Final Fantasy Fan Festival returned to the stage celebrating 10 years of FFXIV. The game was re-released in 2013 with a large 2.0 update and the game has been one of the most popular MMORPGs and Final Fantasy spin-offs since. The 2023 Las Vegas event was the most successful event for the game yet.
The Final Fantasy Fan Festival is an event hosted by Square Enix which returned to the live stage for the first time last month. The event last took place live in 2019, and in 2021 the event went digital for the entire world to enjoy. The 2023-2024 fan festivals will take place in three locations: Las Vegas, which already took place at the end of July, London, which takes place in October this year, and Tokyo, which will take place early next year.
Cosplayers at the Paris Fan Festival 2019 bringing the world of FFXIV to life, via Jen Glennon
These fan festivals are critical for an MMORPG like FFXIV. They allow fans a place to gather and experience a community feel that most MMOs cannot achieve online. They also serve as platforms for game announcements for Square Enix. With the first of three fan festivals for 2023-24 out of the way, how did the festival's big return to live streaming work out?
FFXIV Fan Festival 2023 Las Vegas viewership
The official broadcasts for the festival were live throughout the weekend, being live for just under 18 hours. Overall, the event received 1.11M Hours Watched over the weekend. The majority of this watch time came from the official Final Fantasy YouTube and Twitch channels, however, many community members costreamed the event.
Maximillian_dood received the highest Peak Viewers of all community streamers with 11.2K PV. Close behind him was prominent French streamer antoinedaniel with 9.6K PV. Both of these streamers are relatively successful and Final Fantasy makes up a large chunk of their content. However, there were some streamers for the event who almost totally dedicate their channels to the Japanese franchise.
Mrhappy1227 received the most watch time of all community members. The American FFXIV streamer received 37.4K Hours Watched, with ZeplaHQ close behind him with 31.5K HW. Mrhappy1227 and ZeplaHQ were some of the most excited streamers for the weekend, as they were live the longest out of any of the other community members. Mrhappy1227 was live for an hour longer than the official Final Fantasy broadcasts and ZeplaHQ was live for almost 11 hours throughout the weekend covering the festival event. Both of these streamers focus their content nearly entirely on the FFXIV release, so unsurprisingly they would not only be live for a large chunk of the weekend but also receive solid viewership from their fanbase.
Community members were excited about the event in Las Vegas, and their support of the official fan festival was justified when Square Enix announced a fifth upcoming expansion for the game in 2024: Dawntrail. The event reached its Peak Viewer figure of 240K early into the first day of live-streaming, this is when the new expansion for the game was released, and also when they announced the upcoming Final Fantasy x Fall Guys expansion coming to the Battle Royale game.
Comparison to other Final Fantasy Fan Festival events
In comparison to other Final Fantasy Fan Festival events held over the years, the most recent one in Las Vegas was the most popular of all of them. The 240K concurrent viewers who tuned in on the first day of the event made the Las Vegas event the most popular yet.
For comparison's sake, the other two events we are looking at are the 2019 Fan Festival in Paris and the 2018 Fan Festival in Las Vegas. Respectively, the events received 79.2K and 71.7K PV, a sizeable amount for a conference event but less than a third of what the most recent event was able to achieve.
The Final Fantasy Fan Festivals will return twice in the near future. First in London in October and then in Tokyo in January. With these two events upcoming, the question remains if the fan festivals will continue to receive the larger viewership that the 2023 Las Vegas event enjoyed, or was this simply a fluke as Square Enix was also announcing important game updates? If the London and Tokyo events want to match the live-streaming reception that the Las Vegas event enjoyed, they will need to have some big plans for the schedule of the fan festivals to keep fans interested.
