Lydia Winters is the Director of Fun for the company that created the Minecraft video game. The company is called Mojang. We met her when we were lucky to attend the previous Minecon in Orlando Florida. Since that event, Microsoft bought Mojang and I noticed she now has a title something like Manager of Business Development.
10,000 tickets were sold. We fully expected long queues and a lot of positive energy. Even with high expectations, the event delivered.
We were very professionally managed as a large crowd at a large venue. It often felt like there were as many helpful security employees as there were attendees. They herded us into swirving queues barracaded by connected metal fences. When the moment was right, they allowed us into the main stage arena which was hidden until the event officially started.
Keep in mind the crowd looks like extremely excited 8-16 year olds escorted by their parents running behind them. I noticed the diversity of the crowd was excellent in terms of gender, race, background, etc. Hearing the roaring oohs and aahs of that crowd is heartwarming.
Within the first two minutes they brought a Guiness World Record adjudicator on stage. He announced that this event is the largest crowd ever for a single video game.
We then noticed the screen on stage was absolutely massive as they played a couple inspiring videos. They talked about how Minecraft is changing the world through the United Nations, education systems and advanced technology. They demonstrated a new technology called Hololens which is a pair of glasses that allow you to interact with 3d images/videos right in front of your eyes!
After the intro, you're exploded into the world of Minecraft convention. There's an "expo" area. Rumor has it that Steven Spielbergs crew designs the sets, they're breathtaking. The centre of the expo hall was a 3 story physical Minecraft build of Big Ben. It had a dragon character from the game draped around it. At floor level they build a London park full of Minecraft trees and characters. If you let your imagination go, you'll feel like you're walking in the game.
"YouTubers" is the most common word at the event. People create videos and post them on YouTube. If you're a marketing genius, you can get millions of "views" and hundreds of thousands of "subscribers". YouTube pays you something on the order of £1 per 1000 views, so there's financial incentive. The most popular YouTubers are like movie stars. Every single gamer there knows them and wants to meet them. They happen to be very nice, young people. We met several of them, got selfies and autographs, and the kids were beside themselves with elation.
The closing event on the first day was spectacular. Picture cirque d soleil. Women spinning high in the sky, bikers jumping on and off platforms and lots of explosive fire spinning everywhere. My favourite part was 4 people on trampolines. They used the entire massive stage to bounce on and off a platform to their trampolines. The back screen and platform were digitally lit by moving Minecraft scenes and the platform had 3 tiny holes near the top. They jumped and performed aerial gymnastics at dizzying heights and speed. They even jumped in and out of the tiny holes. I was mesmerized and didn't want it to stop.
We attended many panels and presentations. We also played some games and won some prizes. For me, it brings tears to my eyes and warmth to my soul to experience people having joy and learning. It's a special community full of love.
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