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.