EXPOAid Roadshow Ep. 1 — MINECON Earth 2018
Our first journey on the EXPOAid Roadshow is an event that in 2016 sold 12,000 tickets in just over 3.5 seconds for their largest event in Anaheim. For 2017, they took a completely different approach by actually taking the event entirely online and free for everyone to see (last year’s event pulled in over 1.7 million views on Youtube alone) through their “MINECON Earth” brand.
This year, they’re doing exactly that, but are opening their live studio audience to a select few, just 250 fans and a +1. As you can imagine, with them decreasing physical seating by 99%, there was a mad rush for tickets, but we managed to score two with our charm and splendor ✨
History of MINECON
MINECON is a sacred event for Minecraft enthusiasts — it’s where players young and old, from sea to shining sea, band together and have a weekend full of announcements, gameplay, and fun Minecraft-inspired frolicking. While the first event in 2010 was a bit of an impromptu meetup, the “first” 2011 event in Las Vegas was much more formal.
The show then moved from Vegas to Disneyland Paris for a 2012 date, which was a significantly larger show, allowing about 4,500 people inside of the venue. This larger show featured more exhibits, panels, special guests, gameplay, and general Minecraft fun.
Afterwards, we see MINECON moving back to the United States for a year for their 2013 event, which was hailed by most attendees as the “peak” of MINECON. The show was held at the one and only Orange County Convention Center, and 7,500 tickets were sold online — none at the door, and none go free to press — they were really dedicated about having as many attendees in that venue as possible.
Unfortunately, MINECON didn’t occur in 2014 — They were most likely too busy being bought by Microsoft. They were originally planning for a UK event, and did go to scout locations, but eventually confirmed that the show wouldn’t be taking place.
Mojang made a comeback, however, with the 2015 show in London. This show was so large that it won the Guinness World Record for the largest convention for a single video game, as well as eight other world records.
This was the largest show yet, taking over an entire convention center to accommodate the 10,000 people who were about to grace its halls. The first batch of tickets sold out in about 12 minutes.
The 2016 event was the largest ever attempted by Microsoft. 12,000 tickets sold out in 3.5 seconds, across the street from Disneyland at the Anaheim Convention Center. This year especially had a lot more emphasis on community, with the Hypixel Network taking over an entire arena to broadcast/run tournaments of their four most popular minigames.
The Anaheim event is one that I personally attended, and it was by far best Minecraft-related experience I’ve had. I had my start by selling Minecraft stuff, so it was more of a business conference for me, and it was a fun one at that.
Physical to Virtual: The Switch to Earth
After the 2016 event, I patiently waited for information about 2017’s event. And waited. And waited. It was about two months before last year’s show date, and we were all getting more impatient: what was going on? Then, our questions were answered in this post.
The Minecraft community is still growing, and there’s only a certain number of players we can host while keeping the friendly, intimate community atmosphere that’s made previous MINECONs so special. — Owen Jones, Mojang
In other words, they were going virtual. There would be no more MINECON. At least, not in a physical form. “Not to fear!”, they said. “We’re partnering with some other events and bringing them onboard as official Community Events”.
Anyone can see why they did this: By only having to worry about a single event is a lot less work with a lot more of the result. In addition, having other people pay you to host your own event is a win-win for everybody. Soon enough, events like Minefaire and Minevention were taking the world by storm.
The trend continued in 2018 with a September 29th livestream date, and viewing parties around the world.
Trip Log
(Note: Our camera wasn’t working that well so we contacted some folks on Twitter to use their pictures, which they allowed us! Click the link on any caption that has a Twitter username to see their approval :) )
4:42pm (Friday) — Well, here we are. We’re finally on the road! A few slight delays, but we are up and running. From our office in Bangor, it’s about 4 hours to drive to Boston. Somewhere around Augusta we’re going to stop for food, but it’s a straight journey.
7:30pm — We’re stopping at Red Robin for some food. Should take around an hour and then we’ll be back.
8:15pm — Back on the road. We’re around Augusta now.
11:45pm — We’re in Boston! Just arrived at our hotel and will get some sleep for the big day ahead.
9:30am (Saturday)— We’re up and running! Moving ahead with grabbing breakfast at Tatte.
10:43am — We just arrived at the venue. Lots of MINECON Earth signage and people standing around, wrapped around by orange safety barriers. The venue doesn’t open until 11:00am so we’re just standing around here, waiting for the show to start.
10:55am — As we get closer until doors opening, lots more people are getting in line. Security here is very intense, as media is coming through, they’re required to go through metal detectors and pass through two waves of armed guards.
11:23am — We’re about 7 minutes out. We got special seating due to us being press, and we’re getting logged into our wifi and internet and whatnot now. We still have about 30 minutes until the main event — what’s being shown in 7 minutes in the pre-show.
11:30am — Julia Hardy 🌈 is taking the stage at the pre-show for the second MINECON Earth in a row. We’re watching the pre-show through four monitors — they’re not on the main stage quite yet.
They’re starting the pre-show with a video about how Minecraft has progressed in the last year featuring several Youtubers and map-makers that are prominent in the Minecraft community.
11:34am — Online update: There’s about a 51 second delay with 22,000 people tuning in. It’s a bit faster through Twitch with about a 25 second delay, but only 10,000 people tuning in.
11:39am — They’re back to talking and stalling until the main show begins. If something larger happens, we’ll update you.
11:46am — Lydia Winters, Vu Bui, and all of our fantastic hosts just came out 14 minutes early. The pre-show has been muted. They’re teaching the crowd on how to be a good audience, laugh at their jokes and whatnot.
11:48am — They invited up the winner of the costume contest, it’s her birthday today. She’s coming in from France and we’re singing her Happy Birthday.
11:49am — They left the stage, we’re back with the pre-show from the four monitors. I was told the pre-show is being filmed from the same location, and just in like a different room in the venue.
12:00pm — The pre-show has ended, and our co-hosts have taken the stage while the countdown is playing live. Lots of cheering.
12:02pm — The screens are playing a montage of the co-hosts preparing for the show while final preparations are being made on-stage.
12:04pm — MINECON Earth begins now! There’s a giant teleprompter in the back that’s feeding them the lines. The execution of the teleprompter and making it sounds like it’s all natural dialogue.
12:08pm — They’ve made their first switch and the flurry of activity taking place on the stage is quite insane. There are dozens of people moving all of the set pieces and moving in the next segment. The entire set was dis-assembled in about 25–30 seconds.
12:13pm — Online update: the Youtube page is hovering at about 45,000 people with a 54 second delay.
12:19pm — Second cut-to-video. There are 18 people taking care of all of the smaller portions of the transition. Why so many — because the last segment sent 80 small blocks all over the stage. They have about 120 seconds to complete this entire transition.
12:22pm — They’ve completed setup for the second item, it’s more of a talk show right now. They’ve brought in a TV and a little science experiment with beakers and whatnot.
12:27pm — Someone just walked on to the stage wearing a long blue coat, probably connected to the science experiment. (It’s Kate the Chemist @K8TheChemist) So far, this has nothing to do with Minecraft.
12:32pm — Here’s how this ties into Minecraft- using the Minecraft Education edition, we can do experiments like that.
12:34pm — Just counted the folks as they go into this transition, there are 18 people who are working moving sets.
12:35pm — Here’s the big announcement at MINECON that was advertised — Standalone games in the blocky Minecraft style. There are multiple new projects in the works that have been in the works and we’ll be seeing what they’ve been working on.
12:37pm — The first teaser trailer for the game is here. The game is called Minecraft: Dungeons. As per Lydia Winter:
This is the beginning of the Minecraft Universe in New Game Genres.
12:45pm — There’s always something happening on the stage while the attention of the cameras is elsewhere. They just finished transforming part of the set for the live version of a game show. As soon as the cameras broke away from that, they took that out and brought something else in. The choreography of the movements of the 16 people on the team, the 5 cohosts, and the other Mojang and Microsoft employees are remarkable.
1:05pm — Somebody just crashed the stage and ran out. I’m following them right now.
1:08pm — He’s on the ground outside of the venue. I walked back with him as he was walked back to the venue, and spoke with venue staff about it.
Cooperated with all venue staff and security officers in giving them the requested information, since I was a witness.
1:25pm — Am speaking with venue staff, just asked for their media contact so I can make sure the information about the incident is accurate.
1:33pm — Back in the venue and will enjoy the rest of the show.
1:50pm — Show’s over! The nice people at Mojang provided boxed lunches and plenty of free limited edition Neon Sheep for us to indulge in. Much appreciated!
I can’t help but keep coming back to the incident about how someone got up on stage, so I decided to investigate further. I spoke with venue staff and found out his name and some more information.
Let’s Go Global
The great thing about MINECON Earth was that, since it’s owned by Microsoft, they have the resources to host a lot of smaller events at the same time. This year, they took over dozens of Microsoft stores, museums, and different venues around the globe.
Microsoft stores around the globe changed all of their devices to run versions of Minecraft, put up the live feed on their large screens reserved for product marketing, and gave out free swag like posters and badges.
MINECON’s Security
After doing a bit more research, it turns out that the guy that crashed MINECON Earth actually also crashed the Anaheim event in 2016, at the end. Nothing happened after that event, but after this event, he was caught and held by security. He was released on the condition that he was banned from all Microsoft events.
We contacted Microsoft and were given a PR contact, but he has not yet responded. When he does, we will put his response here.
We have also contacted avsterbone, the person in question who crashed the shows in 2016 and 2018, and he agreed to speak to us in an exclusive interview.
There are several conditions to our interview, listed here:
- Because he’s a minor, we can only use his profile picture and his first name (Avi).
- He requested we link to his Youtube channel and Twitter page.
Here’s our exclusive interview:
Nathan (Me): So how did this get started? From what I’ve been told by venue staff, you have been in the Minecraft ecosystem for a while now, but how did you start this? What show did you first hit, and why did you do it?
Avi: First one was Anaheim, then this one MINECON Earth 2018. I did it because I thought it would be a funny meme and get a good laugh, also the free publicity for shouting my channel out. Security held me for an hour and a half. I was released with no charge and banned from any Microsoft sponsored event and the venue as a whole.
Nathan: During the first event (in Anaheim), were you caught?
Avi: All that happened in the first event was I was asked to sit back in my seat — Legit nothing happened. Only this year did they take it seriously.
Nathan: Are you planning to push past that ban? Hit up another MINECON in the future?
Avi: No. I was warned I’d be arrested, don’t want to get a record.
Nathan: What did you think was going to happen, worst case, if you were caught here?
Avi: I would be trespassed, and that is what happened lol
Nathan: So where will we see you next?
Avi: Streaking the World Cup (just kidding). If I’m ever on TV again it will be because I was invited.
Nathan: I’ve had the chance to speak with Jens and Owen from Mojang about a few things today, this quickly being one of them. Anything you want to say to them?
Avi: Thanks for not pressing charges, and thanks for treating me well after I was detained. I just did it as a joke, meant no harm — just childish fun.
Up Next For the EXPOAid Roadshow
Well, that’s it for our first episode! Hope you enjoyed it.
Our next episode will be covering one of the most exclusive business conferences in the world. It sells out almost every year, and costs, at a minimum, $10,000 to get into. We’ll be reporting about how the show operates, but it’ll be a little bit different than this one because we can’t share any of the content being given in the room. We think you’ll like it — stay tuned for November 7th.
