CCP have started selling tickets to their annual convention, Eve Fanfest. Last year marked a decade of the sandbox MMO so you might think this year would be a step down in festivities. Though, with the announcement that Eve Valkyrie, CCP’s virtual reality dogfighter, has gone into full-time development this will likely be the event where they reveal all about the game.
Plus, there will be a whole new Eve expansion for the developers to talk about and it will be nearly a year since the release of Dust 514.
It looks like CCP will be handling a packed schedule.
This year’s Fanfest is slated to take place between 1-3 May in Iceland at Reykjavik’s Harpa Conference Centre. I was lucky enough to go to last year’s fanfest and the venue alone is worth the trip. It’s a giant multi-story auditorium with walls of glass shaped to fit into a honeycomb steel scaffold.
This year’s convention will be the largest yet. There are more than 2,000 tickets on sale, 500 more than last year.
While many will be coming for the talks, when you’ve 2,000 Eve players in a single city there is naturally going to be a lot of drinking. CCP, of course, cater to this pastime: there’s the notorious Developer Pub Crawl (which, last year, had me lose my dictaphone, coat, and dignity in just a few short hours) and the Party at the Top of the World.
Tickets are on sale for $175.00. Though, for a short while CCP are selling early bird tickets for $150.00. You can also pay for a ticket using Eve’s in-game currency. If you can use your ISK to buy enough PLEX to equal the cost of a conference ticket then you’re free to make that conversion.
“EVE Fanfest is our chance to bring our community together in Reykjavik, the birthplace of the EVE Universe, and further forge our connection with the greatest gamers in the world,” Hilmar Pétursson, CEO of CCP Games, told our press release carrier. “Every year we look forward to the revelry in the scenic setting of Iceland and to making announcements, connecting with our community and last but not least, celebrating like true Vikings! EVE Fanfest is an experience like no other and is not to be missed.”
You can buy your tickets from the EVE Fanfest website. In previous years CCP have sold e-tickets to streams of all the convention’s presentations. There’s no word of these e-tickets yet but I’d be surprised if they weren’t announced in the coming months.