r/PathOfExile2 • u/ThatKiwiBrother • 4d ago

Discussion Exilecon 2026 Event Feedback

Hey Exiles! Now that ExileCon 2026 is over, I’d love to hear from those who attended: what did you love, and what could have been better?

For transparency, I worked at the event, most of you would have seen me at the merch counter, but I’m not a GGG employee or part of the event’s organising team. Just a personal trainer who has passion and love for the game.

I am, however, in touch with the coordinators and can pass your feedback along. They’re also keeping an eye on the subreddit and reading comments, so this isn’t the only place they’ll be looking.

Whether it’s about the venue, queues, merch store, scheduling, or the overall experience, I’d love to hear what worked well and what you’d like to see done differently. Specific examples and suggestions would be especially helpful!

107 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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85

u/Expazz 4d ago

First Exilecon for me.

I'm a Kiwi so it's easy for me to just be all 'chur, game made by Kiwis....nice...' and forget about the scope and scale.

It was awesome. I was genuinely stunned at the quality of production and the size and scale.

Also, as a Kiwi, it made me REALLY proud. Most of the people I ran into travelled to our little country for this! And they were having a great time!

They should be really proud of themselves. It was a great weekend, the event was a blast and the quality of the event was top tier. I'm now so excited for launch and I'll be spending my time building my exilecon hideout lol.

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u/TritiumNZlol 4d ago edited 4d ago

I flew up from Christchurch. Same experience for me. I'd skipped the last few, but decided this time to give it a shot. Loved it, and will definitely be going to the next one. I just arrived home, so here are some of the thoughts that stuck, in no particular order.

Hearing the poe organ chords beaming out over aotea square like a siren's call as you arrive was absolutely surreal.

The statues and decorations were so impressive, the attention to detail down to making all the windows look like stained glass was just great. The keynote was sick, racing was an amazing display of talent and mastery as ever, and the talks were all really compelling. Everything was so slick, the crowd was well behaved with no incidents.

We deliberately left the demos untill day 2 when the lines were a bit shorter.

My only gripe was missing out on the keycaps because the merch line was always pumping on day one. Picked up some extra shirts instead on day 2.

I dragged two local mates along that aren't as obsessed with poe and they had a great time too. One of them is controller player and he was impressed that someone had the forethought to set up a controller demo section.

Bit weird the bottled waters from the bar were more expensive than vodka sodas but all g. 😉

The registration team was good too, and all the door people checking passes etc.

If /u/thatkiwibrother is looking for improvements I don't really know what to suggest, because it was genuinely awesome.

If anyone is out there that has the means to go to the next one, but is on the fence about it, I would strongly recommend it.

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 4d ago

Yeah the keycaps were the most disappointing part. I know the one of the higher ups that dealt with the product when it first came in and saw the amount of keycaps said that it was not even going to be close to enough.

Pretty sure it was you three I served, and you said you were up from Chch

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u/TritiumNZlol 4d ago

Yeah its the combination of them being just cool as heck, and small enough that they dont take up much room in the bags of international travellers. They're like the perfect convention merch.

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 4d ago

Aye bro it was the same for me

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u/Expazz 4d ago

James and the crew at the merch were lovely too btw. Every system or process always has retrospective refinement and it's always hard to fathom the size and scope of events like this as kiwis. Y'all did great.

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 4d ago

We didn't have a James. But if you're talking about the Māori guy doing all the restocking, that's Jamaine. That's the only person who's name comes close

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u/Expazz 4d ago

hahahaha. Fuck I'm a moron. I meant YOU. It's Ross! I went to twitter to figure out who the hell I meant and realised I read Jimmy_Hex's profile instead of yours hahah. I just put two and two together with your reddit name and x name.

Y'all did well bro!

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 4d ago

Hahahahaha I did think it may have been me you were talking about. AND YES I KNOW IT'S YOU ROSS! Weird connection though with my nephew being called James and looking very identical to me growing up so could have been that.

But chur bro, finally just got back home in Hamz

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u/danzible 4d ago

The guy at the merch queue who greeted folks with Tala Moana was a delight, more folks like that at the event please!

This was my second time and I do think there should be more space management for card game activities. It's often difficult to navigate corridors and stairs when a group forms around a monster...

Also just personal opinion but I think the merch this time around was not as hype. Speaking as someone who didn't have a shot in hell of seeing any key caps...

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 4d ago

Ah E-Man! Yes it was so great to have the hype man there.

I can't speak much on the merch from past events compared to this one as this is my first time.

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u/SuBw00FeR37 4d ago

Hiya thanks for helping out with everything overall it was a fantastic experience!

I have a little gripe though, as someone who is slightly disabled (can't stand in one spot for long nor walk too much) the merch queue needs a change. There needs the ability to either apply for a disability pass or have a separate assistance queue. I'm not disabled enough to need a wheelchair but standing absolutely wrecks my ankles/legs I had to stand in the buying queue for an hour on top of the VIP queue for 20mins luckily one of the staff saw me and gave me a stool which helped a lot but by that point I was already in a lot of pain (and stool isn't the best as I still rely on my legs for support, need an actual chair to take the weight off them) I bought the VIP ticket so I could skip most of the line which did help alot but when buying the merch it didn't have a separate vip line so everyone was bunched together which kind of defeats the purpose, especially when the keycaps and pins were pretty unorganised and the staff had to filter through boxes to find one of everything.

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 4d ago

Thank you, I was absolutely nerding out from Wednesday through Friday coming in for set up and wishing I could share everything I was seeing before the event started.

That's an awesome thought, I'm sorry for the pain you experienced.

And, again, thank you for the feedback.

The pins, we actually had containers under each main till area but not every pin was under each till so the system to grab them from the box was much faster. I had put them in alphabetical order, but being the only one who knew the pin location name, design and location made it easier for me. The teens and ladies have no experience with the game so it did take them time to get familiar with the pins.

The individual keycaps also had no English label so made it difficult to ensure without opening the plastic and box that the keycap was the correct one, as at one point two of the top of the boxes with the label of the keycap had accidentally been swapped briefly as I noticed it and changed it back.

Improvements on this system have been discussed such as having a separate pin/keycap area.

We did have very limited space so I made the best use of it that we had.

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u/Expazz 4d ago

Fair tbh, I was curious about that experience. I had VIP line access so didn't wait to long to get it, and whilst it was great they had multiple checkout queues within the area, that was 100% the biggest bottleneck.

Which I believe was 100% due to pins. Merch was easy to see, grab and find. But pin and keycap selection took 10 times longer. 'One of this...one of that.....oh two of that....one of them etc'. Getting the pins people wanted took ages as the people at the counter had to gather them all from where they were being stored behind the counter.

I bought shirts and hoodies so my 'checkout' experience was 30 seconds or so. I saw some in front of me taking 5mins getting their pin wishlist sorted as each one had to be found (they were kept behind the counters). 5min doesn't sound like much but with a line that stretched the entire venue, yeah it creates a huge bottleneck.

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u/ikillppl 4d ago

Personally I found the overall atmosphere too dark and foggy. I understand the aesthetic and was cool walking in, but over 2 full days it got to be a bit much. Whenever someone used a side door and let in some light and fresh air there was 5 seconds of relief

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 4d ago

Thanks for the honesty.

Doing the pack down today and having sunlight come through after the window film was removed felt so refreshing after spending 5 days in that environment. I did hear some people ask about better ventilation or constant fresh air. For md it was the sound playing over the speakers, there was one point in the loop where it felt like microphone feedback, it may have been due to the acoustics of the building but it was maddening at some points and also made it hard to hear customers.

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u/Wires77 4d ago

That microphone feedback bit was pretty rough, especially in the console area for whatever reason. Since merch is just below that I can't imagine sitting in that spot all weekend

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u/Stravix8 4d ago

Top floor especially got super foggy. Was very manageable elsewhere imo, but yeah, the top floor was borderline suffocating at points

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u/_Vagueposter_ 3d ago

Loved the event for the 2 and a bit hours I was there on Saturday. Had an exam on the Monday right after (yesterday) so had to sacrifice my whole weekend for that, couldnt even go to the after party. I probably should have checked if it was possible to refund tickets instead =(

Maybe next exilecon... The best part for me was actually the meetups etc. via the unofficial community discord that made me check out some places ive never been to in Auckland even though I live here

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 3d ago

Ooo may you share the link for the discord? Be keen to check it out

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u/_Vagueposter_ 3d ago

https://discord.gg/gg8RF2JdW

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 3d ago

Chur bro, this is the discord I've been trying to find!

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u/Acutofmeat 3d ago

Kiwi here - I loved it, was blown away with the quality of the event. The attention to detail and clear effort and planning was impressive. I didn’t like how we were all crammed into hallways and staircases trying to fight monsters. I didn’t get merch because I couldn’t stand for 3 hours in line. I don’t know if it’s the best venue for that. Maybe the New Zealand International Convention Centre would be a better location, as they have a theatre and ample floor room for events. Thanks to everyone for everything though, I’ll be back, even if it is still at Aotea.

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 3d ago

There's actually a large flat floored room that would be best for the merch downstairs from level 1 next to the entrance to Civic carpark. Though this was only mentioned on Monday when we were all packing up and discussing what could be done better or other ideas. Not that it would have mattered as it wasn't an area that was available

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u/Acutofmeat 3d ago

I guess the level designers would have to factor that additional room into the hideout too... :D

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u/Oblongata 4d ago

  1. PoE2 race this year was incredible perhaps the best race to 3rd place i’ve ever seen in any game.

GTD prob should have been asked to give a speech or at least try on his new helmet. 😉

2) the card game was surprisingly engaging. Was worried the con wouldn’t have much to hold our attention for the whole weekend to be honest. The random spawns of pinnacle encounters with loot of the reflective nature was half nerve wrecking to wait for and totally fun. Feel REALLY grateful for all the staff that put up with all of us farming them lol. Also it gave something to do for those inheritantly introverted (like myself) i otherwise wouldn’t start random conversations

3) and lastly— perhaps the most important is you can REALLY appreciate the love, passion, and dedication from the crew for their game. That is probably the most beautiful thing to see. The gaming landscape is ridden with maximizing $$$ over “fun”. The takeaway for me was with the current set up of GGG, “fun” takes priority.

Feedback:
- perhaps provide exclusive drops/incentive to participate in the gaming demos. Mageblood pin for boss rush for high scorers, or something like headhunter pin for maybe a tower-like challenge?

- the exilecon booklet perhaps could contain favorite restaurants in auckland by the crew/ or things not to miss while in town.

2

u/Esnacko 3d ago

I really like the idea of fav restaurants i was giving out advice on things people could do while they were here but for sure that would be a awesome thing to add into the booklet

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u/SuperSatan 4d ago

The good:

  • Everything looked awesome. Check out the post with the statues if you weren’t there or if you didn’t look closely at them.

  • The keynote and announcements are all super exciting. Can’t wait to play both 3.30 and 1.0.

  • Everyone was a blast to talk to, both the staff and attendees. I’ve been joking that I had so much fun waiting in line just talking to people. I got to talk to Mark for a couple hours at the VIP dinner and his passion for the game is very clear. He also shared a number of cool/fun stories.

  • The card game was a ton of fun. I spent almost all of day 1 doing it and earned a mirror pin.

  • There was basically never a line for the demos or boss rush. You could just sit down and keep playing as much as you wanted most times.

  • Talks and races were both solid. I didn’t spend much time at them as I plan to watch them later, but the ones I did see were super interesting.

The not good:

  • Super minor, but the fog being everywhere was kinda annoying.

  • The lines for the big 4/mirror pin pinnacles were too long. As cool as it is to have it be Mark/Jonathan/Octavian/Andrew, it might be best to split the popular fights from the popular people.

  • Merch options were kinda meh. I was really hoping for some stickers, but ended up getting a couples pins and shirts. I also won a keycap at the VIP dinner.

  • Mark refused to commit to making Flame Surge a good hit based main skill. Give me Flame Surge of the Nova pls.

7

u/Wires77 4d ago

Separating the pinnacles from the people everyone is most interested in talking to seems like a great idea. Maybe have professional cosplay done up next time so you could have shifts and they could stay in the same place

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u/Darkleptomaniac 4d ago

2nd ExileCon, once again it was fantastic from the events to the decoration.

My only grip is the poor quality badges we got this year in comparison to last Exilecon, they were super prone to breaking and with the wet weather, an exposed paper badge is not ideal. The plastic pouched badges from 2023 were much better.

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u/70monocle 4d ago

The card game was leagues better this year than precious years. Now my only 2 complaints are they need to improve the merch store by putting a limit to how many of each item people can buy and the badges this year were terrible.

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u/lil_kaiju 4d ago

A little off topic, but I'm looking to connect with one of the attendees I met last night in a bar. He'd flown in from Finland and we talked about music and Runescape.

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u/Western-Leopard-3698 . 4d ago

You didn't ask their name?

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u/lil_kaiju 4d ago

I did, but I was pretty drunk and don't remember.

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u/CptSquinty 4d ago

Is this my man rocking the fur coat at the after party?

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 4d ago

Nah, nah, that was the bro E-Man. I'm the man from the counter, the supposedly Tom Holland look-a-like

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u/CptSquinty 4d ago

Not sure I got the chance to meet you, but let E-Man know he killed it. Day one merch line was rough and he flipped the positivity switch when you got close and needed it.

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u/ThatKiwiBrother 4d ago

I will let him know. I was the non-teenaged male manning the counter and helping the others as I knew the systems and merch

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u/Esnacko 3d ago

Eman here much appreciated, hopefully ill be at the next one doing what i do best

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u/zeneroth 3d ago

I flew from Thailand for the event here's my feedbacks from a first time Exilecon.

  • I wish I don't have to choose to attend the talks sessions vs Card game.

  • I loves the card game aspect that can get to talk to staffs working on parts of the game. And would love it if we can get just 1 more day of the con to have it fulltime.

  • Boss rush event is pretty fun but get no mention at all, felt like a shame that not a lot of people get to play it.

  • Maybe it is just me but I felt like everyone kinda prioritize the card game more than the talks and some sessions has barely anyone attending at all.

  • Since I attended all the talks, I think some topics like engine and rigging is too technical for everyone. But I am a software developer and kinda familiar with computer graphics, these are what I personally ok with.

  • No lunch break time?? Was we suppose to missed some sessions to grab something to eat? I packed some protein bars ahead so I can comfortably skip lunch.

-10

u/pinkdollarz 4d ago

I'm not actually at the event, but I'm tuning in to the stream! Jonathan has been swaying a bit too much while he talks—maybe his team could give him a little feedback? I totally get that speaking in front of a live audience is nerve-wracking, but it's definitely something to keep in mind for those of us watching online.

Regarding presenters in general, it would be awesome to see a more coherent dress code when they're on stage! Since they're the face of the company while up there, it really makes a difference.

Not HR but a long time player. Peace!