Thoughts and comments on past weekends NA LCS Finals game in Toronto
Let me first begin by saying as a long time NA LCS fan, watching the finals live was an absolute blast! Being able to watch my favourite teams face off and feeling the energy of all the fans at the event will be an experience I will never forget (even remembering the chants around the stadium still gives me chills). If NA LCS were ever to return back to Toronto I would not hesitate to attend again, that being said I do have some thoughts about the overall experience.
Rift walk: The Rift walk was overall a pleasant experience and a must go for any fans of LoL. Attending relatively early allowed my friends and I to enter without any lines and even registering our wrist bands was a quick painless experience. The crowd wasn't that bad and lines were not that long ranging around 5 - 10 mins max and the entire visit could be finished in an hour. The issue I had was despite being like that, the main attraction which was the Thresh puppet was a fairly underwhelming experience. The puppeteer came out as we got into line and after taking photographs for around 10 minutes, he went back inside and the puppet was put in selfie mode (ie just propped up). This was a huge disappointment for many of us waiting to have a photograph with it and get to interact with it up close. Not knowing when the puppeteer would come back, we stayed in line since we had waited already (and wanted to get into the line for the NA LCS finals several hours early, which I will explain later), we just took our photo with the puppet and left the Rift walk as it was the last attraction. I also should note that the Lucian statue was not present, however I take responsibility for not checking the FB event indicating there were shipping issues. Lastly it seems the Rift walk experience photo ops has some issues as checking online, our photos of us posing with the LoL weapons are not present (for all 3 of us).
Before the Finals: Unable to attend the 3rd and 4th place game, I heard from a friend that most of the merchandise was sold out by the end of Game 1. Thus, with the expectation of this happening again our group ended up leaving the rift walk early to wait in line for the finals several hours early. By the time we got there, we were standing relatively close to the front of the line (definitely would consider us to be near the front) and waited patiently to be let in at 1:30. The pre-event stuff was fun, they had champion borders where you could take photos, make posters, and get free league inspired temporary tattoos. I am sure many of the early attendees had the same plans to buy merchandise and when we were finally let it we all rushed towards the store. Here is where my disappointment set in; outside the "store" was a velvet crowd queue barrier and the group and I were probably 2/3 of the way in (maybe 30 people max) by the time we got there and this line then rapidly extended further beyond the barrier within minutes. At around the 20th customer, they announced that ALL CLG, C9, and TSM shirts had been sold out, with only a few Immortals left (poro plushies were also sold out). Attending the headline event and having all the team shirts basically sold out within the first 15 mins was hugely disappointing. I have a hard time believing that the first 30 people had caused this and is a result of the previous days game, where stocks were basically cleared beforehand. Furthermore by the time our group got there, the event shirts had sold out of medium size, which goes to show the amount of foresight that was put in for this. What was a nice surprise was that attendees we were given a I love/hate teemo wristband, a pair of light up long balloons, and a lanyard (supposedly for the rift walk there was some mention of receiving something in our account after registering).
Finals: What can I say? This was a blast! 10/10 would do it again!
Hopefully this will help provide some insight to others when worlds gets going. Thanks for reading!
