Arena Birmingham is an indoor arena and sporting venue in central Birmingham, United Kingdom. It is owned by parent company the NEC Group. When it was opened in 1991, it was the largest indoor arena in the UK.
The World Cyber Games (WCG) is an international esports competition with multi-game titles in which hundreds of esports athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions also known as Esports Olympics. WCG events attempt to emulate a traditional sporting tournament, such as the Olympic Games; events included an official opening ceremony, and players from various countries competing for gold, silver, and bronze medals. WCG are held every year in cities around the world. The WCG 2020 competition received nearly 650 million views worldwide.
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.
Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, England. The team currently play in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English football league system.
Game Retail Limited is a British video game retailer, owned by Frasers Group since June 2019.
The Electronic Sports World Convention (ESWC) is an international professional gaming championship. Every year, winners of national qualifier events around the world earn the right to represent their country in the ESWC Finals. The event has been praised for its organisation and ability to put on a good show for spectators.
The Coventry Building Society Arena is a complex in Coventry, 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.
Major League Gaming Corp. (MLG) is a professional esports organization. MLG is headquartered in New York City, New York and was founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso. MLG has held official video game tournaments throughout the United States and Canada. The Boost Mobile MLG Pro Circuit was a television broadcast of Halo 2 MLG tournaments in 2006 and 2007, ESPN.com, and other broadband sites. The company has also been involved in television production, and game development. MLG's aim is to elevate computer and console game tournaments to viable competitive and spectator events.
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 second-highest seating capacity of any indoor venue in the United Kingdom, behind the 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.
Minecraft is a 2011 sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios and originally released in 2009. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before being fully released in November 2011, with Notch stepping down and Jens "Jeb" Bergensten taking over development. Minecraft has become the best-selling video game in history, with over 300 million copies sold and nearly 140 million monthly active players as of 2023. It has been ported to several platforms.
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 e-sports 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.
The Ticket Factory, previously known as the NEC Box Office, is a primary ticket sales and distribution company based in the United Kingdom. The Ticket Factory was launched in 2007 and is a trading division of The National Exhibition Centre Ltd. The Ticket Factory head office and contact centre is based at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham.
The Resorts World Arena 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 a trade fair for video games organised by Gamer Network and held annually in the United Kingdom and Germany.
The British Esports Federation is the national body for esports in the United Kingdom. It was established in March 2016 as the British Esports Association to help develop the UK's grassroots esports scene and provide an infrastructure to nurture future talent.
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.
The venues for the 2022 Commonwealth Games will be 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.
