Seeing and Doing: Minecon 2015

Where: Excel, London

When: 04/07/2015 - 05/07/2015

Minecon is an event purely focused on the game 'Minecraft'. It is understandable that most people would become confused and wonder why people are willing to pay over £100 on a ticket to go. I am one of those that ponder the mindset that one must have in order to splurge so much money not only on the Minecon ticket but also on flights, accommodation, food and other transport. So I purchased a ticket. And I purchased a hotel room. And I purchased taxi rides to and from the Excel convention center. All together the trip came to over £200... and I didn't have to buy plane tickets. What I'm trying to say is that, whilst reading this, you need to keep in mind that the average FAMILY (because under 18s must be accompanied by an adult) has spent more than this.

So first, lets talk about the fact that the majority of Minecraft's demographic is young people (mainly male) and thus the people wanting to buy Minecon tickets would be young boys and young girls. Now, they have to be supervised by an adult, which means that at least 2 tickets must be purchased (= £260 or $405). Lets say that this child has a SIBLING... + £130 = £390 or $608! Only for the tickets (you can factor in flights/food/accommodation/transport in your own time. Lets say for the sake of all of us that the whole trip comes to over £500/$700)

Next I'm going to point out that there are a lot of people attending. 2 batches of 5,000 tickets (= 10,000 tickets) were sold at £129 each meaning a total of £1,290,000 was spent purely on Minecon tickets. This gives Mojang a lot of money to do whatever they want, right? Let's not forget the fact that Microsoft also handed over a decent wad of cash in exchange for the game. And that over 20 million copies of Minecraft have been sold at around £17 (= £340,000,000) Whilst I understand that a lot of money does need to be spent on wages for employees, advertisements, maintenance, rent of HQ etc., it concerns me that NONE of that is left over to be spent on Minecon. What I'm trying to get at is that £129 is a lot for a Minecon ticket and I feel like Mojang/whoever were either very clever with pricing them so high because children would beg their parents for a ticket, or were very exploitive for that exact same reason.

Like I said, I am being hypocritical because I complain about ticket prices then proceed to buy 4.

Fast forward to the actual event:

The venue was very well chosen. It was open and it was very good looking. There was plenty of space outside to get fresh air and chill out. Walking into the event I noticed that there was no line (which surprised me hugely). I guess a lot of people had registered the day before. Pre-registering was a great idea and I applaud Vu or whoever was in charge of that decision for allowing people to do so. The volunteers and agents were very good at their job- they were all welcoming and obviously knew what they were doing. We were checked in within a few minutes and were instructed on where to go. The wristband was waterproof and extremely comfortable. The bags were well designed and contained high-quality items. It was almost unbelievable that 10,000 of those things were made and distributed. I also liked the lanyard design- very simple and nice to look at (also didn't clash with my outfit #thanksMojang). By this point, I had high hopes and thought that the £129 ticket was completely compensated by these items.

The opening ceremony was a bit hectic. Walking in, we noticed that the agents and security on duty were very strict. I understand that they had to be in order to keep all the 10 year-olds in line but I felt like they made the atmosphere a bit unpleasant. I felt like I was in prison due to the fact that they were ordering me around and yelling in my ear. I believe that this awful experience should've knocked about £10 off the ticket prices.

The show was late starting and the annoying, pre-recorded voice over was getting really boring. It started to get loud and hot and I just wanted out.

Finally Lydia came on stage and an awfully cliché "oh-no-everything's-broken-JK-its-fine!" kind of thing happened. A massive explosion made my ears ring and it was followed by an average-at-best animation. This animation contained awful British humor and was definitely tailored towards the children.

The news that the 'Microsoft Hololens' would not be at Minecon was released by Lydia herself and this was one of the biggest let downs of the entire thing. How can the Minecraft on Hololens NOT be at Minecon? I mean, it’s at E3 and all these other places but somehow they manage to miss out Minecon- the convention about Minecraft. Lydia mentioned that they were unable to get the rig so I think that this fault was all down to poor planning.

Then came 'Minecraft Story Mode'... Terrible lip syncing, average animation, shit-logic crafting and cringe/cliché lines ("Something weird is going on", "there might be even more going on than we thought", "Everyone's running away, except for you", "Our gang sticks together, that's what we do", "It's in your hands now, go!") All of that was what made me check the date on my phone to ensure that it wasn't 1st April.

Overall I thought that the opening ceremony was over produced and could have been done a lot simpler and thus reduced ticket prices another £10.

The actual Expo Hall was incredible. There was a HUGE Ender Dragon flying around Big Ben and a lot more Minecraft decorations that made it look consistently beautiful. There was a section that kind of replicated a fairground and had a bunch of stalls with Minecraft-related games. I just loved how Minecon managed to almost capture the game and implement it into real life.

There was a J!NX shop (J!NX sells Minecraft merchandise). The problem with this J!NX shop was that there was only one of them. Everyone there obviously wants to leave with something and I think 2/3 of them wanted something from the J!NX store. It looked great and had a wonderful castle theme going on. Do you know what else was going on? The BIGGEST queue I've ever seen. I wasn’t sure whether the queue was intentional (you know- with the British cliché being very appropriate) but if it wasn't, then Minecon didn’t really do anything to help it. Just walking around I could think of at least 2 suggestions to fix your issue:

1) Make smaller but more frequent J!NX booths - I'm guessing that everyone in the line wasn’t there for the exact same thing and so splitting up the merch could've saved everyone some hassle. Maybe split up the merchandise into different categories (hoodies, shirts, vanity items, decorations) and thus divide the queue by over a half.

2) Use a ticket system - where people take a ticket with a number and have a number display somewhere in the Excel arena. This eliminates the possibility of a queue and allows people to explore whilst ultimately still "in line". Also, with modern technology, I'm sure that there's some way people can virtually take a ticket and have a notification pop up when it's their turn.

See how easy that was, Minecon? A 15 year old just fixed your issue at 3.54am. (If you want to hire me, shoot me an email with "I was wrong; I need your help" as the subject and I'll get right back to you)

Panels were average. I mean it was great seeing it live but, most of the time, the panelists were so far away that I ended up watching the screen anyway. This was something that I could've done at home for free. At least then I could pause it and take a piss.

This was not the panelists' faults and I would hate to put the blame on them. In fact, the panelists were amazing - they managed to keep their cool and communicated fluently with each other and the audience.

There needed to be more booths at Minecon. My friends and I managed to get around all of them in the first hour. The excitement disappeared shortly after because I already knew what and where everything was. Like I said previously, the J! NX booth should have spread out a lot more in order to keep up with the high demand. There should have been a bigger "Indie Zone". However I must admit that the Indie Zone was probably one of the best things there- so many awesome games and the staff were really enthusiastic about their products. Unfortunately, there were so many people there that it was hard to play them. Once again, making the Indie Zone a lot bigger would have prevented the crowd.

I liked the idea of the Minecraft Tournaments- it kept the youngest member of our group occupied and thus allowed us to explore more. However (and this is NOT Minecon's fault) a lot of the younger generations would queue up just to play basic Minecraft in the Microsoft booth. Kids travel from god-knows-where and spent a ridiculous amount of money just to play a game that they could have played at home. Also, parents ended up sitting down the entire time, reading newspapers and taking naps. Just remember that everyone I have just mentioned paid over £130 to be there.

I think that, in order to make Minecon a little bit more exciting for the older generations, there should be an over 18s area where they can hang out, drink and maybe enjoy Minecon a little bit more. At least then they're not paying that much money for a nap on an uncomfortable looking grass-block-sofa-thing!

I wanted to meet a group of YouTubers called the Mindcrackers and, on the first day, I had only met 5 out of 11. We had left early on the first day. In fact, we left 5 minutes before the Mindcrack signing. Initially I was heartbroken, almost sobbing in the cab. But I learnt the next day that Minecon had actually arranged a "Secret Signing".

This secret signing was probably one of the WORST ideas someone could ever invent. The thing about this signing was that nobody knew who they were queuing up to see. Some might see StampyCat, some might meet the Mindcrackers and some might meet a person they don't even know.

The Mindcrack queue, for example, was 5 hours long and not everyone made it to the front.

I cannot express how STUPID this signing was. Little kids hoping for Stampy would end up having to converse awkwardly with the Mindcrackers after being hugely disappointed. I'm glad I didn’t go.

Instead of doing this type of meet and greet, people should be allowed to apply for a meet and greet slot at a certain time. This would make everything a whole lot easier and make for a better experience for everyone.

I didn't go to the Live Show but, from what I saw, it didn't look awful. I know that I didn’t miss out because I just recently watched the VOD and know what was in the show. I understand that some people would find it more interesting to watch it live and in person. We ordered a pizza back at the hotel room and had a blast.

Day 2 of Minecon started with the Expo Hall gates shut. Security tried to make everyone line up and it failed horribly. Once again, they were too strict for my liking and most definitely took away a lot of the fun. We had a plan to get to the J!NX booth quickly but didn't make it in time - within 5 minutes of the gates opening, the queue was longer than it ever had been before.

Once again, the dedicated signing/Meet and Greet rooms would have been extremely useful. Especially for the Mindcrack crew. Their line wrapped around 3 corners and they ended up having to move the queue outside because they were a fire hazard. Had they been given a room to do it in, the hassle could have been avoided completely.

The closing ceremony was disappointing- I thought they should have done some final announcements or had special guests. We could've missed out and gotten home an extra 30 minutes early.

Overall I think that Minecon was overpriced and overhyped. There were a lot of things that could have been done better.

I'm glad I went because now my curiosity has been extinguished and I met some of my idols.