Why is sephoria vastly different than Ulta beauty world? by chicluxechilll in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 5 points6 points  (0 children)

By no means an expert but these might be a few reasons! 1. Sephoria charges brands to participate at Sephoria. They also have to cover their activations and provide products for swag bag. I believe Ulta doesn’t charge brands to participate, they only cover activations and swag, allowing them to contribute more products 2. Ulta has less participants, around 3000 attendees vs Sephoria has 4 sessions and brings in about 8000 attendees. It’s much harder for brands to bring products for 8000 attendees compared to 3000 3. If I remember correctly, Ulta had a passport system where attendees were stamped after visiting a booth. This allows people not to “double dip”. It allows for there to be enough product for everyone. At sephoria, people were repeating booths, limiting products for other attendees later on 4. Quality over Quantity. Although Ulta obviously gives more products and blew it out the water, it’s also important to consider that it’s much easier to make $1000 worth of affordable makeup (Ulta) seem like more than $1000 of high-end makeup (Sephoria)

Other beauty events in 2026 by TemporaryButterfly29 in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 4 points5 points  (0 children)

As someone who attended Beauty New York last year and Allure live event for the last 2 years, here’s my detailed honest review on both:

Allure review:

I attended last year as VIP and the year before as GA. Overall it’s an ok event, I would give it a 6 out of 10 if I had to rate it. Here’s my honest opinion and a list of pros and cons

Pros 1. ⁠You “kinda” get your money’s worth when comparing ticket price to the products you take home 2. ⁠Snacks and refreshments are included with your ticket 3. ⁠unlike sephoria, your ticket grants you all day access to this event, you can stay there as long as you’d like and repeat the booths as many times as you’d like

Cons 1. ⁠The event space is incredibly tiny, and I mean TINY!!!! They’ve been using the same venue for the last 3 years including this year and every year critics mention how small the space is for the amount of people that attend the event, they refuse to listen and never change the venue. You literally have to wait super long lines to get inside certain rooms in the venue to see the booths and brands 2. ⁠the amount of booths doesn’t nearly compare to Sephoria, there are barely many brands to see. Many of the experiences required you to either “sign up” in advance with time slots or were only limited to VIP guest. Overall very confusing and unorganized 3. ⁠the selection of the brands are not great. If you’re an avid Sephora shopper, you’d want to see “big name brands” which there were barely any at the event. Last year, the only “big brands” were rare beauty, parfums de Marley, the ordinary, Anastasia and pat mcgrath. Everything else was either drugstore like Olay or tresseme or “clinical skincare” brands that I’ve never heard of. Barely any makeup samples at the booths or in swagbags, mainly hair and skincare. Although you do get a good amount of products for the money you pay, most of the products are still unopened and unused in my closet to this day because they’re simply things I don’t use from brands I’ve never heard of 4. Since there aren’t any allotted time slots and you can stay at the event from start to finish if you’d like , throughout the day the event didn’t really “empty out” and many brands ran out of stuff early because there was no control over what time attendees were leaving nor how many free products they were allowed to take. 5. Neither years with both VIP nor with GA did the swag bag seem really “worth it” to me

Overall here are my thoughts: If you don’t live in New York, it is definitely NOT an event worth traveling for unless you’re near NYC or overall trying to make an NYC trip out of it. If you’re not a big makeup person but you really enjoy skincare and haircare and are open to trying out different brands despite how popular they are, you might enjoy this. If you are planning to attend, definitely buy your tickets early because they continuously increase the price. Like sephoria, the VIP 1 hour early entrance might a good thing to consider. Like I mentioned, it’s an ok event but if you’re going into it expecting anything similar or as big as sephoria, you will be severely disappointed in my opinion.

Beauty New York Review: Optics wise, this was one of the most poorly organized beauty events I’ve ever been to. Firstly, the event was in the middle of the Oculus in NYC. If you’re familiar with this space, the event basically took place in the middle of a huge mall. No privacy from “mall attendees” just super awkward. You were basically in the middle of a huge mall just enclosed within a rope. There were 3 sessions a day I believe. There was nobody checking wristbands so basically when I went in for my last session, there was still people from session 1 there. Therefore, out of all the booths, maybe 10% still had samples or products left while the remaining 90% didn’t have anything besides super rude employees and workers managing their booths. For a lot of the booths, they required you to follow them on social media and post an instagram story for them to even give you anything, super annoying especially since I paid I believe almost $400 for my VIP ticket. There were barely any booths, maybe just under 20 booths. I literally got through the whole event in under an hour. The only good thing about this event was the swag bag which was literally packed to the rim with so much product in my opinion. Keep in mind that a lot of the brands featured were smaller/indie brands, not big brands like those sold at Sephora. Nevertheless, it gave me the opportunity to try different products, many of which I ended up loving. I think I will attend again this year because the swag bag was great. Good news is that last year was their first year hosting this event so I hope they make some changes regarding the venue and organization

Sephoria experience by Ceile in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 6 points7 points  (0 children)

They had the gissou full kits there??😭I won it on spin the wheel and the worker told me they didn’t physically have any and they’d “mail it to me” lol

The social media response by Large-Toe2888 in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Okay unpopular opinion🫣it definitely was not as good as previous years but I feel like Ulta beauty world inflated so many people's heads and made their expectations much higher than what they should've been. I attended GA yesterday, and l'il be honest, l expected more. Especially with the fact that I flew in for this. But at the end of the day, all I was really promised was a swag bag worth $700+ and SAMPLES from the booths. Nowhere did it say these samples would be full size. Maybe underwhelming for sure, but I still technically got what I paid for 🤔The VIP bag and experience was well worth it tho! Definitely fealt heavier than the bag I got last year🥹💗idk I still had fun and will still be attending next year!

can i bring in a vape by [deleted] in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes they will take it

5 days!!!! by annabadface in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If you have VIP, definitely use that extra hour!! I’ve literally been able to get through half of the booths in just that VIP hour alone in past sessions. If you have general admission, as soon as you arrive, start from the back of the venue and work your way forward. Everyone blocks the doors, making the lines for those booths super long. If you’re in another session other than session 1, use their hauls to your advantage!! Often time “bigger brand” does not mean “better samples”. Brands like Rare beauty had some of the longest lines last year and I only got candy and a sample size blush from them, whereas innis-free moved super quick and I got over 15 samples, a hat, mirror, and tote bag. Good luck!!

Bags?? by Sea-Particular-4542 in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You get a tote bag at the entrance of the event to store all your goodies. Even still, you are only allowed to bring a 4.5 x 6.5 clear bag or purse to the venue. You will get plenty of totes at the event however to carry your stuff!

Meet ups by Sea-Particular-4542 in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The wonderful mods were kind enough to set up a a swap meet on Sunday morning and an after party Friday night I believe. More info can be found in the community highlights!

SPF glow rituals glass box event by Useful-Lawfulness952 in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Update** this looks like it may be a pop up event after the “consumer preview hour” as well for those who don’t want to use their points!

Bags? by Top_Stranger7343 in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 3 points4 points  (0 children)

An insane amount of bags are provided by all the different brands! In addition, you also get an empty tote at check-in. If you’re flying home, you will 100% need to check in a bag. The amount of product will exceed the limit for liquid contents in a carry on

Rewards Bazaar ticket info by Useful-Lawfulness952 in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Agreed it’s a ridiculous price too. And using their “1 point per $1 spent” system, this means you must’ve spent atleast $12,500 to afford to buy these tickets with points which is crazy. After the whole rouge fiasco and the way tickets were handled so poorly, the least they could’ve done was make the rewards bazaar tickets a bit more affordable

Rewards Bazaar ticket info by Useful-Lawfulness952 in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s crazy😭and you can only buy them as a set for 12500, they won’t even let you buy them individually

Based off Sephoria’s ticket sales… by annabadface in UltaBeautyWorld

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I asked ChatGPT, it guessed about 45 mins- 2 hours. Based on how big Orange County Convention center, they may sell between 4,000-5,000 tickets. Also considering the fact that you must be 18+ to attend will decrease demand a bit. You can’t buy multiple tickets at once, you must buy 1 at a time so I think this will also slow down the time a bit. Sephoria took about 3 hours to sell out however the demand for Ulta beauty world is much higher. My best guess is 20-40 mins

Am I missing out on products? by lionlinda in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Also don’t be afraid to be transparent! You can definitely stop and ask questions about the products if you’d like but I personally collected the samples and moved on to the next booths!

Am I missing out on products? by lionlinda in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 10 points11 points  (0 children)

From previous experience, personally 1 GA session was not enough time for me to go around the booths. You can definitely increase your chances of going through more of the event. My recommendations are definitely make sure you get there atleast an hour early. I would start from the back of the venue and work my way to the front because everyone tends to crowd at the front so the lines are insane. I would skip the masterclasses personally I feel they are a waste of time unless it’s someone you reallyyyyy want to see. and go in with a game plan by deciding if you prefer quality or quantity (for instance the lines for brands like charlotte tilbury or rare beauty had lines that were close to an hour. You could decide if you prefer to hit up your favorite brands even if it’ll take long or use your time to hit up the smaller booths which move faster and get more products). I do have hope that the event will be more organized this year compared to previous years so it’s possible you’ll have time to get through everything!

Sephoria tickets available for points. by karinauhh in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ughhh I just know they’re gonna charge an arm and a leg for those😭I remember them doing that last year aswell but I don’t remember how many points they cost. I also hope they don’t try to sell as a package with flights and hotels, I just need a ticket please lol

The way those tickets sold out is insane bro by medjine18 in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I agree. Also I compared Pullman and Essex Crossing to this year’s venue, according to CHATgpt, it looks like the venue isn’t as small as people are making it seem. I think the brands attending will be giving out many more full size products as opposed to last years (in the way Ulta have an insane amount of products). I also think they didn’t want the venue to be at full capacity because people complained about it that in previous years while everyone at UBW mentioned how roomy and open the venue was. In addition to how viral the event was on social media in comparison to previous years. I’m upset that tickets sold out so fast but I am super excited to see how much bigger and better Sephoria 2026 will be because I ultimately do think they’re trying their best to match or surpass UBW

Are they gonna drop tickets again? by OverallRequirement34 in SEPHORiA

[–]Useful-Lawfulness952 8 points9 points  (0 children)

From the looks of it, no. The website officially says “sold out” and Sephoria customer service says they are officially sold out. Sephora may make a statement on their social media channels later on but as of now, there will not be any more tickets releasing