It’s hard to predict the sales trajectory of a new Secret Lair product these days. There was a time when everything vanished in an instant, leaving the majority of players empty-handed. In the back half of 2024, the opposite tended to be true, with most Lairs remaining in stock long after their launch dates. Now that we’re into 2025, the pendulum seems to have swung yet again. The 2025 Festival in a Box Secret Lair drop, released just yesterday, sold out completely in just under four hours.
In some ways, this is a surprising development, and in some ways, it really isn’t. The contents of the Box, as well as the lower price point, make it a more tempting offer than last year’s. At the same time, the departure from the previous Festival in a Box sales pattern is so dramatic that it leaves a number of questions on the table.
Festival In A Box 2025 Is Sold Out Already!
Festival in a Box 2025 went on sale yesterday at 09:00 AM PT. At first, the community approached the sale with a fairly casual attitude. At around 10:00 PT Comwan noted that you could buy the product “with no wait.” They also claimed that “The festival in a box for Vegas didn’t sell out for a whole month. This one is going to be no different.” It wouldn’t take long for this theory to be disproved.
By 13:00 PT, UniversalTrees49 took to Reddit to announce that the Festival in a Box for 2025 had completely sold out. Accounting for delays in communication, this means the product very likely sold out in less than four hours overall. Compared to the four weeks Festival in a Box 2024 took to achieve the same thing, this is a remarkable figure indeed.
As you’d expect, a lot of players weren’t too happy about the rapid sellout on this one. From the beginning, we saw the usual complaints about the Secret Lair website, with regards to usability and reliability. There were also complaints about low stock, which appears to be a factor in the speedy turnaround here. As Hecknight put it:
“This limited stock nonsense is such bullshit. They need to fuck off with this. I would have bought 2 boxes had it gotten a proper window.”
Hecknight
There’s an argument to be made that 4 hours is a generous window by Secret Lair standards. Past products have certainly sold out faster. That said, the element of surprise definitely played a part in the negative response here. Players were basing their judgments on last year’s Festival in a Box, but it’s clear in retrospect that a lot has changed since then.
It’s Simple Math
Looking closely at the contents of Festival in a Box 2025, the fact that it sold out so quickly becomes a lot less surprising. Just doing some simple addition makes it look like a very attractive prospect financially. The First Sliver is a $42 card, which is a big chunk of the $200 asking price already. On top of that, the included Secret Lair represents about $40 of value in itself between All Will Be One, Animar, and Benevolent Hydra.
That’s $82 already, which is nearly half of the asking price before shipping. It’s worth noting that these specific versions of the cards will likely be worth more, too. With Secret Lair markups in mind, this bunch could possibly go for around $120 all told.
We haven’t even talked about Serra the Benevolent either, which is perhaps the most unique card in the Box. As a new Retro Frame planeswalker, using art from 1997’s Vanguard, this one is very Mystery Booster 2. The base card isn’t super-exciting, going for about $9 for a regular copy. The Vanguard art cards from Mystery Booster 2, however, all command price tags in the $60-360 range, so there’s huge potential here.
With that in mind, it’s very possible that the cost of this Festival in a Box is covered by the Secret Lair and promos alone. That leaves the Mystery Booster 2 box as almost a free throw-in. As many players were quick to point out in post-sellout discussions, boxes of this set are selling for about $320 alone on TCGPlayer right now. Even discounting the great value elsewhere, $200 for a box of Mystery Booster 2 sounds like a great deal at the moment.
A Huge Contrast
With all the financial figures in mind and the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to see why Festival in a Box 2025 sold out so quickly. There are other factors at play here, however, which make the contrast between this and last year’s Festival in a Box all the more remarkable.
The price point is perhaps the biggest difference here. Festival in a Box 2024 sold for $250, whereas the 2025 edition went for $200 instead. That’s a 25% discount right off the bat. Comparing the contents of the two boxes, however, 2024 still looks like a better deal initially. The three Collector Boosters it contains represent about $100 of value alone, while 2025 didn’t get any Collector Boosters at all.
There’s also the matter of hype to consider. Festival in a Box 2024 was the debut of Mystery Booster 2, and the first place most players could get their hands on it. The set was very well-received online, and despite the lackluster Secret Lair and promos Festival in a Box 2024 still had a ton of hype behind it going into release. The fact that it took so long to sell out was a big surprise at the time for that reason.
With that in mind, it’s fair to put the two products on roughly equal footing in terms of player reception, and therefore expected sales. That 2025 sold out so much quicker points to a huge reduction in stock this time around. There’s been no official confirmation on this of course, but we know that Wizards tinkers with Secret Lair quantity fairly regularly. It’s a shame that they chose to do so on such a desirable drop, but as a business move, it makes total sense.