Last Saturday (19th of March, 2016), we held our second fan gathering in conjunction with the Final Fantasy UK Fans community and it turned out to be a pretty amazing day! There were close to 100 people in attendance, which is rather staggering considering we're just a bunch of fans running this stuff in our spare time.



On a personal note, this event was also pretty special as there were quite a few challenges we faced along the way. After last year's event, many people were asking us when the next event would be. The truth is, we wanted to announce something quite soon after about our plans, but we weren't too sure how things would be after our baby was born. But, seeing as how we're gluten for punishment, and we love you guys, we said... to hell with it!



Before going anything further though, be sure to check out our event re-cap video below!

Oh, and we want to thank Kin James Fok for taking these photos throughout the day (full album here and to our awesome vendor Totes and Tonberries. Also a special shoutout to ChocoPoms and JazzyLaw Art for donating some super prizes.



One of our main objectives was to make this event much bigger and better than the last. We therefore booked a larger venue and set about trying to make things feel more epic. Having Bryce Hitchock in attendance very much helped with this, but we also got some shoutouts from other voice actors and brought a real-life Triple Triad tournament to the table (if you'll excuse the pun).



Before we get onto all of that though, we should start right at the beginning with the pub quiz. This is one of my favourite parts of the event and we had a great array of questions for the fans to tackle this time around.





We changed the format around this time, integrating some of the previous rounds together to ensure that each numbered game was featured throughout. The maximum score ended up being 54.5, and the winning team (Team Cactuar) managed to score a very impressive 40.5!



You can see their rather smug faces below!





Next up we had a Q&A session hosted by Chris and I, where we spoke again to Dan Seto (Square Enix) and Hollie Bennett (PlayStation).



Unlike last time, where we only had about 15 minutes and set questions, we had a much longer session and even opened up for questions from the floor. It was awesome to get some insights into their work lives and we hope everyone enjoyed it. Dan was also able to get an exclusive message from the Final Fantasy XV development team for those who attended, which was an awesome touch. You can view it in the video at the start of the post!





One of the more popular parts of the last event was most definitely the Final Fantasy IX Jump Rope Challenge! We had grand plans this time around to make it a three-man challenge, where your combined score across three in-game challenges would be compared... but alas one of the TVs broke on the day!



We therefore had to make it a two-team challenge, with fans tasked to please nobles in Final Fantasy IX and dodge seagulls in Final Fantasy X!





As is customary, there was also a Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy tournament. There was some fierce competition and we had a new winner in Tom Pearson! Shout-out to the semi-finalists too, Kim Man, Ellie Starling and Sam Laryea.



The final itself (between Tom and Sam) was pretty intense. Fortunately it was recorded, so you can check it out below.



To reward his fine performance, Tom won a pair of tickets to Symphonic Fantasies this October! It's a concert featuring work from numerous Square Enix titles, including Final Fantasy, and Yoko Shimomura will be in attendance at the event.



Triple Triad was a small part of the previous event, but we had such positive feedback that Chris spent hours slaving away to produce another three decks so we could have a physical tournament! We had to improvise the rules a little compared to what we had planned, but everyone seemed to have a ton of fun playing nonetheless.



It's at this point that I'd like to congratulate Jack Dickinson for winning the Triple Triad tournament, and also for speaking to me about GMFM (such good memories!)





Another new element to this year's proceedings was the Cosplay Competition! We had quite a few people turn up in full-on cosplay and it was awesome to see them all up on stage. The competition itself was judged by admins over at SE Cosplay and the standard was very high!



The winner in the end was Joe Zabierek in his awesome Snow (Final Fantasy XIII) cosplay (far-right below).





When we found out that Bryce Hitchcock was going to be attending our event, we were so excited! It's rare that fans ever get to meet people related to Final Fantasy (outside of something like MCM), so it was an amazing opportunity to speak with her and we were so pleased to be able to offering it to people who came.



Despite having a delayed flight, when Bryce did arrive it created an awesome moment as people realised!





Loads of people wanted stuff signed by Bryce, and we also had Orion Acaba do a little intro for her. Bryce was also kind enough to help out with the raffle on the day and even gave away a few albums for people.



Overall it was a fantastic day and a great improvement to our last event. We'd like to thank everyone who participated and would like to give a special shout out to SE Cosplay and Narshe Red Wings for their support as well! Hopefully we'll have more events for you all in the future and if you missed this event, we hope we can see you at the next one!



