Halo CE3 is about spotlight and showing off new content in custom edition.

CE3 was started in June 2010 when creators MatthewDratt and Slow Bullet came up with the idea. There idea was sloppy and was quickly thrown together. They originally thought the idea would flop and the community would reject it, getting almost no submissions. It didn't happen that way. The community flooded in videos and trailers. Unorganized and rushed Dratt pulled together a 1 hour live show. It aired July 16. The stream suffered from low quality and audio-lag that was soon fixed after the show had to restart about 5 minutes in. Most who attended the show thought the idea was horrible thrown together and boring. Those who didn't attended the live stream and just watched the post-show on youtube thought the idea was well executed and was surprised by the amount of decent content.

Aware of the issues with the live stream production and test-streams for CE3 2011 started in early December 2010. Rules for CE3 2011 have stricken and a cut-off date has been set and cannot be broken. Unlike the 1 month time for a creator to make something for the show in 2010; CE3 2011 was announced early and more time was set for a creator. CE3 2011 aired July 8th 2011.

CE3 2011 was recieve overall well. A poll taken after the showed said that the majority of the people enjoyed CE3 2011 and that they want another year of CE3.
A few months later Dratt announced that he was leaving the production of CE3.
An announcement on CE3's youtube channel on a podcast for CE3 2012 revelead that E3pO would take the spot of Dratt. M16 Assault was also brought onboard to do cyborg animations. CE3 2012 will air July 14th 2012.