Feldon 
Confirming rumors we’d heard last week, Blue’s News and StrategyInformer are reporting that SOE is renaming its annual fan gathering from “SOE Fan Faire” to “SOE Live“.
Sony has announced the debut of a new convention devoted to Sony Online Entertainment MMOs, SOE Live. The convention will be located in Las Vegas, NV from the 18th through 21st October this year. The convention will take place at the Bally’s Casino. The games that will be showcased at the convention include DC Universe Online, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Free Realms, Magic: The Gathering – Tactics, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The convention will also debut PlanetSide 2.
UPDATE: SOE Live Website Online | Brasse’s Blog
From the press release by Sony Online Entertainment:
Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) today announced that its annual fan event will now be called SOE LIVE and will take place at Bally’s in Las Vegas, October 18-21, 2012. An annual SOE-sponsored event, SOE Live is set to be the ultimate gathering for the SOE community, and provides players an opportunity to celebrate their favorite games across SOE’s portfolio of titles, including: DC Universe™ Online, EverQuest®, EverQuest II, Free Realms®, Magic: The Gathering – Tactics®, PlanetSide® 2, Star Wars®: Clone Wars Adventures™ and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes®.
“The ‘SOE Live’ name change represents a deeper meaning behind our annual event,” said Laura Naviaux, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Sony Online Entertainment. “As our game portfolio continues to expand, we wanted to better represent our diverse player base and games, including the newest additions to the SOE family, with DC Universe Online, Free Realms, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, and the highly anticipated PlanetSide 2. Previous event attendees can rest assured that we are not removing any of our established activities in order to accommodate the new players; rather, they can expect even more to make this the ultimate SOE fan experience.”
SOE Live reflects the belief that all SOE players are part of one extended family and presents an opportunity for fans of all ages to meet the talented people behind some of the online world’s most successful games. In addition to a slew of social events, SOE will host developer panel discussions and game-themed live events, giving attendees a chance to voice their opinions of current and upcoming game content. SOE Live will also feature exclusive access to new announcements and beta programs, tournaments, premium swag and more.
I was hoping they would choose … SOE UnFaire
Interesting, no mention of Everquest Next in the game list. Does this mean another year without any real information on the next chapter in Norrath?
Not sure how Fan Faire excluded people. Maybe it did in “Marketer’s World”. Which is a place you really should never want to visit.
Yeah if it were EverFaire then yeah I could understand, but Fan Faire seemed inclusive to all games. SOE Live seems like a marketing thing.
The SOE marketing team is lead by a few half witted monkeys and one blind ostrich. When in the last 5+ years have they come out with a really good marketing idea that got people excited about a product?
I think any interest I had in going back to a FF has now been put to rest…
Yea I guess they might hae a hard time making the word “fan” stick to it now. Soe live, i think I could have done better. How about SOE Gamers Event (yyyy)
I posted something about this on the other thread — I think when SOE’s most popular games, EverQuest and EverQuest2, were medieval/fantasy based, then a renaissance faire kind of thing made sense — thus Fan Faire. Clearly, the focus of marketing, at least, if not the company, is on a wider marketing push, thus modernizing the whole thing to “Live” — like Xbox live, etc.
I am sure they thought that a “faire” was too old fashioned and wouldn’t appeal to their new target audiences. Remember, they think of the games now as a “casino experience.” That’s a lot different from a fantasy, creative anachronism environment.
It’s really too bad. I think it also indicates they want the emphasis off the EQ franchise and on to other things.
so top billing goes to DC Universe Online, then the 15 year old Everquest …. and at lucky number 3 EQ2.
Makes you wonder if that reflects the number or $$ each makes, the expected longevity of the game or the number of players each game has.
…. and the special coming attraction “::Planetside 2::”!!
While Everquest Next disappears from view maybe never to be heard of again.
I also noticed the lack of anything eqnext or eq3 mentioned even on the official live website. Hmmm now thats interesting.
MillieBii I think they where listed by alphabetically not revenue
1 week until the new CEO at Sony takes over and makes massive cuts. Will be interesting to see if it’s still called “SOE” Live by October time.
I hope both people attending this years FF have fun….
@Trueflight. Lol 🙂 I’m really glad I got to attend what was the final FF. I had a blast running around with my guildies while indulging in adult beverages and shenanigans. Sadly I don’t believe it will be the same from here on out, FF or otherwise.
So as I understand it, teens and tweens play FreeRealms and DCUO? Seem that Las Vegas is a poor venue for getting them to come to a “fan” event. In the past Vegas at Fan Faire has been an adult kind of event.
Should be interesting to see who comes to SOE Live, the gathering formerly known as Fan Faire.
I’m really starting to think people voted for mid-October to troll SOE.
Please don’t feed into their troll conspiracy theories, it just makes things worse.
Having said that, someone who did vote for October please tell me why you did.
Anyway, if they were taking votes from ALL the games, maybe the Free Realms/Clonewars crowd wants some time off school to go do something fun!
Tin hat: they ran out of time to plan it, and those are the only dates Bally’s actually had.
Fan Faire 2009 was the peak attendance. Fan Faire 2010 had about 40% fewer numbers from my recollection. Fan Faire 2011 saw a similar drop. I think the mid-October date will result in another drop. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are less than 700 people this year.
As for the name “SOE Live”, it’s a marketing thing designed to attract vendors. According to an SOE source, they’ve wanted to turn the event into a kind of trade show instead of “fan event” for years. Mission accomplished?
It could be possible that the reason EQ Next isn’t listed on the site is that they haven’t announced the name of it yet. It most likely won’t be called EverQuest Next, and might not even be called EverQuest 3. Even if it is EQ3, they haven’t shown us the logo for it yet. Planetside 2 is already named and branded.
I’m going to be optimistic and think that perhaps they are just holding out for a big announcement at SOE Live. I’d love to finally get some more info on it.
I voted for October because it’s not so bloody hot. I love Vegas, but even getting to and from the airport was enervating. Forget doing anything outside of the hotel during the day, and it doesn’t cool off that much at night.
Bad name change.
People used to refer to it as “Fanfaire”. Not SOE Fanfaire. As it rolled off the tongue nicely.
They are not going to talk about “Live”, “you guys going to Live again this year?” etc
People might start talking about “SOE Live”, which might be their aim all along, to get people adding SOE back in to the name.
To be honest, Fanfair was a pretty crap name.
Maybe I’m warming to SOE Live.
I totally agree with SOE that they have the SOE live, it brings in more people as in more things to do at the convention, I also have read on the other forum that they may have a Sunday event or something extra on Sunday.