Dev Blog: Fan Festival 2014 in Las Vegas!

Greetings, everyone!

A very tired Bayohne here. It's been awhile! It's been crazy! Fan Festivals! Two of them! Apologies for the time it took to get these looks at the show out to our readers, but I hope you enjoy it! (Prepare yourself for what may be the longest blog ever!)

The Las Vegas Fan Festival took place at the beautiful Rio Hotel and Casino

Since registration opened early Friday morning there was a long snaking line for registration! Attendees were waiting 2-3 hours to get their badges! (Thankfully, we resolved issues that caused the wait and sped this up significantly...)

We hosted a reception event on Friday night before the show and created a video montage of some of the fun and excitement!

The Famitsu team from Japan even recorded a video of Yoshi-P making his way down the line toward the reception. Everyone was super excited to meet the team!

Rehearsals went on long into the night, but we finished in time to visit the reception!

At the reception, we had cosplayers LisaLouWho and Destiny Nickelsen on hand in their own outfits and taking pictures with fans! LisaLouWho's Garuda outfit was awesome! Not sure how Foxclon escaped her clutches...

Friday ended on a high note and everyone's energy definitely charged us up for the coming days! (Soken... why are you...)

Saturday!

Stage events played a huge part of the Fan Festival, so let's take a closer look at how some of those went!

Here's a look at yours truly up on stage, where I could mostly be found during the entire show. (I was very honored to get my own caricature artwork!)

Handling the live stream during the event was Devin (Camate) and Colby (Grekumah)!

Of course, Yoshida's announcement of FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward, the first expansion pack for FINAL FANTASY XIV, was the huge announcement that kicked off the show!

Check out the teaser site!

Battle Director Mitsutoshi Gondai (aka Mr. G) hosted a panel on battles

Sound Director Masayoshi Soken held a panel on sound and music

Localization Lead Michael-Christopher Koji Fox presented a lot of information on lore and localization

We also hosted a special edition of the Letter from the Producer LIVE

We were proud to showcase the amazing costumes of our fans during our Costume Contest!

Since the costumes were so amazing, I wanted to spend a bit of time showing off a bit more of their amazingness!

Even the staff joined in on the fun by posing with the costumed attendees!

At the end of the show, Soken and the Primals performed an amazing close ceremony concert!

Here is the band with special guest singer Ashelyn!

But the show wasn't just about the stage! I'd like to give you all a nice look at the entire Las Vega Fan Festival 2014 venue.

This year we are holding Fan Festivals in Las Vegas, London, and Tokyo. The team in each region is in charge of each event's planning, so the activities will differ between each Fan Festival.

At the Gridanian Archery booth you could learn how to shoot a bow and arrow quite authentically!

We also had the Garlean Artillery booth where you could shoot an air cannon at targets!

Players were able to gather together by World and sign the Meet-up Board.

We debuted the special Odin battle as well, and it was quite difficult compared to the battle challenges at previous events. Those shirts are definitely a rare commodity!

The extreme primal roulette activity added various challenges to the already extreme battles, such as a one tank, one healer Titan fight! I think that the Ramuh challenges shed the most tears, though.

Additionally, there was a head-to-head Dungeon Speed Run Challenge to see who could clear a dungeon the fastest, and an area to play a full 72-player Frontline!

For every activity that was undertaken, participants were rewarded with patches that featured the class icons.

The Delivery Moogle plush was sold at the event ahead of the official sales and they were an extremely popular item!

I hope that all of this gives you a good look into the event and you can see the type of fun that the show contained! It was truly amazing to be able to meet and talk with so many fans and we're extremely thrilled to hear people had a great time!

Time to rest up and see where we go from here...!
- Bayohne