Minecraft annual events

MineCon (initially referred to as MinecraftCon) is an annual Minecraft convention held by Mojang AB. The first one was held in 2010 in Washington State. The 2011 one was on November 18th 2011 in Las Vegas and celebrated the release of Minecraft 1.0. MineCon 2012 was held in Disneyland Paris from November 24 - 25th. The official MineCon website is available at http://minecon.mojang.com/.

2010


MinecraftCon 2010 was a spontaneous gathering of Minecraft fans on August 31st 2010 in Bellevue, Washington. It was conceived by Notch after expressing in a blog post several requests for a meet-up by players and had called on the community to organize one with no specific choice of venue. While Notch had labeled it "Minecraftcon 2010", it is a bit of a misnomer as it implies a formal convention not unlike that of a typical gaming or anime convention. This thread on the Minecraft Forums was an unofficial organization point for the Con, complete with YouTube videos and pictures afterwards.

More than fifty people had turned up at the gathering, including one in a full body creeper costume, in which Notch took a cautious interest.

2011


MineCon 2011 was held at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nevada on November 18, 2011. Tickets cost $99 and coincided with the official release of the game.

MineCon featured many exciting events, such as the official Minecraft release, keynote speeches from members of the Minecraft community (including one from Notch), building contests, breakout classes with different Minecraft topics, costume contests, exhibits, meeting worldwide Minecraft personalities and commemorative merchandise.

There were 4,500 attendees at MineCon 2011, aging from new borns to 105 year olds and coming from 24 countries. Events included the Kickoff party, which everybody was invited to, and the Into the Nether party, featuring Deadmau5, where only attendees 21 years and over were allowed into.

Tickets
Tickets went on sale on the 11th of August 2011, 99 days before the start of the conference on 18 November. The early-bird price was $99, which ran until September 30. After that, the price (including the price at the gate) became $139. However, as of October 28th, the tickets were all sold out. The price did not include hotel rooms, flights or any other costs involved apart from entry to MineCon.

The first 500 ticket purchasers were entered into the drawing to receive "The Ultimate Fan Experience". The winner won a paid-for hotel room at Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, VIP seating to keynotes and presentations, and a meal with the Mojang team. The draw was won by a player named Joseph.

Cape
Notch announced that those attending MineCon 2011 would receive an exclusive MineCon 2011 cape. He quickly removed the announcement and said it was supposed to be a secret. On September 27, a new photo of the official cape was released along more information on who would be attending the convention. The cape was given to all attendees on October 10–11.

2012


MineCon 2012 was held in Disneyland, Paris from November 24 - 25th. The convention was attended by 4,500 people - approximately the same amount as the previous year. The Redstone Update was announced by the core Minecraft development team in a keynote held there. The entirety of the convention was officially live streamed by GameSpot, who later uploaded some of the content to their YouTube channel.

Announcement
On April 9th 2012, Lydia Winters confirmed that MineCon 2012 would occur in Europe. She also announced that details would become clear in the coming weeks. On July 18th 2012 she posted on the Mojang website that in the following week a video would go up saying where MineCon 2012 would be. On August 2nd 2012, Mojang officially announced through a promotional video on YouTube that MineCon 2012 would be held in Disneyland Paris from November 24 - 25th. On August 23rd 2012 the official MineCon site was updated to reflect 2012's convention. Ticket sales and hotel registration opened on September 14th 2012 with tickets quickly being sold out soon after release.

Cape
As with the previous year, attendees of MineCon 2012 received an exclusive cape. On October 8th, 2012, it was confirmed by Junkboy that the cape design for MineCon 2012 was finished and they were taking about 2 weeks to implement a button to turn it on and off. On November 1st, Mollstam tweeted that the cape will be available when they finish the cape selection system. As such, minecraft.net now offers the ability for users who attended both conventions to switch between their 2011 and 2012 capes.

On November 16th, it was confirmed by Mollstam that the MineCon 2012 cape would be distributed when the convention began. He said that "they are pretty and blue". When the convention began, the cape was revealed to be one of the unused capes from MineCon 2011 that users could have voted for.

Ingame
2012 was also the start of several ingame versions of MineCon. The most notable of these were 'Minecon Server Edition' which took the Minecraft world by storm when speakers such as inthelittlewood and Block_Fortress turned up. Thousands of people watched the event take place over the livestream, as well as signed up for tickets. The main competitor is Virtual Mineconwhich was highlighted as a success of the Minecraft community when Carnalizer, Mojangsta, attended and tweeted about the event. Rumour is that he may be returning for the 2013 version along with other special guests (Virtual Minecon might be percieved as a livestreamer hot spot). Inpired by the large ingame Minecon events held in November, multiple ingame events are emerging.