Arena Birmingham is an indoor arena and sporting venue in central Birmingham, England. It is owned by parent company the NEC Group. When it was opened in 1991, it was the largest indoor arena in the UK.
A LAN party is a social gathering of participants with personal computers or compatible game consoles, where a local area network (LAN) connection is established between the devices using a router or switch, primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer video games together. LAN party events differ significantly from LAN gaming centers and Internet cafes in that LAN parties generally require participants to bring your own computer (BYOC) and are not permanent installations, often taking place in general-use venues or residences.
DreamHack is an ESL Gaming brand specializing in esports tournaments and other gaming conventions. It is recognized by the Guinness Book of Records and Twin Galaxies as being the world's largest LAN party and computer festival with the world's fastest Internet connection and the most generated traffic. It usually holds its events in Western Europe and North America.
Game Retail Limited is a British video game retailer, owned by Frasers Group since June 2019.
The Coventry Building Society Arena is a complex in Coventry, West Midlands, England. It includes a 32,609-seater stadium which is currently home to football team, Championship club Coventry City F.C. along with facilities which include a 6,000 square metres (65,000 sq ft) exhibition hall, a hotel and a casino. The site is also home to Arena Park Shopping Centre, containing one of UK's largest Tesco Extra hypermarkets. Built on the site of the Foleshill gasworks, it is named after its sponsor, Coventry Building Society who entered into a ten-year sponsorship deal in 2021. For the 2012 Summer Olympics, where stadium naming sponsorship was forbidden, the stadium was known as the City of Coventry Stadium.
The O2 Arena, commonly known as The O2, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the centre of The O2 entertainment district on the Greenwich Peninsula in southeast London. It opened in its present form in 2007. It has the third-highest seating capacity of any indoor venue in the United Kingdom, behind the Co-op Live and Manchester Arena, and in 2008 was the world's busiest music arena. As of 2022, it is the ninth-largest building in the world by volume with a diameter of 365 metres and a height of 52 metres.
Yoan "ToD" Merlo is a French former professional player of the real-time strategy games Warcraft III and Starcraft II. In WarCraft III he played as the Human race and in StarCraft he played as Protoss. he was signed to the top esports team in the United Kingdom, Four-Kings, until 7 November 2007, when he decided not to renew his contract for unspecified reasons. He later explained in an interview that the dissatisfying results of the Four Kings team were the reason for his departure. After much speculation, Merlo unexpectedly joined the team Mousesports on 1 December 2007.
Minecraft is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java programming language, the first public test build was released on 17 May 2009. The would continue to be developed over the span of two years, until its full release on 18 November 2011. Afterwards, Persson left Mojang and gave Jens "Jeb" Bergensten control over the game's development. In the years since its release, it has been ported to several platforms, including smartphones, tablets, and various video game consoles, primarily by 4J Studios. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion. Minecraft has become the best-selling video game of all-time, with over 300 million copies sold and nearly 140 million monthly active players as of 2023.
The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Birmingham 2022, were an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations that took place in Birmingham, England between 28 July and 8 August 2022. They were the 22nd edition of the Commonwealth Games. It was the third and seventh time England and the United Kingdom hosted the Commonwealth Games, respectively.
Minecon is an annual interactive livestream and fan convention about the video game Minecraft, hosted by Mojang. The first gathering in 2010 was known as MinecraftCon. The event then went by the Minecon name from 2011 to 2019. The Minecon 2011 convention was held in Las Vegas and celebrated the launch of the game with Minecraft-related discussion panels and gaming areas. The most recent in-person convention, Minecon 2016, held in Anaheim, had 12,000 attendees. An attempt at returning to in-person events was prevented due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nicolas Plott, known by his alias Tasteless, is an American esports commentator. He moved to Seoul, Korea in 2007 to give commentary to esports competitions. He has provided commentary for multiple Starcraft and Starcraft 2 tournaments. Together with Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski, he currently provides commentary for Global StarCraft II League and AfreecaTV StarLeague games.
BP pulse LIVE is a multipurpose indoor arena located at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Solihull, England. It has a capacity of 15,685 seats. The venue was built as the seventh hall of the NEC complex. After 18 months of construction, the arena opened as the "Birmingham International Arena" in December 1980 with a concert by Queen.
EGX is trade fair for video games organised by Gamer Network and held annually in the United Kingdom and Germany.
Esports Arena is a chain of indoor arenas and event centers dedicated to esports. The buildings are specifically intended to host esports tournaments and events. The first location, Esports Arena Orange County, opened in Santa Ana, California, in 2015 and seats 1,400 people. In addition to hosting professional events, amateur events are also held at the arenas. Multiple Esports Arena venues have since been established worldwide, partially funded by the Chinese sports and video game company partnership Allied Esports.
Esports at the 2019 SEA Games in the Philippines was held at the Filoil Flying V Centre in San Juan, Metro Manila from 5 to 10 December 2019. It was the first esports contest as a medal event in a multi-sport competition sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee after the discipline featured as a demonstration sport at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The venues for the 2022 Commonwealth Games were based in Birmingham, Cannock Chase, Coventry, Royal Leamington Spa, Sandwell, Solihull, Warwick, Wolverhampton, and London.
Blockeley is a Minecraft server created by students of the University of California, Berkeley, which is a 1:1 scale reconstruction of the university campus.
The Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) is a global competitive esports tournament series for the video game Valorant organised by Riot Games, the game's developers. The series runs multiple events throughout each season, culminating in Valorant Champions, the top-level event of the tour. The VCT was announced in 2020, with its inaugural season taking place in 2021.
MC Championship (MCC) is a Minecraft tournament organised by YouTuber Scott Major and Minecraft collective Noxcrew. Ten teams of four compete in a series of Minecraft minigames. The tournament began its first season on November 17, 2019. Its fourth and current season began on May 4, 2024.
