[0:00] okay so I've made the terrible decision
[0:02] of getting into the dark moon Fair line
[0:04] uh purely because it no longer extends
[0:07] all the way into the middle of Hall sea
[0:11] let me tell you a story about the Dark
[0:12] Moon Fiasco Anaheim California BlizzCon
[0:16] 2023 day two the Dark Moon Fair the main
[0:20] hall has been opened for less than an
[0:22] hour and one corner of the hall is
[0:23] already packed shoulder-to-shoulder with
[0:25] a thousand attendees a chaotic impromptu
[0:28] line stretches from the fair itself
[0:30] several hundred feet away into the
[0:31] adjoining Hall eyeball estimates suggest
[0:34] that this line is already 4 to 5 hours
[0:39] long what happened here okay so this
[0:42] story is actually pretty low stakes
[0:44] nothing tragic happened and to the best
[0:46] of my knowledge no one was hurt but it's
[0:49] an interesting story about multiple
[0:51] seemingly unrelated decisions that could
[0:53] have easily resulted in disaster had
[0:56] something gone wrong first things first
[0:58] the lay of the land the Dark Moon fair
[1:00] is situated at the far end of Hall D
[1:02] which is dedicated to the warcraft IP
[1:04] and its four current games themed After
[1:07] the ingame Dark Moon Fair the area has
[1:09] five attractions of note a merch booth
[1:12] for collectible pins and badges a
[1:14] pineapple soft sered food vendor the
[1:16] WonderWorks toy shop the capsule toy
[1:18] Depot and the Ethereal trading Emporium
[1:21] additionally many collectors set up
[1:23] their trade offerings on the picnic
[1:24] benches set up around the fair of these
[1:27] the main attraction is the capsule toy
[1:29] Depot which itself has three components
[1:32] first a line for buying tokens second a
[1:35] line for the slot machines where you
[1:37] redeem tokens for random prizes most of
[1:40] the capsules contain small velcro badges
[1:42] though the potential prizes include
[1:44] larger plush dolls action figures and
[1:46] redemption codes for various in-game
[1:48] items which leads to the third component
[1:51] a line for a window for claiming any
[1:53] prize that doesn't fit inside a capsule
[1:56] this isn't the first time BlizzCon has
[1:58] had this attraction and it is all always
[2:00] very popular the Ambiance is fantastic
[2:03] people love collecting and people love
[2:05] gambling but there's something more
[2:07] going on or rather there's a lot of
[2:10] stuff not going on for BlizzCon 2023
[2:13] blizzard opted for a more streamlined
[2:15] presentation structure ordinarily
[2:17] BlizzCon features a main stage where all
[2:20] the big presentations happen and three
[2:22] to five other side stages for smaller
[2:24] panels like the fan favorite voice
[2:26] actors panel cinematics breakdown sound
[2:29] design Etc generally more Niche interest
[2:32] stuff the philosophy this year was to
[2:34] design the Halls less around panel
[2:36] stages which take up a lot of floor
[2:38] space and more around experiences
[2:42] gameplay demos photo ops and themed
[2:44] viewing areas for watching a rebroadcast
[2:46] of the main stage now there's a lot to
[2:49] criticize about this decision for many
[2:51] attendees panels are the experience that
[2:54] they're there for they don't just want
[2:56] to hear Executives and celebrity devs
[2:58] make big announcements on the main stage
[3:00] they want to hear the people who
[3:02] actually make the thing talk about their
[3:05] craft but inarguably the new approach
[3:08] created a streamlined convention maybe
[3:11] even too streamlined see here's the big
[3:15] thing conventions are all about traffic
[3:18] management you have a certain number of
[3:20] people who can safely fit into the
[3:22] larger space as a whole but become a
[3:25] hazard to themselves if they get too
[3:27] concentrated so you try and spread out
[3:29] the cool stuff so it's not all in one
[3:31] corner you place Necessities like
[3:33] washrooms and food a little ways away
[3:36] and distributed throughout the space and
[3:38] you use things like cues to absorb
[3:41] bodies with the new approach you could
[3:43] queue up for a demo or a photo op and
[3:46] for the most part still have a view of a
[3:48] screen rebroadcasting the main stage
[3:51] unless you wanted to attend that
[3:53] specific event in person you basically
[3:55] never needed to make a choice between
[3:58] getting in a line or missing an event
[4:00] that sounds good on paper in fact it
[4:03] sounds like the ideal attendee
[4:06] experience and that's the Trap panels
[4:10] don't just absorb bodies though they
[4:12] don't just move groups of people away
[4:14] from popular attractions into less
[4:16] densely populated areas of the
[4:18] convention they impose a timet onto a
[4:22] semi-random distribution of attendees
[4:25] they give you somewhere to be at a
[4:28] specific time in the future future which
[4:30] imposes limitations on the decisions you
[4:33] make in the present the Dark Moon Fair
[4:35] 2023 didn't account for many things
[4:38] first of all it didn't account for Wales
[4:41] there was on day one no cap on how many
[4:44] tokens you could buy at one time no one
[4:47] who designed the gacha capsule game
[4:49] accounted for the idea that someone
[4:51] might walk up and buy $600 worth of
[4:54] tokens and what that would mean
[4:56] physically for the experience at the
[4:59] actual ual slot machines every token
[5:01] someone purchased also represented a
[5:04] future unit of time that the person
[5:07] would need to spend putting that token
[5:08] into a machine turning the handle and
[5:11] fetching their capsule it also further
[5:14] represented time that some portion of
[5:16] them would need to spend redeeming that
[5:18] capsule for the actual prize so you end
[5:21] up with the Diehard whales the dudes who
[5:24] are willing to get in line at 6:00 a.m.
[5:26] for a 10: a.m. door so they can be first
[5:28] in line to buy 300 tokens and then spend
[5:31] 10 20 30 minutes each monopolizing a
[5:35] machine as they crank through these
[5:36] tokens and just completely murder the
[5:38] throughput of the whole operation but
[5:40] the two halves of this booth aren't
[5:43] evenly weighted it takes more or less
[5:46] the same amount of time to buy five
[5:48] tokens as it does to buy 500 but one of
[5:51] them takes 100 times longer to redeem so
[5:55] already we can sell tokens faster than
[5:58] we can redeem tokens and there is no
[6:00] mechanism to prevent someone from
[6:02] creating a truly heinous bottleneck so
[6:04] the fair has its own internal vicious
[6:06] cycle the bottleneck creates lines that
[6:08] are so long that people feel compelled
[6:11] to get in them purely out of a fear of
[6:13] missing out on whatever is at the end of
[6:15] that line which makes the lines longer
[6:19] it creates crowds so dense that people
[6:21] can't get physically close enough to the
[6:24] booths to even see what the line is for
[6:27] or if they're in the correct one but
[6:29] then we add the Special Sauce because
[6:32] almost no one has a timetable imposed on
[6:34] them because they don't have a voice
[6:36] actor panel on the opposite side of the
[6:38] convention in an hour and a half because
[6:41] they can see all the panels on the
[6:43] screen right next to the line they make
[6:46] the decision to get in a 3-hour line
[6:50] just to buy
[6:52] tokens it's probably a bad sign that the
[6:54] line that I've been in leads up to a
[6:57] blizzard employee holding a sign that it
[6:59] says line closed that's how you sell so
[7:02] many tokens on day one that thousands of
[7:04] people decide that their first order of
[7:07] business on day two is to rush to the
[7:09] Dark Moon fair and commit to the line
[7:11] hell or high water and that's how you
[7:14] get a 5H hour line now they did
[7:17] eventually almost sort this out on day
[7:19] two at the fire Marshall's insistence
[7:22] they capped the line the entire fair was
[7:24] turned into a gated exhibit token
[7:26] purchases were capped at 50 and they
[7:28] stopped selling tokens entirely halfway
[7:30] through the day if you could get into
[7:32] the fair at this point it was more or
[7:34] less running as it was supposed to the
[7:36] lines for toys and pins were reasonable
[7:38] so there was no pressure to commit to a
[7:41] line which keeps the lines reasonable
[7:43] but I can't say they fixed it the damage
[7:46] was more or less done the line for
[7:48] General entrance basically never stopped
[7:50] being capped for the remainder of the
[7:52] show and the line for redemptions only
[7:55] dried up because the fair physically ran
[7:57] out of prizes I don't know how many
[8:00] people bought tokens they never had a
[8:01] realistic opportunity to redeem but it's
[8:04] definitely not none anyway thanks for
[8:07] watching I never managed to get tokens
[8:09] or use the capsule machines personally
[8:11] so I had to take my entertainment from
[8:14] watching this small disaster build over
[8:16] the course of two days