EB Expo’s inaugural and nonsensical Ultimate Cosplayer Pass has quietly disappeared from the EB Expo website. The $300 ticket was met with widespread criticism from the local cosplay community, despite formerly taking pride of place on the event website.
The premium pass offered a secret ‘escape room’ with lounge and cosplay repair facilities, priority access to the cosplay competition and the opportunity to mingle with the judges, and was priced at $299.
While you can still access the page for the ticket through the hyperlink here, the link to actually buy the ticket now results in a ‘page not found.’ All mention of the ticket has also disappeared from the front page.
The ticket was initially announced as a way for EB to support its growing cosplay community, and marketing for it even included an interview with an Australian cosplayer who would supposedly be taking advantage of the ticket. The announcement led to backlash from a number of cosplayers and others in the community, however.
Wait, EB Expo wants to charge $300 for cosplayers to have access to a repair room that is free at every other show? pic.twitter.com/0YmRDFVvnJ
— Eve Beauregard (@Eve_Beauregard) July 4, 2016
EB Expo is selling Ultimate Cosplay tickets for $300. Repair Station & Cloak Room etc. OZ Comic Con offers same access for FREE!! *FACEPALM*
— Josh Deveson (@JoshDeveson) July 4, 2016
It’s unknown whether EB Expo will offer its planned cosplay repair facilities as part of its standard expo entry, or if the whole idea will be scrapped. Presumably those who already bought tickets will have their tickets refunded or replaced with tickets of equal value, but we have not heard anything official from EB Games.
Nothing official about the ticket seems to have been released on EB Games’ official social media channels. EB has been contacted for comment, and we will update the story if we hear back.
Comments
11 responses to “EB Expo’s Ultimate Cosplayer Pass Has Disappeared”
Funny that EB didn’t make people aware that their “Australian cosplayer who would supposedly be taking advantage of the ticket” actually works for them..
You’re making it sound as though EB employees aren’t allowed to go to the expo as general attendees or be genuinely happy for something EB is offering…. Besides anyone can go to the Cosplayer in question’s instagram page and see she is an employee (I believe she works at the Swanson St store if I’m not mistaken), so it’s not like EB were hiding her employment status or they would have made her remove any social media posts that show her in her work uniform.
I have to assume they didn’t actually manage to sell any, or at least gave refunds to people who did jump at the chance to pay for the privilege of having somewhere to sit and mingle with the judges(?).
Clearly, it was so wildly successful that it sold out! People would have been lining up to get a deal like that.
/S
I would hardly call 100 people a community.
Tongue firmly in cheek
I got my free Friday twilight pass at the EB Sydney opening last night 🙂
I can’t help but feel that this would have been a hit if it’d been at a more realistic price point.
The closest I’ve come to it was the Chillout space at the last Soundwave in Sydney. You had to pay $50 for access over both days, and basically it was an indoor space with chairs, private cafe and bar, phone charging, and (most importantly) regularly cleaned bathrooms.
I would rate it up there as among the best $50 purchases I’ve ever made. Being able to get out of the crowds was fantastic, having somewhere that you could sit down and chill in comfy seats that were always available was great, and not having to line up for food/drinks made the whole day a much better experience. Sure, the crowd at a metal festival is a different kettle of fish from the EB expo crowd, but I imagine a spot for some downtime would still be welcome.
The thing is nost expos such as PAX give those quiet rooms for free, not a paid extra.
The exclusivity was a big part of it though – since you had to pay to get in, it was generally not full. If it was free, you’d get swarms of people, so you’d have the same problems with queues for the bar/food/bathrooms as everywhere else.
You hurt their feelings, Kotaku.
so the general opinion of people seems to be that EB are charging cosplayers $300 just for a private room with a repair station ….. well that’s like saying they are charging gamers $750 for just a private room, and that’s far from the case.
The fact is there the price includes entry for all 5 sessions (normally $40 per session), the dinner (usually represents most of the additional cost), and then the room which includes the repair station (what else would a cosplayer expect their private room to have? no, really!).
I usually get the UGP (not UCP), which does often include extra things. They never list the chocolate/loot claw machine that we always seem to have in the UGP description but its always appreciated. Id imagine there is other stuff they have planned to surprise UCs, but if they don’t want a repair station in their room I’m sure EB will be happy to remove it for them.
I think the point is that they are being asked to pay a premium for something that other conventions provide for free.
even if it was $300 which is pretty absurb to begin with, they should have tried to offer $300 worth of….value?
I should probably add (or maybe i shouldnt) that ive been doing a little research since i have a few people in the know for sources, that the room normally reserved for the UGPs every year or the old room which might be even better for the UCPs, and it is a nice room with a killer view, is most likely the room now being given to the new UCPs as the UGPs are being given a bigger and better room this year. This is a huge win for the UCPs as the old UGP room is so close to the stage … “how close?” … So close you can see into the mega store and its storage area where they keep all the stock.
Event staff tried telling me they were never meant to go on sale. Then again they also made excuses fot the pathetic UG loot this year, blaming the vendors fotr not giving them free stuff, claimed the bags were contracted out this year, the events manager thought the bandaids were a great idea. Apparently EB has a manufacturing plant in china now so that they can do their own exclusive editions too.