The very first round of the game when assigning heroes and allies for questing there will be no enemy or location cards in the staging area till after heroes and allies are sent on the quest then you'll reveal the top cards of the encounter deck right? In the video tutorial it shows enemies in the staging area in the example but it also implies it's the very first round of the game.

that is correct, alot of the adventures start off with creatures and or locations already in the starting area.

Kingbee said:

Ah cool. That's what I figured. The video tutorial just didn't mention why those cards were already there.

I think every quest starts out with something in the staging area. Specific cards you need to pull out and/or random cards.