Gamer Con March 2017

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