Greetings all!

This is the first update for our little Global Mysterium experiment, or “Mass Mysteria” as we’ve come to call it.

Spreading The Word

We’ve had a number of responses from possible local hosts, and over 100 sign ups on the mailing list, which is great! We’d love to reach more people though, so please help us by inviting other Myst fans to check out the original announcement post (here), and to join the mailing list.

Picking A Date

The next step is to pick a date for the event so that people have time to plan for it. We’ve decided to find a date on a May weekend in the hopes of avoiding months with major weather events. We also want to avoid any major holidays, so we’re asking you to help us out by filling out this form with possible dates. We’ll select one of those as the main date, as well as an alternate in the event that any one location has to cancel due to weather.

Host Cities

As far has host cities, here’s the list of possible locations that volunteers have submitted:

United States

• Boston, MA
• Providence, RI
• Bangor or Portland, ME
• Buffalo or Rochester, NY
• Baltimore, MD
• Tampa, FL
• Boulder or Denver, CO
• Seattle, WA
• Portland, OR
• Chattanooga, TN
• Cleveland, OH
• Columbus, OH
• Los Angeles, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Salt Lake City, UT

International

• Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Berlin, Germany
• Saarbrücken, Germany
• Lille, France
• London, UK
• Cardiff, UK
• Melbourne, Australia
• Nijmegen, Netherlands

Many thanks to the fans who have already offered to help host in their city. There’s still plenty of time, though! If you don’t see a city near you, consider becoming a host! At its simplest, all you need to commit to is proposing a public place for locals to meetup, and being available should anyone have trouble finding the group. If you would like to add yourself to the host list, you can do that here.

Activities & Comments

Finally, we’re hoping to put together some fun activities that groups can do during the event. This could be a photo-scavenger hunt, a puzzle packet, or anything else that requires minimal setup/resources. If you have any ideas for activities, or anything else, please drop us a line! You can reach us through social media, through our website, or by joining our Discord server.

Until next time,
-Taniith
Mysterium 2019 Chair

Shorah friends

Happy #Myst25 day! Myst was first released 25 years ago today, and we thought we’d add to the celebrations by announcing a new project we’re working on: Global Mysterium Day.

(We’re still working on the name… Mass Mysteria, maybe?)

We often get messages like “you should bring Mysterium to X city,” or “will Mysterium ever come to Europe/Australia/etc?” We would love to bring Mysterium to every major North American city, but as an all-volunteer organization it’s just not possible. As for other countries, we’re always happy to give advice and support to any group trying to organize a Myst convention/gathering, but it’s such a daunting task that no one really wants to take it on.

In the past, it’s been a tradition for local groups to plan “mini-Mysterium” gatherings: local fans would all agree to meet in a nearby city on a specific date and time. Maybe they’d explore museums, or grab a bite to eat, or just sit in a park and nerd out about Myst. These mini-Mysteria were a way to meet and hang out with other Myst fans for a day without all the work of putting together a big convention.

We thought it’s about time we bring that back in a more significant form, to help people all over the world connect with other local Myst fans. Not everyone can travel to Mysterium, but maybe we can bring a little piece of Mysterium to everyone. And we need your help to organize it!

Our Role

We will pick a date and time sometime next year (probably a Saturday somewhere between February and April). Next, we’ll help build a list of local fans who will lead the groups in their cities. Then, we’ll publish the list of cities/meeting places and help get the news out to as many fans as possible.

On the selected day, groups around the world will meet up with other local Myst fans. We’ll provide suggestions for activities, possibly some puzzle packets or a fun photo scavenger hunt, but ultimately what you do is up to you and your local group. After it’s all over, we’ll aggregate stories and photos so the whole Myst community can see what different cities did during the day.

What We Need From You

We need three things from you:

First, signup for news about Global Mysterium here. We promise emails will be infrequent and not spammy.

Second, spread the news! This only works if we get as many people as possible to show up. Our posts reach a lot of Myst fans, but we know there are plenty more who don’t follow us because they can’t make it to our normal conventions. So help us by spreading this post around to every Myst fan you know!

Third, volunteer to help lead your local Mysterium group. This isn’t going to be a ton of work, but we need to have a local contact for each city we include in our list. You’ll be responsible for helping to pick a good meeting location, and we may ask you to share contact information so that folks who get lost can find your group on the day of the event. If that sounds like something you’d like to do, fill out this quick form here, and we’ll be in touch.

This hasn’t really been tried before within our community, so we’re figuring things out as we go. We’ll have more details for you as we get closer to the event, so stay tuned. We may even get some Cyan involvement, but we can’t promise anything just yet. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can always contact us through our website here.

Other News

We’re still working away behind the scenes on Mysterium 2019. Odo is doing his hotel dance, and we’re lining up some very special guests that we hope to announce in a few months.

Also, we know many people were interested in buying the exclusive pins we made for Mysterium 2018.

We have some left, so we’re selling them in sets of 3 for $20. We won’t be making them again, so if you want a set you should grab them while you can! You can find the store here: http://store.mysterium.net/. (We wish we could sell them to everyone, but unfortunately we are only able to ship them within the US)

That’s all for now. Until next time,

-Taniith
Your friendly neighborhood Esher