Greetings, everyone!

Zhexos here, reporting on last weekend's Fan Festival in Shanghai, China! That's right, there was a Fan Festival in Shanghai! While I wasn't able to attend, our team in Japan snapped some photos from the grand event, so let me share them with you all!

The team arrived to the venue around 8 a.m. and the lines were quite already long.



Yoshi-P and Soken were peeking from back stage to see all the attendees entering...



But because they were too hyped up, they couldn't hold back and jumped out before the show started to take some photos with the fans!



The Fan Festival in Shanghai began with a Chinese version of the Letter from the Producer LIVE where they talked about Stormblood, which is releasing in China on September 26.



They also held a Q&A session with Yoshi-P and Soken!



The Chinese Operations team went over their Eorzea Census.



Yoshi-P and the producer for the Chinese version of FFXIV cut a cake together to celebrate the three-year anniversary. It's difficult to tell what type of cake this was from this angle, but...



Here we can see that it was a Paissa cake! I need this! And what is this!? They chopped off Paissa's rear! (Guess we should tell the dev. team that Paissa also needs a butt slider too.)



Check out the high quality costumes made for the cosplay contest! We'll see if we can grab more photos from the Operations team in China and show them off in more detail.



Now let's check out some of the activities they had available. They even had a few Gold Saucer-themed activities:

The Moogle's Paw



Monster Toss



Mini Cactpot



The Time of My Life

Participants had to copy the dance emotes on screen.



Some original activities included a balancing game, where you had to stand on a platform to balance and move the ball to the bottom without it falling off the sides. This is harder than it looks!



Target Practice



Here's a game where you had to pick up gems (crystals?) with chopsticks. If it was me, I would just grab the plate and run off like a Spriggan...



Ring toss against a real cactuar! Wonder how many times the staff were hit by thousand needles picking up those rings.



They had a booth selling official merchandise.



Some food and drinks themed after the Eorzea Café as well.



Check out these colorful, tasty looking drinks! I heard the Moogle-themed milk shake was tasty!



Message Board



Gallery area showing off the amazing illustrations created by the community.



And just like previous Fan Festivals, they concluded the show with a bang! A piano concert led by Benyamin Nuss and Susan Calloway!



The producer for the Chinese version of FFXIV was worried about Yoshi-P, so he had guards surrounding him whenever he walked around. I'm sure no one missed where he was! It must've been a sight to see!



Reminiscing about the Fan Festivals reminds me that I was lucky enough to attend all three events in Las Vegas, Tokyo, and Frankfurt. If you missed your chance to be there, fret not, because you can still purchase and watch the archived footage (and get the amazing FFX attire & minion) until August 31, 2017 , so don't miss it!

-Zhexos

Community Team