Gamer Con March 2017

sniper_samurai

Shiminay wrote: »

Jaysus, they're all coming out of the woodwork! It's been a million years man (if you have no idea what I'm on about, you'll remember me as Kharn).

I was coming back to make this same point. The way this has galvanised all the various so-called amateur events into sharing and cross promoting each other's work. IGA has a statement, Octocon has one, there are various shops and genuine supporters of the community offering raffles for ticket holders of this shambles etc. Yes, it's opportunistic, but you have to capitalise on the exposure when you get it. If any of these organisations had even a fraction of the massive budget that was spent on this, people would be talking about the results for years.

Indeed, they had over €10,000 for advertising alone. Most of the other cons in the country are lucky to operate on half that.

Retr0gamer

For a professional con it all sounds very amateur. Just seemed to be a total lack of events, even the game's on show were stuff you could play at home. Any other con I've been to has had a variety of smaller events on throughout the day so the crowd gets split up and there's stuff for everyone. This seems to be throw in a few games to play and you tubers and it will be grand.

I hope the experience doesn't put people off the amateur ones as any I've been to in ireland have been fantastic and are run by people with a passion for the con's subject and don't just have it as a venue for people to pay to get advertised to.

ixoy

Out of curiosity, anyone know what sort of funds Dublin Comic Con had to play with versus this? DCC is the only other other con I've been to in the convention centre and I thought it was far better. From what I gather then it's because it was run by fans for fans.

Shiminay

It's about thirty grand to rent that venue from what I've heard from conversations with other events people.

vrt12

ixoy wrote: »

Out of curiosity, anyone know what sort of funds Dublin Comic Con had to play with versus this? DCC is the only other other con I've been to in the convention centre and I thought it was far better. From what I gather then it's because it was run by fans for fans.

Guys from DCC would be out and about enjoying the event as much as the fans including out at the queues filming, talking to people. DCC has a real buzz to it. Gamercon was created by an "entrepreneur". Says it all.

There was absolutely no thought put into the content of the event. Absolutely nothing worth seeing or doing. It was all about making money and they made no qualms about it.

CiDeRmAn

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

Yes it is. I've been to gigs at the 3 arena and due to lack of crowd management or Pat Downs taking forever on the way in I've queued for up to 2 hours to get in while it pisses down on us. at up to 100 per ticket. What's your point. These shows aren't oversold and that's the way it is. **** happens its to be expected.

I paid nearly 10 grand to go on a holiday to Florida just for the parks, When we got in we had to queue for 2-4 hours for rides. Was i expecting that, Not that long no way but I knew there would be lines.

Big demand for a big event. If people thought there would be no queues for entrance, games & meet and greets then they should have never bought tickets or stayed at home.

It still does not excuse people being turned away like I've said.

I think you are missing the point.
The event has been over sold.
The extent of the crowds waiting to get in underestimated.
The organisation inside is, by all reports, slap dash and non-professional.
I have been to Comic Con and had to queue, but once inside after a 40 minute wait, it was grand for all comers, regardless of vip status.
This does not appear to be the case this time, and as such is disappointing for many who paid considerable costs just getting there, never mind the price of the ticket in.

CiDeRmAn

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/families-left-fuming-as-hundreds-turned-away-from-overbooked-gamercon-dublin-35543590.html

Lone Stone

damm what a mess my friend tried to get me to go glad i skipped it now, i feel so bad for the parents who tried to take their kids especially those who traveled to dublin for it.

Azza

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/families-left-fuming-as-hundreds-turned-away-from-overbooked-gamercon-dublin-35543590.html

My god the snobby nature of some of those comments on that article is unreal.

EoinHef

Azza wrote: »

My god the snobby nature of some of those comments on that article is unreal.

Jesus,talk about condescending a**holes,so f**kin what if some people use gaming as a past time. As if their past times are in any way more valid.

Amazing the intolerance thats still about when it comes to games really.

bajer101

I didn't get in yesterday. I left after queuing for an hour and a half and had three kids with me. Reading the accounts we made the right decision to leave as it was crap and they didn't even have a nintendo switch!

johnny_ultimate

vrt12 wrote: »

There was absolutely no thought put into the content of the event. Absolutely nothing worth seeing or doing. It was all about making money and they made no qualms about it.

I reckon it's safe to say GamerCon was designed as a product first and foremost. I've seen Ferdi Roberts described as a 'serial entrepreneur' in at least one article, which appears to capture the motivation behind this event. Everything about it - from the aggressive branding to the presence of 'celebrity' YouTubers - gave the impression of organisers aiming to hit target markets first and foremost. Which is, in its own financial way, fine - talking in purely economic terms, the sheer amount of people who showed up illustrates there is an audience for this - but not really the sort of thing that has much (if any) cultural value behind it. While I admit I'm in a niche - GDC is the only sort of gaming expo I'd have any real interest in attending - there's something I guess very soulless about the way this was all sold and marketed.

No doubt it drew some enthusiastic people - whether that was the young fans of the YouTubers or those who were there to compete - but even if it ran 100% smoothly there was always the sense that this was an exercise in branding above all else (GameStop, Sony / MS, PornHub, GamerCon itself). But I suppose that's always the way when someone tries to translate 'hobbyist' (to use Mr Roberts' words) enthusiasm to a mass-market product - but I'm far from convinced this would have been a particularly successful attempt to achieve that even without the chaotic scenes yesterday

0ph0rce0

Loved the guys post on social media.

Not much to do, was ok, had an alright time but wouldn't be back

He ordered a pastry and juice. The server didn't smile so he put in for a refund hahaha brilliant.

Sieghardt

Sad to hear it was quite a mess but great to hear so many people were interested in this kind of thing, hopefully the interest shown will translate into support for more well organized events.

I was considering exhibiting at next years GamerCon but we'll have to see how things pan out

Dyr

I saw this show up on my facebuke feed quite a bit with a fairly aggressive sales pitch and I checked it out but tbh it smacked of a cash in once you looked at what was on offer so I steered well clear.

I think the oraganiser realised that Ireland is full of kids who's parents will mop this kind of stuff up

ibFoxer

I was there yesterday: this is just my opinion (however it is shared by the guys i went with)-

It was an unmitigated clusterf**k. We got there at 10.30am, and the queue was wrapped around the centre and back onto the front footpath, and wasn't moving at anything resembling a pace. Myself and one of the other guys had VIP tickets so we were able to bypass a chunk of the queue, however once you got to the end of the VIP path it merged with the other queue, which was utterly redundant. At the door at the time we got there, there were two people scanning tickets, two more joined but it wasn't helping to speed things up- one entrance for a capacity crowd is not enough, let alone 20,000 plus.

Once inside, on the ground floor, it was evident from the off that this was shambolic- queues for everything, as to be expected, but nothing moving. GameStop had a "shop" in more or less the middle of the floor, which had 4/5 tills, and no queue system, and i understand that the pos system, and most importantly the card system, failed out at at least one of the tills. They had loose GamerCon merch in the middle of the floor with nobody watching it, and there was plenty of it lifted. This area created a bottleneck that was really difficult to get around or through- there was plenty of room over to the left hand side where GS could have set up and left the middle of the floor free.

The whole area was understaffed, as pointed out in the now infamous Facebook post, and the staff that were there were under immense pressure from the off, and that is down to management and nothing else- you can't hold an event for that many people with only a handful of staff. The Convention Centre staff that we saw on Saturday weren't much better, we asked the same question to 6 different members (in respect of leaving and returning) and were given very different answers, i'm not entirely sure that anybody really knew what protocol was, and there was no clear answer given.

The escalator was stopped at one point because the second floor was at max capacity- at this stage the ground floor room was wedged, the foyer was filling up and there was nowhere to go. We took a walk around and tried to get a look at the retro gaming section (on the right hand side of the room as you entered) and that whole area was a shambles, there was nobody policing the area, and i found out later that some of the PC's set up for gaming had had parts stolen out of them, because apparently it was that easy to do. There was no rotation of folk sitting in the gaming areas, and there were some just sitting on the chairs and not even playing anything.

We eventually got up to the second floor and had a walk around the eSports area, which again was just mental- folk sitting all over the floor, the shambles that was Street Fighter, the delayed start and the real lack of anything of substance led to us abandoning this area and heading to the auditorium, which again was packed. And that was the tone the whole way through- every floor was packed out, and there wasn't space to breath, in fact i'd call it dangerous, and definitely a fire safety hazard.

We were there for a few hours and most of that time was spent trying to navigate the centre, a little bit of time spent outside in the air, and then the time the lads spent queuing for the razr bus, a queue that didn't move for 30 minutes and of which there was no clear indication of where to join. And this was the problem all over the floor- the only two areas that were efficiently managed were the PS VR zone and the Xbox zone- everything else was a disaster.

I will say this- the effort that went into the cosplay deserves every recognition, practically all of the costumes were absolutely phenomenal.

We left and decided we weren't going back on Sunday and there were a few reasons for it which i'll outline:

- This was definitely put together by someone who doesn't understand gamer culture; it was very much aimed at kids, without being anyway kid friendly
- It was impossible to do anything, you had to queue to join queues (obviously not really, but you get what i mean)
- The "Vendor's": GameStop of course took centre stage, but that should have been a warning shot to all, as we all know their business practices and the kinds of events they partner with; Logitech no showed, and i am currently unaware whether that was simply a lack of space or they balked; PS and Xbox were fine, everything you'd expect from those companies, but i'd warrant they will limit their exposure to this and sever ties rather quickly; I actually can't remember the rest of the vendors- over on the left wall there was a stand selling gaming related t-shirts, hoodies etc, there was one selling latex masks, cloth masks etc, and there was a Yugioh stand not selling anything, just taking up valuable real estate, which was utterly pointless
- The VIP pass was, as far as i could tell, of no use, except to skip the queue; i heard tell of plenty of VIP folk not getting to meet a Youtuber, and there was no indication of who had a VIP or not, nobody checking anything and no way to tell, although i did see a very small amount of people with lanyards saying VIP on them


This was very much amateur hour in full flight- extremely poorly organised, definitely oversold by at least 50%, and the layout was dangerous, in my opinion. I don't have much experience in running convention, just the odd yugioh tournament back in the day but i can say that i would have tried to run this very differently

I'm sure there's more i could add to this, i'm wrecked and can't recall.

ixoy

Azza wrote: »

My god the snobby nature of some of those comments on that article is unreal.

I'm not going to read that now - thanks for the heads up! - but I saw what I imagine would be similar comments on The Journal. The attitude is very annoying that it has less validity than, in particular, sports (the two aren't even mutually exclusive - people like both)

However, I also suspect it was shared by some in attendance who brought their kids along and saw it as a "kids event" rather than one for people of all ages. That's going by some comments I've seen elsewhere. I'd have thought it would have lessened a bit to be honest given there's many in their 30s who grew up gaming but it's still alive and well..

FAILSAFE 00

Another thing to remember is 1 ticket could be a family of 5 so when they sold 24000 tickets that could be way more than 24000 people.

Benzino

Sympathise with the staff that have to go through all the refund requests from tomorrow onwards. I wonder how long it will take or will it drag out.

FAILSAFE 00

Benzino wrote: »

Sympathise with the staff that have to go through all the refund requests from tomorrow onwards. I wonder how long it will take or will it drag out.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a delay with refunds. I don't think this saga is over yet.

Falthyron

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a delay with refunds. I don't think this saga is over yet.

You can pick up the Season Pass on their website to experience all the post-launch content! :pac:

bajer101

Benzino wrote: »

Sympathise with the staff that have to go through all the refund requests from tomorrow onwards. I wonder how long it will take or will it drag out.

No reason for sympathy for staff processing the refunds. That should be mainly automated and won't need many staff and they will be paid. I've a lot more sympathy for the volunteer staff who seem to have got completely shafted.

0ph0rce0

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a delay with refunds. I don't think this saga is over yet.

Of course there will it's going to be a sh*tstorm.

Once one person that had tickets scanned and went in for the day sees that they are refunding even If you got in you can guarantee that pretty much everyone that got in will apply for a refund.

I have seen online that people have gotten refunds from PayPal already.

But some people are complaining they have had no response from Gamercon or Eventbrite after 5 mins after sending mails. I don't think that's really realistic on a Sunday or while the event is on.

bajer101

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

Of course there will it's going to be a sh*tstorm.

Once one person that had tickets scanned and went in for the day sees that they are refunding even If you got in you can guarantee that pretty much everyone that got in will apply for a refund.

I have seen online that people have gotten refunds from PayPal already.

But some people are complaining they have had no response from Gamercon or Eventbrite after 5 mins after sending mails. I don't think that's really realistic on a Sunday or while the event is on.

Do you think there will be a problem with refunding the tickets for people who didn't gain entry and whose tickets weren't scanned? They should be the easiest people to refund and I don't see the problem there.

0ph0rce0

bajer101 wrote: »

Do you think there will be a problem with refunding the tickets for people who didn't gain entry and whose tickets weren't scanned? They should be the easiest people to refund and I don't see the problem there.

I'd assume that would be the way forward alright but if what people are saying online is true and paypal have started refunding people that went in then it wont be long before the bandwagon starts

People are talking refunds, legal action, small claims court, suing for their kids distress.

I'm sure that will hold up the whole process.

Benzino

bajer101 wrote: »

No reason for sympathy for staff processing the refunds. That should be mainly automated and won't need many staff and they will be paid. I've a lot more sympathy for the volunteer staff who seem to have got completely shafted.

You'd imagine so, but with lot, you just don't know.

bajer101

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

I'd assume that would be the way forward alright but if what people are saying online is true and paypal have started refunding people that went in then it wont be long before the bandwagon starts

People are talking refunds, legal action, small claims court, suing for their kids distress.

I'm sure that will hold it up the whole process.

Why would any of that hold up the process of a simple refund to people who couldn't get in? These refunds should surely be very simple to process. Ticket wasn't scanned - refund. If these simple refunds aren't processed immediately and if bullshít excuses like above are proffered, it will just be further evidence of the cowboy nature of the people involved.

0ph0rce0

bajer101 wrote: »

Why would any of that hold up the process of a simple refund to people who couldn't get in? These refunds should surely be very simple to process. Ticket wasn't scanned - refund. If these simple refunds aren't processed immediately and if bullshít excuses like above are proffered, it will just be further evidence of the cowboy nature of the people involved.

Because they will do it arseways no doubt

Chargeback all the way if for no other reason to be spiteful about it and maybe raise a few flags against them with payment companies.

Azza

Azza wrote: »

My god the snobby nature of some of those comments on that article is unreal.

Not surprising , they had to add a comment section to get the clicks and also unsurprising the journal crowd etc populate it.

bajer101

I think there should be a huge backlash against this to make sure that nothing like this happens again. The organisers need to be hit were it hurts - in the pocket, to discourage other cowboys from trying to pull another similar stunt. I wasn't hugely put out as I live in Dublin, but I still had to get up early after a late night and then organise three kids and drive to town and get parking and walk and queue. Ticket refund doesn't even come close to compensating for that and disappointed kids. Unfortunately there is no real redress available for that in Irish law, but if I had travelled any distance I would be livid and would be tempted to make a claim in the small claims court for expenses.

OptimusTractor

We might get a tribunal of inquiry out of this. The excitement.

sniper_samurai

And now Kotaku have picked it up. I think its safe to say that Gamercon is dead after this shambles.

http://kotaku.com/irish-gaming-con-sounded-like-a-disaster-1793424888?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow

Really good comment here from a well known event organiser about how damaging this could be to the other cons around the country.

0ph0rce0

I hope the organiser comes out tomorrow or during the week because there is so much ****e being thrown around.

The numbers change in every article on the net. 5000, 7000, 9400 10,000 capacity

20, 22, 24, 26000 tickets sold.

Be interesting to hear exact numbers

I did see him out on Saturday but he needs to come out publicly, admit is was a shambles and apologise, get the refunds done quick and hopefully people can move on and get over it.

Simple things like better event management, get proper paid staff involved, controllers chained to the consoles/tables and maybe LED timers above the games section. 20 min countdown and staff move you on.

Queuing for meet and greets there's nothing you can do really, You will always have more wanting to see one or the other and you can't expect them to sit there for 10 hours non stop signing things.

Enforcement of the VIP passes, VIP ticket holders given wristbands or lanyards would have sorted that no problem. Few staff trawling the queue no wristband out of the queue sorry.

Fix those few little issues and you have a grand event.

Obviously he's set it up to be a business and build the brand that was the goal, The numbers floating around are he put about 250 - 300 K of his money into the event looking at a return of just over 600k. If it was a once off money grab you'd be aiming for a lot more.

I can't see it happening as I think he ****ed it right up and destroyed the brand, Maybe he could have people run the place who have experience in the game or just go again next year, Plan it right and hope to win the the confidence back.

Real shame as I would love to see a proper event like this in Dublin every year.

milltown

I'd be very interested to know what way the expected revenue was figured out.
Disclosure: I had a family ticket for Sunday but we decided not to waste our time based on the reports of both people who couldn't get in AND those who got in.
I think a figure of 9K was mentioned on here for hire of the venue. Even per day that sounds cheap to me but what do I know? 10K advertising budget was another thing I read, either here or social media. So 28K so far. Other social media posts suggest that volunteers were at least partly staffing it. I reckon 2K for insurance, being generous, and the same again for security. €32K? plus 25% for ****s and giggles and sundries and Ferdi's back pocket? €40K?
I'd expect Sony, Microsoft and HP didn't get their feet in the door for much less than 10 grand each. Razer, Red Bull, Alienware, SoundBlaster, I'm sure another couple of grand a piece, plus whatever the other concessions are willing to pay to fleece a captive audience for drinks/food/merchandise.

How many tickets actually needed to be sold to ensure a healthy profit?
It was pointed out by somebody on Twitter that Saturday had apparently sold out long ago, then at some point there were suddenly Saturday tickets available again.

The whole thing seems like it will make a fascinating case study from so many angles.

0ph0rce0

milltown wrote: »

I'd be very interested to know what way the expected revenue was figured out.
Disclosure: I had a family ticket for Sunday but we decided not to waste our time based on the reports of both people who couldn't get in AND those who got in.
I think a figure of 9K was mentioned on here for hire of the venue. Even per day that sounds cheap to me but what do I know? 10K advertising budget was another thing I read, either here or social media. So 28K so far. Other social media posts suggest that volunteers were at least partly staffing it. I reckon 2K for insurance, being generous, and the same again for security. €32K? plus 25% for ****s and giggles and sundries and Ferdi's back pocket? €40K?
I'd expect Sony, Microsoft and HP didn't get their feet in the door for much less than 10 grand each. Razer, Red Bull, Alienware, SoundBlaster, I'm sure another couple of grand a piece, plus whatever the other concessions are willing to pay to fleece a captive audience for drinks/food/merchandise.

How many tickets actually needed to be sold to ensure a healthy profit?
It was pointed out by somebody on Twitter that Saturday had apparently sold out long ago, then at some point there were suddenly Saturday tickets available again.

The whole thing seems like it will make a fascinating case study from so many angles.

I reckon it costs a lot more than 9k to hire out the convention center in full. Sure that wouldn't even cover the cost of the staff over a day.

2 Full Days and then the day before or however many days before to setup the place.

2K for insurance for 2 days for an event catering for 26000 people or whatever the numbers are. I think you are way off on your costs there.

Between that, Renting all the equipment/consoles/computers etc.. And all the other costs that go with it. Paying the guests, hotels for them, expenses.

Your way off man.

He put around 250K into the event is whats out there.

bajer101

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

I reckon it costs a lot more than 9k to hire out the convention center in full. Sure that wouldn't even cover the cost of the staff over a day.

2 Full Days and then the day before or however many days before to setup the place.

2K for insurance for 2 days for an event catering for 26000 people or whatever the numbers are. I think you are way off on your costs there.

Between that, Renting all the equipment/consoles/computers etc.. And all the other costs that go with it. Paying the guests, hotels for them, expenses.

Your way off man.

He put around 250K into the event is whats out there.

And you definitely have no vested interest.

sniper_samurai

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

I reckon it costs a lot more than 9k to hire out the convention center in full. Sure that wouldn't even cover the cost of the staff over a day.

2 Full Days and then the day before or however many days before to setup the place.

2K for insurance for 2 days for an event catering for 26000 people or whatever the numbers are. I think you are way off on your costs there.

Between that, Renting all the equipment/consoles/computers etc.. And all the other costs that go with it. Paying the guests, hotels for them, expenses.

Your way off man.

He put around 250K into the event is whats out there.

He may have put that much in for the 4 events in total. Dublin Comic Con which runs in the same building has an operating cost much closer to the €40k that has been bandied around than €250k even with getting some pretty big guests over from the US like Michael Rooker, Ernie Hudson, Kevin Conroy and Billy West.

0ph0rce0

I'm just speculating like anyone else really until someone comes out with some real figures.

But c'mon 9K wouldn't cover wages for staff in there for a day.

2K for insurance? For an event with that many people. Sure there's plenty in the country who can't even get car insurance for that.



The 250K overall number came from the media. It's been mentioned a few times that was around about that figure with the aim of a return of about 600K plus.

I have an interest in Dublin holding events like this for people who enjoy them. And that don't have the cash to go to all the big ones in other countries. Would be great to have it every year. Without all the **** ups of course.

What difference am I going to make here on my own with all the other people complaining? None. If I had any vested interests in this I wouldn't be on boards going on about it. I think id be pulling my hair out somewhere because it was such a mess and wondering will I have enough cash to give back to people without going bankrupt.

. Silly comment.

Shiminay

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

I hope the organiser comes out tomorrow or during the week because there is so much ****e being thrown around.

The numbers change in every article on the net. 5000, 7000, 9400 10,000 capacity

20, 22, 24, 26000 tickets sold.

Be interesting to hear exact numbers

I did see him out on Saturday but he needs to come out publicly, admit is was a shambles and apologise, get the refunds done quick and hopefully people can move on and get over it.

Simple things like better event management, get proper paid staff involved, controllers chained to the consoles/tables and maybe LED timers above the games section. 20 min countdown and staff move you on.

Queuing for meet and greets there's nothing you can do really, You will always have more wanting to see one or the other and you can't expect them to sit there for 10 hours non stop signing things.

Enforcement of the VIP passes, VIP ticket holders given wristbands or lanyards would have sorted that no problem. Few staff trawling the queue no wristband out of the queue sorry.

Fix those few little issues and you have a grand event.

Obviously he's set it up to be a business and build the brand that was the goal, The numbers floating around are he put about 250 - 300 K of his money into the event looking at a return of just over 600k. If it was a once off money grab you'd be aiming for a lot more.

I can't see it happening as I think he ****ed it right up and destroyed the brand, Maybe he could have people run the place who have experience in the game or just go again next year, Plan it right and hope to win the the confidence back.

Real shame as I would love to see a proper event like this in Dublin every year.

Isn't it funny how a man on a web forum can fire off a really solid list of things that would seem like "essestial" with a small bitta thought? You've absolutely nailed some of the issues but this schyster has clearly got no frickin clue.

There are literally hundreds of us who have run computer gaming events here and who would have killed for the opportunity to work with this sort of budget and venue. Hell, I went and worked with fecking Eircom (the enemy all those years ago!) to run the WCG in the Digital Hub all those years ago cause themselves and Samsung brought their cheque book and gave us something in the region of €35,000

Ferdi had to tell us we were useless amateurs and threatened to sue anyone who spoke up with their concerns. I hope he never knows a day's success again the prick.

We'll be lucky to ever have a big general computer games event ever taken seriously again. We're even luckier that we have the team in AsOne Productions being the professionals they are in making Ireland a serious location for European Fighting Games,it gives us a shining example of a job done right and with full support from the community and the sponsors and the games companies themselves.

MvsC3

Went on the Sunday with my six year old son and a friend, went early, got in after half an hour queuing, once inside the ground floor had Minecraft section on multiple ps3 and Xbox consoles, direcctly across from that and roughly the same size was the retro section, few N64s, Super Nintendo, mini nes, a mega drive and a GameCube, then some emulators, son got to play Mario kart 64 for about ten mins, Mario 1 on nes, and Minecraft. A few people seemed to just settle in at consoles and have no regard for other people wanting to play. few consoles had missing or broken joypads. No Nintendo switch which disappointed my son. Overall poor event and would not attend again, organiser was not a gamer and was all about the Cash

Oh yeah there was a dreamcast as well

No Nintendo Switch seems kind of odd..

George White

Seems organiser Ferdi Roberts has quit twitter.

milltown

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

He put around 250K into the event is whats out there.

Only going on the figures I've seen mentioned, which admittedly may come from people as knowledgable as me. But...

...There's no way in the world (IMO) that any one entity sank a quarter of a million euro into a two day event.

I'm open to correction, as always, but I think Croke park costs c.€60k to open for a match day. I'm not sure if you've ever been but it's a very well oiled, well marshalled machine that runs like clockwork, gets 73,000 people in, wines and dines them as appropriate, and gets them out again.

How could a glorified trade show, with volunteer staff (remember trade partners would provide their own) cost upwards of a quarter of a million?
How much do the Youtubers charge for a PA?

FAILSAFE 00

George White wrote: »

Seems organiser Ferdi Roberts has quit twitter.

He's gone into the Poor Organiser Protection Programme.

His new identity is Fabio Roberto.

FatFreddy22

My story.

I have a 7 year old who’s big into his games. My Brother in Law also has a similar 7 year old so we got the family tickets for the Saturday.

I’d always try to arrive early for events like this and try to miss the larger crowds so we headed up to Dublin in good time and got parked near the convention centre at around 9.15am.

When we got to the centre the queue was stretching 3/4’s way around the building. I was kind of surprised there were so many people there that early, ‘these gamers are keen’ I thought to myself.

We joined the queue and got inside about 25minutes later. Even at this early stage it was quite crowded on the ground floor. Difficult to get onto any of the consoles but managed to grab a few games on some of the retro gaming machines.

We headed to the first floor after about 30minutes.
It was becoming increasing crowded inside. I looked out the window and could see the queue stretching down to the quays and around the corner.
Upstairs it was just more consoles with 2 year old games. Everything was mixed up in terms of the age range of the games and there was no staff supervision. I saw what looked to be a 4 year old playing an 18’s game. Crowds were swelling the whole time and it was next to impossible to find a free console that actually worked.
The staff, most of whom looked like teenagers seemed overwhelmed by the crowds.

We left after a couple of hours in there. The kids were bored. There was nothing of interest to do in there and by this stage it was almost impossible to just walk around with the crowd numbers. We met people outside who were leaving the queue after waiting in the rain for 2 hours.

I’ve seen figures of 9,000 being thrown around as the capacity of the Convention Centre, but that’s b0ll0x! Maybe that’s the theoretical capacity but there’s no way that Gamercon had facilities for that many people. I’d guess that 3,000 people would be the maximum that could be accommodated and even at that you’d be waiting around ages to get a free console. The whole event stank of a moneygrab.

The family ticket cost €86 and I had travel costs for what was a ridiculously underwhelming experience - and I was one of the lucky people who actually got in without much queueing!
I feel really sorry for people with kids who had to spend hours queuing to get into that.

Next year I think I’ll recreate the Gamercon experience by booting up my ps4 with a 2 year old game. I’ll get some strangers to sit there playing it so I can’t get onto the console. Then I’ll flush €100 down the toilet.

Absolute joke. I hope that guy who organised it isn’t let away with this.

IRL_Sinister

How are you all getting on with the refunds? My partner will be applying for ours today.

Sephiroth_dude

So there was wasn't any new games at this event? Minecraft on a PS 3? Not even a ps4 version LOL! No switch? And loads of two year old games? Why would you even bother? Sounds like a right sambles of an event and also sounds like the organiser didn't have a clue what he was at.

RobbingBandit

Rumor now is you needed €5000 worth of game protection to gain entry.

0ph0rce0

Shiminay wrote: »

Isn't it funny how a man on a web forum can fire off a really solid list of things that would seem like "essestial" with a small bitta thought? You've absolutely nailed some of the issues but this schyster has clearly got no frickin clue.


We'll be lucky to ever have a big general computer games event ever taken seriously again.

Common sense really. Simple things could have made it a great success. To much promotion not enough thinking.

Maybe he should have taken on some of the so called "amateurs" who have some experience even at smaller shows.

Sad too. As it could have been huge in the years to come.

No ****in chance now. Ridiculous