I’ve watched a lot of footage from this event and my overall impression is basically it was poorly planned. The first major problem is there is no crowd control or directional planning. I’ve been to bigger events that were put on by companies like coca-cola. What he should have done is separate VIP and general admissions. For VIP, give them a number (before the event) and then have the numbers called (“numbers 1-25 go to vip pickup” etc.) instead of having these people wait in a line. People hate waiting lines. A “Virtual queue” solves this problem.
For general admission, he needed to have it where groups of people would go through the main attractions and limit the amount of people in each section. Otherwise you get huge crowding. At the end, you dump people into some sort of free roaming/hang out area…could put picture booths in this area.
Based on what I saw, it was basically a free for all. The only organizing was for the VIP pack part. For the VIP pack part, there could have been better organizing in terms of how people open their packs. He should have had a “hand cam” using a cell phone. Of course everyone is going to want to open the pack with the cards facing them. Since there was no hand cam, they had to flip the cards around and pull from the top which just made for it overall awkward. For the youtube livestream, there was no moderation in the chat so it was just filled with trolls/haters flooding the chat basically.
On the positive side, the fact that PSA was there was genius…My understanding is that PSA was grading cards on the spot…if this is true then this fact alone would make general admissions worth it, especially if you could get cards graded and slabbed same day.
Even with this criticisms, I still think it was an overall good idea but had room for improvements if he does a round 2. Planning events like this and having them work out perfectly is a very tough thing to do.
Also what I want to know is, how did some of these people get VIP tickets? There was people there opening packs where it seemed like they never opened a pack in their life. Many people just went right past the rare card and acted like they didn’t even see it…
@pikachuisbestpokemon PSA was there to collect cards to bring back to their facilities and grade them. No encapsulation on site from what I read.
Leonhart made it sound like this could be first in a series so hopefully he refines as he goes. As someone who went to Pokemon saves the world last October I had an amazing time regardless of how the setup and planning and definitely streaming could have gone better. I talked to several people at todays event and it sounds like it was similarly a great time even if not perfect. I’m sure someone looking for something to complain about could latch on to some of the issues and have had a bad day, but it seemed like the company would have been great and the atmosphere seemed fun as well.
Very true. It reminds of after my wedding, my wife and I discussed all these tiny minute things that could have made a large difference. Overall, the event was successful and could be easily refined. I can’t imagine the stress of planning this out to make it work as he envisioned.
I think it was cool, though I’ve heard mixed things from people who attended. To me it seems that for social people, the event was a fun way to interact with other collectors and trade cards they opened like they were kids again. For the more antisocial crowd, there apparently wasn’t much to do at the event.
I think the one thing I hoped for was for Leonhart to be a bigger part of it. Nate was fine there, but Dani seemed legit depressed 90% of the time. If Leonhart and other big-personality influencers were there to narrate, I think the mood would’ve been totally different.
Tuned in twice today. Once when it first started and then when it came back for the afternoon. I only watched maybe 5-10 minutes each time. The stream didn’t really hold my attention and was kinda boring with awkward conversation interactions between the MCs and pack openers. Not really sure what I expected though
My thoughts after watching the first part of the stream hours after the event:
The initial segment hosts (Rosemary Kelley (@nekkra) and Pat Flynn (@deeppocketmonster)) were engaging, full of energy and overall great representatives of the hobby.
Camera work showed what I wanted to see and was focussed right in on the action.
I loved seeing the community on stage in large waves. It had a very wholesome feel. Loved seeing participation from all ages, including children, and have seen this sentiment shared by others. A few timestamps i’ve seen discussed:
Leonhart wasn’t on stage as much as i expected from the start, but I imagine he couldn’t be in all places at once and wanted to engage with the community at the event on the floor as much as he could inbetween stage hosting.
Sure, there could have been improvements, but I would argue we’ve already seen improvements here over previous events. As a streaming viewer, I would have loved to have been presented with a tour of the line, the shop etc. Just to get an overall better feeling of the theme. But these are user experience nitpicks.
Yeah, I looked into this. It was just to submit the card. I was confused because leonhart in one of his videos basically said “someone could go home with a PSA 9 charizard” so it gives the impression that PSA was going to be slabbing cards at the event.
No matter the complaints I read, at the end of the day Leonhart literally gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars in vintage packs. He didnt have to do this. Production quality was good and it was a great event. Where else can you buy vintage authentic packs(box fresh) for retail price + admission(max 75$)? And get to hangout with people who all enjoyed the same thing with your fav youtubers?
I thought it was pretty cool for someone to do this because of the passion they have for the tcg and dont really see why people give him crap for the event not being perfect like ive seen on reddit and the critiques on here
I would of thought it would at least have a 90s shop as advertised. Instead it appeared as just a pack opening on stage video. I don’t get why no actual shop was set up showing people purchasing the items?..
There was a small shop area in the center of the venue, but it wasnt filmed very well. I’m sure they also had to do it a very specific way so that someone couldnt just run in and try stealing them.
I do think they couldve made it look more like a card shop though, and not just a mini Pokemon store. Still cool, but not 100% as advertised I suppose.
I think a fun idea would have been to really build up the store, and do a proper tour. Go through each section, show some of the merchandise in each spot, talk about the history and current market value. It sounds like the main criticism was lack of depth & engagement. The winning combo is a blue check mark youtuber + a grandma house basement dweller.
This was what the setup looked like for the card shop area. I guess logistically they couldn’t just have it open like a true shop for people to walk through and grab stuff. This was the major traffic jam point for the lines though because people had to be found on a list of about 950 names to be checked off, select their pack from the display, have a numbered sticker put on their lanyard, a matching sticker goes on the pack, and then they go back in another line to go up on stage for the stream opening, and then they had to have their lanyards punched and I had to search through the pile of packs to find theirs to send them up.
Also the production team that was hired for it had never done anything similar before so they were not quite prepared for the level of line management that was required for this event.
Overall though I got about 95% positive vibes from the people who were at the event; I would say it was a success. I think Leon learned a lot putting this one on that he can implement into any potential future iterations.
Weren’t there lots.of tickets purchased online for $300+?? The whole “free” or for retail seemed a little misleading to me since he was charging for tickets. I’m sure the logistics worked out well that with just the ticket prices alone he recovered a lot of the cost. If you factor in YouTube advertisement opportunity by making dozes of videos about then it wasn’t a loss. It’s similar to when an eBay person sells an item cheap but makes up for with shipping cost closer to market value.
At the end of the day I thought it was an incredible event. It looked like a blast and it definitely created a lot of memorable moments for kids and families. This is why the hobby will continue strong. As for any complaints, I hope that leonhart takes those into consideration to make it better for whatever even he does. I think leonhart is a good good guy and has made tons of positive contributions to the hobby. It seems like when he does a project it’s not always delivered in the best way. His troll and toad Leonhart mystery packs come to mind. I just wanted to clarify about his giving packs away for free or retail. That’s my biggest pet peeve with the hobby. Using misleading titles and Information for self promotion. I hope we see more events like this in the future.
Due to family illness, and after numerous talks with Lee, I had to cancel. I was very disappointed. But after watching it I honestly don’t think I could have lasted long. People were waiting 5 to 8 hours in lines. Kids weren’t taking it very well. Like at all the Conventions I attend, I always go out an hour before opening to greet the line and give kids poke stuff. That’s what I would have done there as long as I could have lasted.
This is the main thing they have to figure out. Doesn’t Disney land/world do fast passes where you avoid standing in line all day and simply show up at a designated time?
Disney fastpass system gives you a ticket to show up at a designated time to get you into the fastpass lane. You still have to wait in line, but it often turns a multi hour wait into a 45 or 60 minute wait. I’ve only been to a Disney park once but I’ve watched a few yt videos on the concept, how it was conceived, and how it’s changed. I think you have to pay extra to be able to use the fastpass system now (at least in USA), when it used to be a system everyone who bought an entry ticket got access to.
@garyis2000 A line system wherein people had scheduled time slots would have absolutely made a world of difference. Towards the end of the event the production team did a bit of walking the lines giving out some freebies, and giving the younger kids modern product to open and stuff; but unfortunately it came a little too late for some who had already made up their minds to be disappointed. And it’s hard to blame some of them, especially those who spent almost the entire event in the one line to get into the pack store
