FEST SO FAR. Our 5th Anniversary Awaits 🎉 THE STORY SO FAR...#FPL I joined Twitter during lockdown. Too much time. Not enough football. And somehow I accidentally fell into the FPL community through @fantasychampman, a fantasy game built on a Championship Manager 01/02 simulation run by absolute legends like @andymartin. What started as a bit of fun online quickly turned into real people. Proper people. The kind you actually want to meet in real life. When lockdown eased, I had one clear thought. I really want to meet these people. So I posted this tweet 👇 x.com/fantasyfooty/status/13… I expected maybe a few likes. Instead I got loads of interest and DMs, including from @giannibuttice and @ffscout_mark. We jumped on calls. First separately. Then together. And basically said, why don’t we actually try and make this happen properly? Somehow, we then did something that still feels mad. We got the three biggest companies in FPL, and direct competitors, @ffscout, @ffh_hq and @fantasyfootyfix, to all support and partner with us. The aim was simple. Bring the community together after Covid. That was the start of FEST, now run via @ff_fest. Then came the crises' #1: VIP Gate 🚪 The first problem came immediately. For FEST 1, we announced two ticket tiers. A standard ticket and a £50 VIP ticket which, very famously, included a free poster. People did not like this. Some people politely told us it was a bad idea. Fair enough. Others were much less polite. Twitter was already a cesspit back then. Within 24 hours, we scrapped the VIP tier completely. Lesson learned. Probably not the move for your first ever event. Yes, @FPL_CHEF, we remember 🤣 #2: Sky and BT Gate 📺 When Gianni and I visited the venue, we were told they could show whatever channel the opening game ended up on. Sky or BT. All good. So we promoted that everyone would be able to watch the first game of the season together. After about 150 tickets were sold, the venue emailed to say they no longer had a Sky licence and had also got rid of BT. I reread the email three times. I remember exactly where I was when it came through. Pure panic. Thankfully, most people were brilliant about it. They understood it wasn’t our fault and still had a great time chatting, quizzing, drinking and talking football. Ironically, those two early crises probably brought more attention than we would have had otherwise. We ended up with around 250 people attending. Coming straight out of Covid, we would have been happy with 100. And somehow, there wasn’t a single Covid outbreak. Or at least nobody blamed us. 13 August 2021 ❤️ Against all odds, the first FEST actually happened. And somehow, entirely thanks to Gianni, we had @KellySomers and @acjimbo (James Richardson) hosting. It was chaotic, stressful, emotional and absolutely brilliant. #3: Gabriel Gate 📶 @FplMode Fast forward to FEST 3 in summer 2023. One of the joys of our old venue was the Wi-Fi. It was always lightning fast. People streamed games, checked teams and made last-minute changes. Except not this year. This was the first year we had two decent sponsors and might actually make a small profit. Both sponsor activations relied on the Wi-Fi. You can guess what happened. The Wi-Fi died. For the entire area. All day. Apparently a BT engineer was half a mile away desperately trying to fix a box. So the sponsors were understandably furious and didn’t pay. Hundreds of fantasy football nerds were locked in what is basically a cave with no Wi-Fi and no 4G or 5G. This is almost survivable, unless there is a last-minute team change. And yes. Arsenal dropped Gabriel. Or maybe Saliba. I’ve blocked it out. To this day, some people personally blame me for their poor season. For the record, I was in the building and managed to make the move in time. Just saying. #4 NYC FEST and the Queen dies 🇺🇸👑 We then partnered with @hailcheaters to run FEST in New York. Everything was set up perfectly. Around 150 people flying in, a five-a-side pitch at the venue and all the games on, because you can show 3pm kick-offs in the US. Halfway across the Atlantic, the Queen dies. Selfish. All games cancelled. Are you kidding me? Still, people came. It was about 35 degrees. We played football, hung out and had a genuinely great time. I will never forget Mark Sutherns nearly collapsing walking up a hill. I remember thinking, oh no, I’ve killed the GOAT of FPL. #5: Reddit Gate 🧵 After FEST 2024, someone posted about FEST on Reddit. I thought, brilliant. Clicked it. Immediate regret. reddit.com/r/FantasyPL/comme… It absolutely slated the event. Said creators didn’t talk to anyone, complained about @aboveaveragefpl smoking and said @FPLMate was smug. I can vouch for both of them. Good blokes and always happy to chat. Adam’s smoking aside...🤣 Honestly, I think the poster sat on his own and expected people to come to him. Ask 90 percent of FEST-goers, now well over 2,000 people, whether FEST is friendly and social and you’ll get a resounding yes. The bits I’ll always remember ❤️ Notable mentions: - @FPLPlonker trying to buy a round with his driving licence - @LloydGriffith doing stand-up - Jenas and Pennant coming to FEST 25 - Dean Ashton at FEST 24 chatting to literally everyone We have made loads of mistakes running FEST. I wouldn’t change any of them. It’s never going to make much money and I genuinely don’t care. Seeing people meet, laugh, argue about captains and leave buzzing makes it worth it every year. Now somehow, we’re heading into our 5th anniversary. 📅 21 and 22 August 🎉 Two-day FEST 🎟️ Early-bird tickets available now via ff-fest.com If you know you’re coming, please buy early. It helps us plan and locks in your price. P.S. For anyone who pops up every year saying we’re exploiting the FPL community, we genuinely have less money now than when we started 🤣 And honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. 💙