BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT
BlizzCon
Blizzard Entertainment’s annual gaming conference, BlizzCon, serves as a global gathering point for avid fans, uniting them in the celebration and cultivation of a vibrant community centered around Blizzard's flagship gaming titles. Following a four-year hiatus from in-person events, we had the distinct privilege of reinventing BlizzCon 2023 for a new era. Our goal was to honor the passionate fan community at the core of this reunion, while offering an incredible immersive experience to feel both like a homecoming and a new discovery. Encompassing the entirety of the Anaheim Convention Center, we meticulously crafted what stands as the most immersive BlizzCon to date.
From invite to onsite, our involvement spanned the spectrum of strategy, design, and execution of the entire event, including the globally broadcast 90-minute keynote featuring breaking news and announcements from Blizzard and Xbox leadership. The opening keynote reached millions of viewers and paved the way for two consecutive days of live-streamed, in-depth panels with Blizzard designers and developers. In tandem, we created distinct experiential halls celebrating the beloved games: World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft Rumble, Overwatch, and Diablo. Each hall was a carefully crafted experience, boasting immersive scenic environments, an array of gaming and streaming stations, communal gathering spaces, and simulcast viewing areas. The experiential halls played host to a myriad of fan-centric activations, such as live tattooing, duel-a-developer competitions, and state-of-the-art, technology-driven multimedia installations. Our commitment was not merely to an event but to a holistic and unforgettable fan community experience.
Scope:
Strategy
Creative
Content
Production
Broadcast
Digital
Logistics
Watch overview video
Spotlight
- 8.65M hours of BlizzCon 2023 content was watched online
- Over 3.3K individual channels on various live-streaming platforms covered the event
- BlizzCon 2023 was one of the most-watched conventions on Twitch
- 1.8 Million square feet of venue
- The experiential halls were comprised of 80% bespoke scenic, with 20% repurposed from Blizzard storage
- The three largest custom scenic pieces take up 100,696 cubic feet
Immersive Hall Experience
We designed and produced nearly 1 million square feet of immersive halls with staggering custom scenic builds, one-of-a-kind activations, and 1,100 gameplay stations, including 34 streaming stations hosting top gaming influencers. Each hall provided community spaces, simulcasts of the Arena stage, and ephemeral experiences designed solely for this BlizzCon audience. We constructed tangible, fantastical environments for fans to explore, while maintaining accessibility standards for Blizzard’s diverse community.
Diablo
An enchanting and bone-chilling space with towering cathedrals, museum-like game relics and an underworldly atmosphere.
Overwatch
Our recreation of an iconic Overwatch Watchpoint was a towering focal point, and the hall reflected the game’s optimistic futurism with an emphasis in gameplay.
Warcraft
Four magical IPs were represented – World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft Rumble, and Darkmoon Faire. Over Warcraft’s 20 years, the universe has amassed a deeply dedicated fanbase that came home to BlizzCon in a big way. Warcraft’s robust history was recounted through the Corridor of Time, a multimedia projection installation that culminated with the 21-foot-tall Sword of Sargeras, a focal point for reunions, photo-ops, and even a marriage proposal.
Dark Moon Faire
Warcraft’s whimsical travelling circus, was a destination for passionate Warcraft fans to connect and barter. The intensity in the air was palpable as friends old and new made pin-trading deals, captured rare toy capsules, and unlocked prizes.
Opening Ceremonies
BlizzCon 2023 opening ceremonies was a 90-minute globally livestreamed keynote featuring news and announcements from Blizzard leadership, including President Mike Ybarra and Head of Xbox Phil Spencer. This created major hype for the weekend and established the arena mainstage as the event’s programming focal point, with back-to-back deep-dive panels from Blizzard’s development and design teams.
Community Night
Our Community Night award show rounded out the weekend, celebrating the epic talent within the Blizzard fan community, crowning the best fan art, short film, and DIY cosplay; the exclamation point on the weekend was a spectacular performance from K-pop sensation LE SSERAFIM.