minecon-case-study

The Results

Number of participants
1,000 CHILDREN & ADULTS
New records achieved
8
National press coverage
THE GUARDIAN, METRO, INDEPENDENT, GAMERS ONLINE PRESS: MCV, IGN, GAMERANT, VIDEOGAMER, EXAMINER, VG247

The Brief

Minecon is an annual Minecraft convention held by Mojang AB. The first gathering in 2010 was attended by just 200 people and just like the game, its success has been meteoric!

The 2015 convention held in London in July 2015 has been the most popular yet, with the first batch of tickets sold out within 12 minutes and the full allocation of 10,000 sold out months in advance of the convention.

The event which was incredibly successful, was therefore presented with the Guinness World Records title for Largest convention for a single videogame.

As part of the convention, Minecon organisers were looking for activities that would reflect and immerse their fans on the Minecraft game values, get the whole family involved and celebrate their record-breaking achievement.

The Solution

A Guinness World Records adjudicator Alan Pixley was present at the opening ceremony to give the award to Mojang brand director, Lydia Winters, who called the crowd at the event “Officially Amazing.”

To celebrate their achievement Guinness World Records worked with Minecon to bring the GWR Live! Experience to the 2015 convention.  Mangaging Minecraft fans and their families in some friendly competition by challenging them to attempt three different Guinness World Records titles.

Among the challenges visitors were encouraged to attempt the Most sandcastles built in three minutes, Most soft toys caught blindfolded in 30 seconds and Fastest time to build a giant Lego tower and more. The GWR Live! team mentored the record title hopefuls and an adjudicator presided over the official attempts. Leaderboards kept competitive streaks alive and fun photo-opportunities were popularfor all who came to the Guinness World Records area.

The possibility of becoming a new record-holder was very exciting for the participants, with queues forming around the stand and fans competing and breaking each other’s records over the 2 days. 

The enthusiasm and dedication from the kids and their parents paid off with eight lucky delegates walking away as official Guinness World Records holders and over 1,000 participants attempting records during the weekend.

For a multi-genre games convention to attract 10,000 fans is a big enough feat in itself. But for a convention dedicated to a single videogame to get that number is nothing short of astonishing.

— Stephen Daultrey - Editor - Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition