By the end of day two they started adding perks that should have been more clearly announced. So I expect next year things will be much better since they’ll be more organized.
Or I can be wrong and it’ll be madness. 
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Blizzard has had 14 conventions to learn from, and for a while it looked like they had it pretty well figured out.
This year, it seemed like they had no idea what they were doing, like all the people who put on the previous events have left the company. It feels like Blizzard is falling apart internally, and I doubt the next Blizzcon will be any better, if they even do it again…
2 Likes
I heard this speculation.
But I think they’ll learn from this one.