Mysterium > News

Stephan Martiniere, Myst Doc Kickstarter, & WWAB

Posted on July 13, 2020July 13, 2020 by taniith

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

Posted on June 23, 2020June 23, 2020 by taniith

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

Posted on May 15, 2020May 15, 2020 by taniith | 2 Comments

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?

Mysterium 2020 Registration and Hotel Reservations Now Open!

Posted on March 1, 2020March 3, 2020 by Drew | 2 Comments

Happy March everyone!

We are excited to announce that registration and hotel reservations are now open! As is tradition, with registration also comes the announcement of this year’s t-shirt design. We’re so excited to share what the community created this year, so let’s get right to it.

T-Shirts

In the front of this year’s shirt, we have a depiction of the Jefferson Memorial superimposed on the Tomahna book vault. This eye-catching design was created by Katherine “Squee” White.

On the back, we have a stunning depiction of Spire and Haven designed by none other than Claire “Shoom’lah” Hummel.

We’re so excited to have both of these designs for our shirts this year. For more information, please see our T-Shirts page. We’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who submitted T-shirt artwork this year. Even if your design was not selected, we hope to feature your work elsewhere during Mysterium.

Hotel

This year, Mysterium will take place at the Westin Alexandria Old Town in Alexandria, VA. Located just a few minutes walk from Alexandria and King Street stations, this hotel offers easy access to downtown Alexandria and Washington, D.C. proper. We’ve secured a rate of $100/night for both single and double rooms.

For more information about our hotel, including links to make your reservation, visit our updated Location page.

Registration

Mysterium 2020 registration is now open! From now until May 31st, you can purchase a weekend registration for $25, or a premium registration (weekend + shirt) for $40. That’s a $5 discount off of the individual items! Starting June 1st, the price will increase and shirts will not be available for pre-order.

We have once again included a space for you to indicate your pronouns on your badge, should you wish. Read more and register today over on our Registration page.

Reminders

As a reminder, we are still accepting submissions for events, enamel pins, activity book pages, as well as writing and artwork. The deadline for pin design submissions is right around the corner on March 15th, so be sure to send your ideas in. All information about submissions can be found on the Submissions page.

New Submission Rights Policy

With Cyan’s help, we have written a new licensing/copyright policy for all submitted works (logos, pin designs, etc). Previously, all works submitted to Mysterium became the property of Cyan Worlds Inc. Going forward you will retain copyright of your own work, but grant Cyan and FMG/Mysterium a perpetual license to it. For the complete details and legalese, see the Submissions section on our Policies page. This applies immediately to all future submissions, and retroactively to all pin design and activity book submissions for Mysterium 2020.

It’s hard to believe that Mysterium is just around the corner! We’ll have more updates for you all soon.

– Mysterium 2020 Triumvirate: Capella, Drew, and Dan

Event Submissions Now Open

Posted on January 13, 2020January 13, 2020 by Drew

Greetings!

We hope everyone had a wonderful start to the new year. To kick off 2020, we have a few brief updates to share.

Event Submissions

Event submissions are now open! As always, Mysterium is a success thanks to the wonderful events and presentations from our attendees. To keep things interesting, we like to offer a variety of group activities, fan presentations, panels, open mic time, and more.

This year, we will again offer time for “Microtalks.” If you have something you’d like to present, but don’t want to make a full 30-60 presentation, try a microtalk. We want to provide everyone with accessible opportunities to share their ideas or work, so we hope this will be a useful option for attendees. Visit the event submissions page for more details.

Event submissions are due no later than Sunday, May 31st, 2020.

T-Shirt Design Submissions

As a reminder, T-shirt design submissions are currently open and will be accepted until Sunday, February 16th, 2020. We encourage you to include elements of this year’s theme (Sirrus vs Achenar/Red vs Blue/Haven and Spire) or host city in your design. The creator of the selected design will receive a free Mysterium 2020 T-shirt. For full details, please visit the T-Shirt Design Submissions page.

Other Submissions

As a general reminder, we are also accepting submissions for enamel pin designs, activity book pages, and our Writing & Art Table. Check the Mysterium 2020 Submissions Overview page for full details and deadlines for all of these.

Location Updates

We recognize that attendees may already be pricing out travel options. To assist with your planning, we recommend that attendees flying to Washington, D.C choose Reagan National Airport (DCA) as their destination, if possible, for better public transportation connections. Additional location details will be available soon.

That’s all from us for now. We’ll have more news for everyone soon!

– Mysterium 2020 Triumvirate: Capella, Drew, and Dan