So many people huddled around a couple 40 inch TVs trying to watch the biggest event of the day while the Overwatch area is empty.
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Spent all day stuck in dmf etc. Should 100% be showing on at least most screens, given it is one of the biggest events of the con and WoW had more hype than any other game…
Yah i gave up I’ll watch on youtube later.
Darkmoon Faire employees are stressed and frustrated. One employee told me she was asked to relieve a fellow employee on break and then the employee never returned.
Lines are so long. Once at capacity one general entry line was formed to allow individuals into Darkmoon Faire in batches. After hours of waiting the lines were then segmented into token, pet adoption and general entry. The individuals in general entry were never merged into these groups which lead to people in the new lines getting in faster than those that had waited hours.
I watched security get in an altercation with an individual which I have video of.
I have been to many blizzcons and this was just the worst of all of them. It took all the joy and fun out. Whomever was in charge of planning did a horrendous job and the leadership was absolutely missing in action when the problems started piling up.
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Blizzcon looked great, but functioned poorly.
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DMF needs its own hall. Its too popular to be shoved into a corner.
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There needs to be a dedicated viewing hall for events. There was extremely insufficient seating for panels even via simulcast
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If you’re going to have community night it MUST be in a separate to the concert goers. There are people who lined up as soon as 3:00 for that k-pop band. Meaning many had to give up seeing community night in person.
That last bit breaks my heart cause thru all the highs and lows its the community that makes this all worth it.
- Finally internally there needs to be a centralized source of info for everyone working blizzcon. People have been pinged-ponged in many different directions being told differing info and it just feels like there’s no coordination.
To be it in wow terms you are trying to play a gladiator arena game with pve gear.
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What a disappointing blizzcon this year: no starcraft news, no warcraft 2 remastered, cata classic coming out which will likely overwrite the golden age of wow (like wotlk did to bc), so disappointing blizzard
This has been the emptiest blizzcon for content. Ive been to every blizzcon since 09 and im shocked with the lack of content, panels, and demos. The lack of alcohol is bad enough but seems like Blizzard has given up on what makes the event fun or worthwhile. Fix it for next year or just do everyone a favor and cancel it.
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also that baby noises and ads instead of the epic music during breaks
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What happened to all the gaming vendors? In previous BlizzCon conferences, there were Steelseries, Corsair, Rosewill, etc…
Was this a change at BlizzCon right before the pandemic?
So I do want to take a moment to point out the things I am liking.
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I like the meet and greets
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I like the cosplayers (you guys have been so nice to me today so bless all yah)
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The staff have been so kind and helpful thank you blizzard staff who wore the blue shirts. You guys are the moon to our tides of chaos.
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I like how things are decorated. It looks cool at the convention.
Sure theres aspects on the panels and simulcast I’m not loving, but its not all doom and gloom.
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The demo areas seem bigger and like there are more of them? No wait time at all to play the demos we wanted today and we are excited to try some more tomorrow!
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Yes they have! So far this con has been a lot of line standing, but the staff have been totally amazing. I honestly can’t say I’ve ever had much interaction with them in the past except to ask directions. This year I’ve found myself in conversations with them randomly everywhere from lines to halls to even out on the sidewalks while taking an early morning walk. We’ve been able to ask them for way more than directions and they have gone above and beyond getting us answers to some out of blue questions we’ve had.
Also special thanks to the staff member who let us turn the couch around so we could watch the monitor for the opening ceremony. (We put it back like we found it!) Don’t want you to get in trouble so I won’t say your name.
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They need more demo computers for the games people care about, the wow classic one was over 2 hours long
PP didn’t have any demos setup upstairs either besides OW, disappointing
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Well after reading about it online and scrolling forums reading 99 percent of topics stating peoples disappointment with the convention it is undeniably clear BlizzCon really has slipped under and become something none of wanted 
From the stripped back show removing previous parts we love to removing something as important as alcohol at a convention !!! to whatever this new focus on streamers is ??? like who cares lol about streamers …to some unknown children’s pop band i for one had to Youtube to even know who they were this really is BYE FAR the worst BlizzCon i have seen and i have seen them all It seems like they are trying to appeal to the under 20’s. Luckily i’m in the UK so i can watch for free and not waste my money in person but for all of you going i truly feel sad you don’t get the show you look forward to and i really am scared for the future of the company who controls my favourite games…R.I.P old friend.
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the same one that brings those Windows updates
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Haven’t seen a single representation from the starcraft franchise anywhere. It’s all stuff that doesn’t relate to me or doesn’t involve any of the games that made me a blizzard fan.
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This was my first BlizzCon, attended with a good friend of mine who has been to at least 7 BlizzCons prior. He was so hyped for me to experience what BlizzCon was, and I was excited to see it all. We were both severely dissappointed.
We didn’t know that we were not able to see the opening ceremony in-person until we were standing in line to get in to the con on day 1. To hear that the seating was hugely downsized and that you just had to get lucky with a random raffle, and if you didn’t get it you had to watch it on a screen somewhere else in the con with very little seating was a rough start.
The backpack we got was nice, but zero swag?
Announced expansions for WoW and Diablo IV with nothing playable for either? From all of my friend’s previous experiences with BlizzCon in the past, everything announced was playable. Overwatch new character that everyone else at home could play too, and much easier without waiting in an hour+ line and still not be guaranteed to be able to play it because only 1 in the 5-man team could?
Besides Hearthstone, which I don’t really play, all we got to play early that the non-con players couldn’t was a patch releasing in 3 days, and a classic variant releasing in 27 days. That’s it.
All the lines were ridiculously long. The 4 main rooms were very walled-off making travel between unnecessarily tedious.
During the Wow Deep-Dive, we tried to make it to that one to see in person. We got in on the lower level, and even though there were some seats still available, we were told that if we wanted to, we could go up to some specific areas up on the upper level. We were told that that section was for the portal pass, but that they were opening it up to everyone - and this was from a BlizzCon worker. So we went up there, found a seat, and then we were told to leave. When we tried to inform the worker that we were told to come sit up here, he rudely said he wasn’t going to have a conversation about that, and that we had to leave. So we went back down and talked to someone about it and was pretty much told we were SOL… What a great experience!
The entirety of the Diablo IV room was pretty much just decoration, a big screen, and a place to get a tarot card reading and tatoos. Why was all that space needed just for that when some of the other spaces were absolutely crammed?
It just doesn’t make sense. We paid extra $$ this year for tickets only to not be able to see the talks live, unable to play expansions early, no swag, crazy long lines, way-too-jam-packed food truck area, and plenty of unaware workers. I could have gotten a better experience for free sitting in the comfort of my own home, having only missed the experience to play something that releases at the end of this month anyway.
Based on this I have zero interest in ever attending another. One of the worst cons I’ve ever been to for the money. The friend I came with also agrees that this one was just a total waste, and wasn’t even in the same solar system as pretty much all previous BlizzCons.
I love the games, and will continue to play, but, geez… This was so incredibly disappointing.
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I wanted to give it some days since being back home before I tried to provide some feedback.
I was lucky enough to be able to attend Blizzcon in person this year. It was my 4th in person Blizzcon, I had been to the previous three 2017,2018 and 2019.
Overall while I had a good time seeing old friends again and meeting new ones, the con itself was a bit of a let down. I will try to be concise about why I felt this way, and I am sure I will be echoing other feedback that has been given. You will forgive me please, I have not read through this whole mega thread.
The layout of this year’s con left a lot to be desired. The Darkmoon Faire needs it’s own space like it did in previous years. I usually spend a large chunk of my time at the con at the Darkmoon Faire, but this year I was not able to at all. On the friday when I got there, the lines were already 3-4 hours long in the morning, and the rest of the space was so crowded that you were constantly bumping into people without meaning to. It was impossible.
It was similar in the rest of Hall D. The crowds of people all squished into one space was too overwhelming. I have seen people say things like “all cons are like this”, “all cons have lines”. I will say that while other cons might feel terrible like this years Blizzcon, the past Blizzcons I have been to did not. There were things in Hall D that I did not even see at all because wading through the crowds was just too much of an obstacle and did not seem like a fun thing to do.
I did not understand the decision to give Overwatch two halls to itself. Those two halls were the ones that were the most empty, had a lot of wasted space, and were the easiest to traverse. I would go there when I needed a breather instead of going outside at times.
On a positive note, I loved the theming of all the Halls. I loved that the con was still kept dark and used light in a good way.
The opening ceremony (and to a degree the community night) debacle was a big let down. For me, and I believe many others the OC is a highlight of the convention. Where you sit with your friends and watch the announcements all together.
My friends and I did not win OC tickets in the arena. So, we decided we would do our best and get on the list to get a real tattoo from Hells Ink.
To give ourselves the best chance at this, we were outside the convention center at 6am, in the queue. Once we were let in that put us right at the first rope. We would be the first group to be let into the convention center itself. We were. We ran. We waited outside the doors to Hall A and ran to the Hells Ink booth with at least 200-300 other people.
There were no ropes set up to be able to form lines in a manageable way and so the poor Hells Ink staff were understandably overwhelmed. I noticed later, that hardly anywhere in the con were there ropes or tape on the floor to show people how to queue up in a sensible manner. This changed overnight for the Saturday which was an interesting and good shift.
Long story short, we were able to get on the list and got our tattoos this year, but so many people were disappointed. It would be great to let Hells Ink come again, maybe have a large space with more artists, and possibly also offer art from other Blizzard games. While I am very happy with my DIablo4 tattoo, I would have chosen a murloc in a heartbeat.
Going back to being outside bright and early. Another reason for this was to find a good spot to watch the OC from, once we had booked our tattoo appointments. This was unfortunately impossible. There was little to no seating in the other halls. If you were not one of the lucky few to have found a seat at one of the screens you were left standing where you could. I was in Hall D by this point and was watching a screen through a statue. the audio was pretty terrible unless you were close as well and so I missed most of what was being said. I ended up having to watch the OC back on video a few days later.
I also stood that day for 6.5 hours until I went outside the convention center and sat down on the benches under the palm trees. The fact that it was near impossible to sit anywhere it just unacceptable for a con of this size.
At previous Blizzcons, I would float from hall to hall and watch the various panels that were of interest to me. There was always a seat, it was always a wonderful experience. It was a shame that there were not art panels, or sound design panels, or other behind the scenes panels this year. They were missed. I assume there were no voice actor panels because of the current strikes, and that is understandable, but I sincerely hope that they will be back in future.
I would also like to make an appeal for the ADA folk out there. I am not one of them, but I was speaking to so many while waiting to gain entry to the convention in the morning who had been given so much contradicting information. There were at least 20 of them with us at the rope who were anxious about making it safely into the building once we were let inside, as there is always a little bit of a rush that happens. Thankfully we were able to flag down a blue t shirt worker who knew exactly where they should be and was able to guide them all to the correct place. ADA signage, information, and training for the convention staff needs to be better. It is bad enough when non ADA folk were being given wrong and contradictory information, but making some ADA people who have that sticker specifically because they have trouble with movement, walk to and fro and in circles just should never happen. My hope is the con can be made better and safer for them within our community.
TLDR - darkmoon faire needs it’s own space.
- Hall D was too crowded in general. Could not enjoy or see it at all
- Opening ceremony needs to go back closer to the way it was
- The con as a whole needs more seating
- More safety around queueing and planning is needed. See Hells Ink as an
example
- ADA safety and signage needs to be improved
- If this amount of people are in attendance, there needs to be more space in
general for the most popular areas of the convention.
2 Likes
Just wanted to chime in and echo many of the point already made in this thread. I’ve been to the past 11 Blizzcon’s and felt for the first time this year that attending is no longer worth the cost and time.
Without some significant changes, I doubt myself or any of the 8 people I attended with will be going next year. 
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I went to BlizzCon in 2016 and again in 2023. The lineups have always been bad but this year was especially bad. Personal experience: I love collecting pins and I didn’t even get a chance to get ANY pins or trade pins because the Darkmoon Faire (DMF) was insanity. I had to go get tokens and an adoption certificate/receipt at the very end of Day 1 because the lines were way too bad to do it any other time, just to stand in line for hours to get both done (the capsules and plushie adoption) as soon as I arrived on day 2 - and I arrived first thing in the morning - while my husband waited in line for over 2 hours at the secretlabs “store” (I don’t know what to call it) that didn’t even ship chairs to other countries, so that was a bummer.
DMF seems to have grown in popularity with collectibles, and I think it needs more space and a better line-up structure. I ended up having to ask attendees that were standing in line which lineup they were in and also ask them how the DMF worked this year. I am glad I did ask other attendees how it worked because I did not realize you had to stand in one line to get currency to then go stand in another line.
While I appreciate the more immersive nature and decorations of 2023 vs 2016, at least 2016 had ample seating and plenty of screens to watch if you could not make it in the seating that had the stage(s). While I loved seeing the tavern, “that sword”, the photo ops, etc., I felt that there was lots of space that could’ve been utilized more effectively and efficiently. From more seating to more availability of seats in the tavern, more capsule machines (there was approximately 12-16 capsule machines where it took at LEAST a few minutes for people to use and HUNDREDS of people in line), more checkouts for the plushie certificate/DMF store… just more availability of activities/checkouts!
I also found that while some people in the blue shirts were super nice, others were rude or did not know what was going on/provided inaccurate information. I am not sure where the miscommunication occurred, but there was definitely miscommunication.
I also miss the amount of panels. I remember there being plenty of panels to choose from and this year there was one panel at a time, which definitely impacted crowding and lineups, rather than having multiple panels or activities for people to engage in and choose where to spend their time.
The opening ceremony: we didn’t even try to see if there was space in the arena because we did not win the lottery of tickets, so we went to the WoW hall. There was maybe 50 chairs in the hall when there was hundreds upon hundreds of attendees in the WoW hall for the opening ceremony? My feet were already hurting from standing in line for hours before the doors opened for the convention, just to stand another 1.5ish hours for the opening ceremony, to stand in lines afterwards. One thing I loved about 2016 (and I’m assuming other BlizzCons) was that even though we didn’t make it to the stage for opening ceremony, we were still in the same area as everyone else so the energy was AMAZING. The energy was still good for 2023, but it wasn’t the same with everyone being split up the way it was.
Community Night: I wish this was on Friday. A lot of cosplayers did not cosplay on Friday because they did not want to risk damaging their cosplays before the competition, which makes total sense for the cosplayers to do that; however, I felt the lack of cosplays on Friday and it was sad as I love the cosplay scene! It also makes it more enjoyable for cosplayers on Saturday because they can dress casually if they want to and enjoy the closing ceremony/performance instead of being in cosplay all day on day 2.
I still loved going to this years BlizzCon. I love the community and the sense of belonging. However, I would absolutely love to see BlizzCon thrive with what it provides and not rely on people going for the community as much as they do. The amount of posts/comments I have seen of people saying they go to BlizzCon for the community is heartwarming, but I think it shows that the convention itself is lacking in content.
Also, while this is a long shot, I am saddened by the abandonment of SC, HoTS, and (an even longer shot) WC3. Where is the love for ALL Blizzard games at BlizzCon?!
Thank you for putting such a big event together, I know it can continue to work towards an even more wonderful event! 
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