In its fifth year, TwitchCon landed in San Diego after being held a prior year in 2016 here, gathering more than 25,000 Twitch streamers a day from 36 countries, according to Twitch officials, from around the world, many who meet at TwitchCon for the first time. Twitch is a popular gaming streaming service and includes opportunities for Twitch user to attend panels, network, walk the expo hall, compete and party with fellow streamers. Twitch’s motto? Help you do what you do best – even better. Tag line: “You’re already one of us.”
Needless to say, as I am not a gamer, I was a bit out of my league, but it was exciting to witness the energy of the streamers gathered battling in related events, streaming opportunities galore, free loot from sponsors, and lots of cosplay. Pokimane, a popular Twitch streamer named Imane ‘Pokimane’, dazzled fans with her simple Pokemon cosplay outfit, generating a half million plus likes. M.A.C. Cosmetics – an unlikely sponsor of TwitchCon – also brought her into their booth for an exclusive meet and greet with lines wrapped around the convention center. Other popular streamers like Hendoart, showed up in extensive Cosplay outfits, with armor, lights and full-on superhero regalia.
TwitchCon’s packed opening ceremony began in the Glitch Theater with an energy level indicator in TwitchCon’s signature brand color of purple firing up to all cylinders and kicking off with Marcus ‘djWheat’ Graham, Director of Creator Development welcoming attendees to San Diego and thanking That Violin Chick for providing all the pre-show music on an electronic violin.
Twitch highlighted new features such as squad streaming, rating, hosting and competing in Twitch Rivals offered later in the day at the conference. Six months before this opening ceremony, TwitchCon opened in the city of Berlin, the first TwitchCon held in Europe. In its fifth year in North America, this TwitchCon was the first repeat North American TwitchCon venue in San Diego, last being held in 2016, but now double in size since that time, with many creators growing and sustaining their followings for more than a decade.
The streaming landscape – 10 years ago – has changed with everyone who was previously streaming in 4×3 (a box format according to Marcus Graham), and no one watched on mobile when Twitch first came out. Twitch streamers made very little money to be made, and most Twitch streamers did it for the love and passion of the game and because of the exciting new medium of streaming. Needless to say, the crux of this is that Twitch and the streaming landscape has changed a lot. Among those changes throughout the years included Twitch launching their affiliate program in 2017, streaming formats changed including enabling mobile, and game developers created more emotes (an entry in a text-based chat that indicates an action taking place), software developers did even more, and many streamers were able to change their passion into a career. Now more than 600,000 affiliates are broadcasting moments, shows, and related content, with more than 200,000 of those affiliates signing on in 2019, and gamers raising money for charity, which was great to see.
CEO and Co-Founder of Twitch, Emmett Shear, highlighted the reason Twitch is the number one streaming platform. “People want to connect with their community – a great chat, events, making strong and safe communities. People want to grow their community – offering better ways to grow their channels and spotlight streamers and bring more streamers in. And people want to earn money.”
Shear shared updates with attendees on the redesign of Twitch – new colors and new logos that feature streamers colors and brands mixed in with Twitch, inspired by the platform’s vibrant community – putting the streamers front and center. Shear said Twitch wanted to open up the platform to help Twitch streamers express and truly customize their channel pages according to them. New channel trailers will be added so streamers can also talk about their channel and others can find them according to their interests. Twitch streamers can also publish their stream schedule and link their other social media channels as a landing page as streamers build their brands. According to Slash Gear, the most noticeable changes are found in Twitch’s video player and chat. When you visit a streamer’s page, the video player now stretches edge-to-edge, taking up more of the page with room for the followed channels listing on the left and Twitch chat on the right. Additionally, Twitch chat uses a new font called Robert, which Twitch says is “modeled off the retro Moog synthesizer logotype.” Other updates include the dominant purple with two dozen additional colors that are named after gaming and pop culture characters, colors like Black Ops, Pika Pika, and DK.
Other TwitchCon highlights from the Expo Floor?
M.A.C. Cosmetics
M.A.C. Cosmetics was truly the standout brand that you wouldn’t think would be at TwitchCon given the audience, but it was truly brilliant. The leading cosmetics brand hosted Pokimane, a popular Twitch streamer named Imane ‘Pokimane’, for a meet and greet, and also helped streamers get “Stream Ready” with makeup touch-ups throughout the show.
Twitch Sings
Never-ending karaoke? The Twitch streamers loved this streaming opportunity as witnessed by the lines and people gathered all day.
TikTok
TikTok, the number one global app for short-form mobile videos for users to express their creativity, hosted a green screen enabled photo booth with various emotes for Twitch streamers to interact within the live environment on the show floor while also raffling streamer prizes throughout the weekend. The booth was produced by ELA Advertising, a global creative ad agency based in Hollywood who also worked with the brand on various campaigns including TikTok’s holiday #CreateforACause and most recently, DJ Khaled who served as the “Chief Motivational Officer” of TikTok on April Fool’s Day.
Synapse
Synapse, a new ready to drink natural nootropic supplement, designed to provide true cognitive and physical enhancement using only ingredients found in nature, provided the many streamers with samples and the opportunity to shoot their video with the beverage or become brand affiliates. As the gamer audience is largely enticed by better focus and energy, it was a natural fit.
blink-182, Madeon, Au/Ra, Y2k, and Logic performed live at the TwitchCon party. But did the Twitch streamers know blink-182?
TwitchCon was an interesting and energy-filled event and showed the power of bringing the community together and helping people belong, like their mission. Will I become a Twitch streamer? It’s doubtful, but it was great to get an insider’s look into the gamer’s world.
-Alyson S. Campbell