Run a Minecraft event on your server

A build contest, a PvP tournament or an opening night puts more players on your server than usual, all at the same time. Most of the work is done a day before: set the limits, decide who may join, take a backup and queue the announcements. Those steps are below, along with the rules Mojang sets for events.

Checked against the Minecraft Usage Guidelines and the Minecraft Wiki command pages, October 2026.

Mojang's rules for events

Mojang's Usage Guidelines let you host a 100% in-game event if you make it free to view or attend virtually, get permission for any music, brands or other material you did not make, and follow the laws where you live. If sponsors or other outside parties are involved, the guidelines' section on constructed promotions applies as well. Mojang reserves the right to stop an event that breaks them.

In-person meet-ups have their own limits, including no more than about 150 participants and no sponsorship for profit. Read the guidelines before you rent a venue. To charge for anything on your server, see What Mojang lets you charge for on a server.

Set the limits a day ahead

Open Config Editor and check these under their sections. Select Save changes, then restart the server.

• Player slots is the cap on players online. Your plan does not limit it, your RAM does, so see How many players can your Minecraft server hold per GB of RAM?.
• View distance (chunks) and Simulation distance (chunks) decide how much the server loads around each player. Lowering them helps a crowded server keep up.
• PvP, Default game mode and Difficulty set the rules. Force game mode puts everyone back in the default mode whenever they join.

Decide who can join

For an invite-only event, in the Players tab, add each name on the first sub-tab (it reads Players while the whitelist is off and Whitelist once it is on), then press Turn whitelist on. Whitelist players and set operators has the steps. In the Console, whitelist add <targets> and whitelist remove <targets> do the same, and whitelist off opens the event to everyone. Operators can join even when the whitelist is on.

For helpers, press Invite someone in the Team tab. The Moderator preset gives console and power access and the activity log, without file or settings access.

Back up before you start

1. Open Backups and press Create backup just before the event, so you can undo damage.
2. Use Protect on it so a scheduled backup cannot rotate it out.
3. After the event, make a second backup to keep the finished build.

Restore overwrites all current server files and restarts the server, so use it to reset an arena, not as a casual undo. A protected backup hides its Restore and Delete buttons, so press Unprotect on it first when you want to restore. Create and restore backups covers it.

Run it from the Console

These are standard Java Edition commands:

• say <message> sends a message to all players in chat.
• worldborder set <distance> [<time>] sets the border width in blocks, and shrinks it over the time you add. On Minecraft 1.21.11 and newer the time is in ticks unless you add a suffix, so worldborder set 100 600s closes the border to 100 blocks over ten minutes, while worldborder set 100 600 takes only 30 seconds. Before 1.21.11 the time is plain seconds, and the s suffix was only added in the 1.21.11 snapshots, so it fails on older versions.
• worldborder get prints the current size.

To announce on a timer without being at the keyboard, open Schedules, press New Task, choose Send a command and enter something like say The event starts in 5 minutes. A Power action task set to Restart shortly before kickoff means the event starts on a freshly restarted server. Schedule automatic restarts explains the timing options.