My son just turned eight and he wanted to have a Minecraft-themed party, so I figured why not throw a LAN party!
Minecraft Server
If you're going to have a Minecraft LAN party, you might as well run the server locally. I chose to go with McMyAdmin, because it's easy to use and also runs on OS X.
I installed it on an old Mac mini and had the server up and running in a few minutes.
Computers for Playing Minecraft
Finding enough computers for guests will probably be the hardest task for most people.
I highly recommend having a computer for everyone, otherwise, people will feel left out and will probably get bored. In most cases that will mean reducing the number of people you invite (which is actually a good thing).
At our party, we used my laptop, my wife's iMac, the kids' old iMac, and the old Mac mini running the server. We were short one computer, but one of the kids was able to bring his parent's laptop.
Everyone will need a Minecraft account, so make sure they know that in advance. And if they're young, get the login info from their parents before the party. Otherwise, you'll be stuck either setting up accounts or with some very disappointed kids.
Setting Up the LAN
I have a good WiFi network, but I wanted the network and gameplay to be super fast. So I set up a wired gigabit network!
I bought Netgear's 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch and hooked everything up with Cat6 ethernet cables. Needless to say, there was NO lag! :)
Minecraft Party Activities
When the kids showed up, they were greeted with Minecraft music. And by Minecraft music, I mean all of the random people who have changed the lyrics to popular songs and turned them into Minecraft songs.
I was able to do this by pulling up Spotify on my iPad mini and playing one of the numerous Minecraft playlists that were available. I used the awesome Big JamBox by Jawbone for the speakers.
We also took regular black and green balloons and Minecrafted them!
There was even a dance room, because why not!?
Before we started the LAN party, we had the kids create Minecraft objects using the Melty Beads Animal Friends kit.
We then found patterns online for them to use.
After the bead project, we started the main event. I'm pretty sure they could have kept playing for days. Lucky for us it was just two hours :)
For the finale, we made a Minecraft Pig cake out of homemade cupcakes. The boys didn't mind that it was pink, because it was a pig...and it's cake!
All-in-all, it was a great party.
