Great Britain, for all its nomenclatural immodesty, doesn’t have a Vegas or a Disneyland. I guess that’s why Minecon, the annual festival of all-things-Mojang, has managed to give Blighty the slip for the last two years. Fortunately, Minecon organisers Multiplay are bringing a slice of the party to our shores with their Minecraft Expo, part of August’s Insomnia 49 festival.
There’s something wryly fitting about the fact that this block-a-thon will be held in Shropshire, in the heartland of the industrial revolution. It will feature tournaments, talks, a Yogscast Q&A and official merchandise, as well as an exhibition of the “best and brightest” community creations.
Elsewhere there’ll be cosplay competitions with a £400 prize pool, “creative build challenges”, and the Minecraft Lounge – where if you’re lucky, you might find an ambassador from Yogscast, Mindcrack, Hat Films, FyreUK or The NoxCrew, all of whom have pledged their attendance.
“Each time we host an Insomnia event, the community amazes us with its passion, making each event bigger and better than the last”, said Multiplay CEO Craig Fletcher. “With the runaway success of Minecraft, we’ve answered the call from devoted fans by creating the UK’s first Minecraft Expo, and we can think of no better place to host it, than the UK’s biggest gaming festival.”
Biggest, eh? Apparently so. Craig came armed with numbers: more than 3,000 ‘Bring your own PC and Console’ tickets have been sold for this year’s event to date, and Multiplay are expected “up to” 15,000 visitors across the weekend at the Exhibition Hall, which is where the games are played and the talks spoken.
They’re also confidently predicting that over two million will be watching the live stream from home. Cor.
Insomnia 49 will run from August 23 to 26 at the Telford International Centre. You can buy tickets on the official site. Are you at all tempted?