An attempt at returning to in-person events, called Minecraft Festival was prevented due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The event was organized following a post on Markus Persson's blog[2] in which he made people aware he was going to be in the area.

The event would eventually take place in a park and had a small group of people asking Persson questions about the state of Minecraft's development.

[3] 5,000 people attended the first official MineCon convention held in Las Vegas on 18 November.

This event also marked the release of Minecraft 1.0 to the public, officially taking the game out of beta as Notch pulled a giant lever.

On 2 August 2012, Mojang announced that the 2012 MineCon convention would take place at Disneyland Paris on the 24 and 25 November.

[5][6] The announcement was made over the social networking platform Twitter when the game's creator, Markus Persson, posted a short trailer revealing the new convention location.

[5] The video shows Mojang team members wearing Disney paraphernalia, and Persson comments to lead developer Jens Bergensten, "I think they are trying to tell us something".

[6] The second annual convention was the first held outside of the United States, making it available to European fans who might not have been able to attend the first.

[9] It was held in the wake of Minecraft's growing popularity as the Xbox 360 version of the game sold 3 million copies.

[27] Promoted in the opening and closing ceremonies was a two-part short film from Element Animation, entitled A Minecraft Adventure.

[28][29] Following three years of livestreams, a return to the in-person convention format was announced at Minecon Live 2019, named Minecraft Festival, which would happen in September 2020.

Hosted by Vu Bui, COO of Mojang Studios, it was announced at the end of the livestream that the winning mob was "The Monster of The Night Skies", later named the "Phantom".

[37] On 10 April 2018, Mojang announced that MINECON Earth would be taking place on 29 September 2018 for 90 minutes on stream.

Prior to the event, players in China participated in a promotional poll by Netease in which they guessed which national Chinese animal would join Minecraft.

The options were the giant panda, Chinese alligator, golden snub-nosed monkey, Thorold's deer, and baiji.

[53] Unlike previous years, the developers revealed a few basic features for the next update, including camels, bamboo wood, and hanging signs.

It also included the new crafter, tuff brick types, and more unique enemies that spawn in the trial chambers.