We thought the selfie sticks were a bit out of style; They are an essential accessory in the aisles of the European edition of TwitchCon, an event that took place in Paris on Saturday July 8th and Sunday July 9th and was expected to welcome between 10,000 and 12,000 people. During the event organized by the live video broadcasting platform Twitch, we always come across visitors filming themselves. They often broadcast their forays live on their Twitch channel. The best-equipped people walk around with portable lights, have a second smartphone to instantly read their viewers’ comments, or have a small camera strapped to their shoulder.

Techieoverload – Brian in civilian life – is one of them. With hair dyed bright yellow, he spares no effort in sharing and documenting his hours of travels with his 700 “followers”. Coming from New York specifically for TwitchCon, this is his first visit to the French capital. “I’m mainly here to meet my friends from London or even Asia”he trusts before setting out to meet them.

It’s also not uncommon for a crowd of visitors to climb onto a streamer to hug, snap a selfie and autograph their yellow badge. No civil status is displayed here, only the pseudonym of the Twitch account is printed, and on the precious sesame it also says whether you are the CEO of the company or an anonymous visitor. Stars of the platform with channels with several million subscribers are also part of the party. The American Dream or the French ZeratoR participated in video games in a room equipped with bleachers and projectors. While Canadian Pokimane met her fans in a room only open to a certain number of lucky ones. They embody the success of the platform, which has grown from 100 million to 400 million visitors since 2019, in particular due to the lockdown times.

“Like a short course”

Along with the glitz and reunions, many streamers have also come hoping to grow their channel. At the address of the latter, Twitch came up with it Creator Camps, a conference series where you can learn the mysteries of commerce from executives at the American company owned by Amazon. The twenty small seminars offered are “Increasing your income through advertising”, “Broadening your target group” and “Working with brands”.

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