Category Archives: Mysterium 2020

Mysterium 2021

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We’ve gone through your 2020 survey feedback and are now kicking off Mysterium 2021! We have a few announcements to share.

Survey Highlights

Thank you to everyone who filled out the Mysterium 2020 survey. It gives us valuable insight and ideas for future conventions. There were a few recurring themes we noticed from the results:

  • You’d like some additional new panels such as a discussion of the books. While we can’t promise anything since it’ll be dependent on special guests’ availability, we are looking into possible topics. If you have contact with a potential Myst-related special guest, please let us know via our Contact Us page.
  • Speedrunning and Unwritten were quite well received. Thank you to everyone who made those events happen!
  • Several people were unaware of streams and recordings from prior years. While this year was entirely online, we stream every year as best we can, excepting when panelists request us not to. We stream live on Twitch, and we post everything to our YouTube channel after the convention. A link to the YouTube playlist for a given year can also be found on the History page on our site.
  • We received several comments about Starry Expanse. While Mysterium provides a platform for announcements from fan projects, we are not directly involved in them ourselves and cannot guarantee regular presentations or updates. We encourage fan-driven projects to submit an event proposal should they have updates they’d like to share.

You may have noticed a new channel, #feedback, on our Discord server. This is for providing suggestions and feedback, either for the server or the convention itself.

T-Shirts

We know many of you are eager to receive the t-shirts you pre-ordered. Unfortunately the pandemic has made it difficult to collaborate on packing and shipping, but we are well underway. Shirts are being sent in batches, and we are around 75% complete. Please note that if you are outside the US, international shipping has been slow lately so it may take extra time for your shirt to reach you.

Mysterium 2021

As previously announced, Mysterium 2021 will be held July 16-18 in Alexandria, VA, just outside Washington, DC. We’ll continue providing information over the next few months, but to start things off, we’re opening submissions:

  • Have an activity you’d like to run during Mysterium? Event submissions will be open until May 31.
  • We’ll be printing an activity book similar to the digital one we offered during Mysterium 2020. Page submissions will be open until April 25. Note: All pages from the 2020 digital book will be printed for 2021, so if you submitted a page this year, you do not need to resubmit it unless you wish to update or correct it.
  • As always, we will have a writing and artwork table to showcase your creations. Please get these in by July 1.

More details, including information on how to submit your ideas and works, can be found on our Submissions page. This year’s t-shirt design will be the same as 2020. Pin designs were also previously selected earlier this year.

That’s it for now. We’ll be opening registration and hotel bookings in the next few months. In the meantime, happy Halloween and enjoy the Fall!

–The Mysterium 2021 Triumvirate: Capella, Drew, and Dan

Soundtracks Re-release

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Greetings everyone!

We have less than a week before Mysterium begins, and we have a few reminders and a big announcement.

Reminders

If you haven’t yet, be sure to register for Mysterium. You will not be able to access the social discussion groups on Zoom unless you do. We also recommend downloading Zoom and running a test call if you plan to join the discussions.

Also, we are still accepting last-minute What Would Atrus Build? submissions through tomorrow.

And don’t forget to check out the Myst Documentary’s Kickstarter!

Soundtracks

Jack Wall, composer of the Myst III and IV soundtracks and one of our many special guests, let us in on an exciting piece of news yesterday. Jack, in collaboration with Tim Larkin and Cyan, has re-released the soundtracks from Myst III, Myst IV, Uru, and Myst V through his record label.

They are available for purchase digitally from iTunes, Amazon, and Google, and can be streamed on various services worldwide. Search for them under the following names:

  • Myst III: Exile (Original Game Soundtrack)
  • Myst IV: Revelation (Original Game Soundtrack)
  • Uru: Ages Beyond Myst (Original Game Soundtrack)
  • Myst V: End of Ages (Original Game Soundtrack)

A fan asked about re-releasing the albums at Mysterium last year, which helped to get that ball rolling.

We’ll have more Mysterium news for you in a day or two. Until then, happy listening!

-The Mysterium Committee

Stephan Martiniere, Myst Doc Kickstarter, & WWAB

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Greetings friends

We have just under four weeks to go until Mysterium, so it’s time we tell you about another of our special guests – Stephan Martiniere!

Stephan Martiniere

Myst fans may remember him as the Visual Art Director for the URU/Myst Online games and Myst V, but Stephan has an extensive list of credits across all types of media. From games to movies to book covers to theme parks, he’s done it all. We are enormously excited to welcome him to Mysterium this year, and we think you will all enjoy hearing from him.

You can learn more about Stephan, and all of our guests, on our Special Guests page – and if those aren’t exciting enough for you, stay tuned because we have plenty more to come.

Myst Doc Kickstarter

If you’ve attended Mysterium in recent years, you will remember seeing Philip Shane recording us all and talking about the upcoming Myst Documentary. Well, come tomorrow you will be able to back the Myst Doc on Kickstarter! Head over to the Kickstarter page to sign up for a notification when the campaign goes live.

While you wait, you can also check out an exclusive interview with Philip, Rand, and Robyn over on VentureBeat, here.

What Would Atrus Build

A long-standing favorite of Mysterium attendees, What Would Atrus Build asks participants to “finish” a project that Atrus left in pieces on his desk. We haven’t held this event for several years, but we think this year’s online format lends itself to a slightly modified version: We give you the prompt, and you present your creation in a pre-recorded video.

Make it as simple or complicated as you want. Don’t have the right junk or construction skills to actually build your idea? No problem! We welcome sketches, 3D models, or any other way you can think of to express your creativity.

You can learn all about our WWAB contest on the submissions page.

Call For Discussion Topics

Mysterium is known not just for its great panels and events, but also for its welcoming and casual social atmosphere. You’re just as likely to overhear new friends discussing the finer points of D’ni lore, as you are to hear them talking about unrelated TV shows or computer programming. Someone once described Mysterium as “the fun parts of large cons, but all weekend”. How do we translate that to the online format, though?

Our solution: Social rooms on Zoom. Everyone who is pre-registered (for free!) will receive an email in a few weeks with information about when and how to join these social rooms. Before that, though, we need some topics! We’re looking for a wide range here, so don’t limit yourself to just Myst-specific topics. We’re already planning a time for a ‘crafting circle’ hangout, and another for ‘mental health and coping skills’.

You can use this form to submit your social topic ideas. Feel free to submit as many as you want! Topics should be submitted by July 26th.

Reminders

Remember that Open Mic Night submissions are due in about a week (July 20), and there’s still time to grab a t-shirt and help a couple great causes. Also, if you originally registered for our on-site 2020 convention and have not received an email about refunds and roll-overs, please get in touch with us.

We’ll have more soon.

– The Mysterium Committee

Open Mic Submissions

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Shorah Everyone

We have another quick update for you.

Open Mic Night

Last year we held our first Open Mic Night, an evolution of our Mysterium Showtunes event in 2018. It continues to be a popular, and fun, event, so we want to bring it to our virtual Mysterium. Instead of live performances, we’ll be taking submissions of your song parodies, poetry, skits, and anything else you can come up with. We’ll string them together and show them during the virtual Mysterium.

We hope a lot of you choose to participate, and we look forward to seeing your awesome creations. Remember, this is all about having fun. You don’t have to be the best singer or writer – just look at the goofballs on the Mysterium committee performing last year!

You can get all of the details about Open Mic Night submissions here.

Other Submissions

Don’t forget that we still have submissions open for events, activity book pages, and our Pass the Book Challenge. You can find all the details for those on our submissions page.

Registration Roll-Over

We said in our last blog post that we’d email anyone who already registered for Mysterium 2020. We promise we didn’t forget, and we expect those emails to go out in the next day or so. Keep an eye on your inbox!

Myst Documentary

Our friends over at the Myst Documentary have launched a new interactive website. Philip Shane, who is making the documentary, will once again be presenting at Mysterium this summer. Until then, though, we encourage you to check out the new site and sign up for their mailing list.

That’s all we have for you this week. Stay tuned for some exciting announcements next week, including registration, extra special guests, and more!

–The Mysterium Committee

(PS – Don’t forget to order a T-shirt and support some great organizations all at once!)

Covid-19 & Mysterium 2020

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Shorah everyone. We hope you are all safe and healthy in these troubled times.

We’d been hoping to have a more comprehensive update for you by now, but unfortunately things have not gone to plan. We know that’s frustrating, and we apologize. We’re doing our best to get our Mysterium 2020 plans settled as soon as possible, but some things are out of our hands.

What we can tell you at this time is that we will NOT be having an in-person convention in August. Even if somehow restrictions were lifted enough to allow 50-100 people to be in a hotel ballroom (and there is no guarantee that will happen), it would not be safe to do so in our view – not to mention the risks associated with traveling to the convention.

While we can’t answer everything right now, we can answer a few things:

So is Mysterium 2020 cancelled?

No, it isn’t. We intend to hold some form of convention online at the beginning of August. It won’t be the same, but we think it can still be fun for everyone.

Why did you wait so long to announce this/why isn’t everything settled yet?

We were hoping to have everything settled with the Mysterium hotel, which unfortunately has not happened yet. We hope to have Mysterium at the same hotel in 2021, but we’re still in negotiations.

I already registered. Will I get a refund?

Refunds will be available, as will roll-overs to next year’s in-person convention. We expect to have more information about that in the next few weeks. We will email you directly using the email address you gave us when filling out your registration.

Please be patient and don’t start emailing us about either option just yet. Our normal refund policy deadlines will not apply.

What about t-shirts, pins, or other swag?

More on that in the coming weeks.

Should I cancel my hotel room?

No, you don’t have to cancel your room reservation. The hotel should do that in a few weeks. If somehow it looks like they aren’t going to do so, we will let you know with plenty of time to cancel.

What about the transportation I booked?

Most airlines, as well as Amtrak, are currently waiving cancellation fees. Contact your specific carrier for details.

How is Mysterium doing financially? Is this going to bankrupt the convention?

Again, more on that in a few weeks. Right now we are OK and we expect to be fine and able to hold conventions in the future. We are 100% able to refund anyone who requests a refund for this year (see above).

Can I host an event or otherwise help with planning for the online Mysterium?

Absolutely! We’re not ready to take in your ideas just yet, but we expect to get there soon.

How/where will the online Mysterium be hosted?

We will probably use a variety of online streaming and text platforms, depending on the event(s) we choose to hold. Stay tuned.

You don’t seem to have a lot of answers just yet…

That’s not a question, but you’re right. We wish we did, but we’re a small, all volunteer organization, and this is a tough time for even large companies to plan. We just wanted to get *some* news out there for folks to help plan their summer.

In the meantime, if you have a Nintendo Switch you may want to pre-order the Switch version of RealMyst to help brighten your days just a bit – https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/realmyst-masterpiece-edition-switch/

We’ll have more information for you as soon as we can. Stay safe out there, everyone!

-The Mysterium Committee