Shrouded in Secrecy – Zynga’s Phoenix Farmville Meetup
The curtain of secrecy has been lifted after the completion of Zynga's official Farmville Meetup party thrown Saturday November 12th for the loyal players in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area. The Phoenix Farmville Meetup group has long been the largest Meetup group in the nation, boasting over two-hundred players in their facebook group. The group's numbers swelled even more after whispers of an OFFICIAL Zynga sponsored meetup in the area started sneaking out weeks ago.
Using a third party event organization site, Zynga invited players in the Phoenix area to register for the party knowing only the date and time, but not the location. "TBD A Central Location" was all the information any got until the evening before the event. Spirits were lifted and broken as the early registration tickets turned out to be worthless, and emails were sent out to players requesting more information. These were followed with "refund" notices for the free tickets from the event site for some unlucky farmers, and subsequently "Dear John" type form rejects from Zynga. Even the chosen few had to wait until the final hours before the event before receiving their official ticket with the secret location revealed.
Hello,
We regret to inform you that due to space and capacity limitations, we are unable to accommodate your request to attend the Private Phoenix Meetup Event, November 12th.
We thank you for your interest in attending, and ask that you stay tuned for upcoming events.
Best Regards,
FarmVille Community
For those either lucky enough to be counted among the attendees naturally, or those like myself who sent emails and facebook messages frantically in the final 24 hours to both the fan leader Pam F. and the listed event host with the zynga.com email address begging for acceptance, adrenaline raced with anticipation. Due to a joint effort between Taylor from Zynga sorting through the final 24 hours' exceptions and Pam fighting tirelessly to get some of the charter Phoenix Meetup members included, the final guest list was decided.
The promise of a "Question and Answer" session was perhaps the more alluring concept, even topping the offers of free food, free alcohol, and socialization at Alice Cooper'stown in Phoenix, Arizona last night. Questions poured in through email, using the tireless and effective local group leader Pam F. as a conduit, and onto the Zynga representatives.
However, due to the Non Disclosure Agreement signed upon arrival at the event, none of the amazing and wonderful content revealed at the event can be shared here. However, the one thing I did hear before signing on the dotted line was, "Do you know Bob?" Apparently our fearless leader has friends in high places!
It was my pleasure to be included at this once in a lifetime FarmVille themed party. I was particularly impressed by the amount of face-to-face chit-chat time afforded by the seven FarmVille employees present, including the programming director, the art director, the senior community manager, and more. They were very warm, welcoming, and generally fun people! And yes, the havoc and begging and stress and struggle was worth it; I brought home a few tangible goodies and even more memories, and have already started adding new neighbors on the farm that I met at the event.
Cheers,
Jenzie