EPT--
I arrived on Friday, day before the event. Nothing really in particular going on at this point, I get my orientations, find my team leader, get my computer set up and – Wait, is that TotalBiscuit? He’s not wearing a top hat at this point in time, so I can’t be entirely sure. Sure enough, right outside the entrance to the crew area TotalBiscuit had set up his booth. We had a chat about trolls, haters, his casting principles and just his thoughts on what DreamHack is gonna be like. I am completely taken back by how loud he talks and his enunciation, he speaks exactly like he casts and it is amazing. Really great guy, a pleasure to speak with. I have just arrived and I’m not really set up with my gear, so I ask him about an interview later but his schedule turned out to be absolutely insane =(
Anyways, by now some pro’s have arrived to the player area behind and are just setting up and stuff, I see IdrA and Machine chilling and go ask them for interviews – they didn’t really want to be disturbed before their matches and I unfortunately was unable to catch up with them afterwards =( For those that don’t know, DreamHack has an all-volunteer crew of about 4-500 people that do all sorts of tasks. My particular niche was ArenaCoverage, with interviews that went up on our youtube channel. Lots of crap there, but search for ArenaCoverage for our stuff :p
Me and my photographer (My brother) take a picture of a sign now “Why are you standing here” that got a pretty nice reception at reddit ;P Thought that was pretty funny. Now followed like two days of trying to get interviews that sort of failed because the schedule was unbelievably hectic for everyone involved. Highlights of random stuff though did include telling Tyler “You’re awesome, I love everything you do and especially SotG. You taught me how to chill, so I’m just gonna go chill now” while he was eating a huge sort of Danish bun. It looked delicious. I intermittently checked out SC2 pro’s, but I also had other games to attend to and stuff like that.
By Saturday the first SC2 finals rolled around. WCG with Lalush vs MorroW. I have an interview with Lalush, and it’s in this fucking cellar or whatever right next to the stage, it looks like a prison or something, it’s bizzare. Lalush is extremely confident, and says he will take MorroW 3-1. Morrow goes on to win 3-0 :p At this point in time I’m still nervous about talking to the professionals. Our teams are scrambling and I somehow get the winners interview with MorroW. After this, on his way out, I run in to him and we have a 30 minute chat or so about all sorts of things. His reasons for not wanting to play ZvZ are really valid, and I hope a lot of tournaments are open to him being able to pick out of that race, but who knows. I know the GSL doesn’t, so he said he won’t be going there in the near future, but who knows.
IOL finals roll around now, same routine, MorroW takes a nice win over Bischu and I have another interview and chat with MorroW, dude is one of the nicest guys you can find, he’s like any redditor basically, laughing at speshial tecktiks jokes and whatnot.
Fastforward past a bunch of crap no-one here cares about, a bunch of interviews with other cool people at DH (DreamHack is not just StarCraft , contrary to popular belief) and we arrive at the SC2 finals. At this point I’ve gotten used to being near the professional players, but I was still anxious about the interviews I would do with the winners. This was why I was here.
The hype for SC2 was immense. The line went well into the D hall and the chatter on the radio said that there would be a lot of people that didn’t get in. The place was completely packed, and the DreamArena Extreme seats about 1100-1200 people. Everyone was there, except for the EG guys as far as I could see as well. The sense of excitement was palpable. I’m sorry, I’m a writer but words can simply not describe the state of that theatre. The crowd ooh’d and ahh’d and my hands were hurting from the incessant clapping we were doing. By the time we got to the last game, I didn’t know what to do with myself. We were all collectively holding our breath when we saw that six-pool.
I think you’ve all seen the video where HuK wins. You can see me in it actually; I’m in the orange shirt on the first visible row. My hands were shaking twenty minutes after that. I went down backstage to try and grab DreamHuK for a quick winner's interview. I managed, as you can see, but not until after SVT got him and stuff, and gamelux were fucking quick too :p
While waiting, I ran in to Day[J] backstage and talked a bit with him. I did an interview with him over Skype for an hour, so we were somewhat acquainted. DreamHack CEO was also there, and Day9 was going ballistic. He was jumping up and down, doing pull-ups on the doors and he looked most of all insanely tired. But he was HYPED. I got a high-five and left for my interview with HuK, which can be seen on the front page! Check it out under HuK wins DreamHack BTW the mass microphones is because I was doing the interview on behalf of other people as well, because I looked official and shit. So yeah.
I was jumping up and down at this point from adrenaline, and I ran off to editing. I went to the meet and greet after a few hours to try and get an interview that Day9 agreed to, but he was gone.
Instead I found TotalBiscuit, donning a top hat. Excellent, as it was after midnight now it was my birthday. This was an excellent birthday present. Had another short chat with TB, congratulating him on his work and confirming that he’s coming to winter. Then I see Shaun “d.Apollo” Clark standing there, and go say hello. This was actually one of my favourite moments of the whole things, as I introduce myself bla.bla and then he says “I have to run” and I go “Nice shirt,” he has an It’s Sjowtime! Shirt on “but I like the Sup son¯\(シ)/¯ one better". And then he turns around and does the greatest Sup son I’ve ever seen and goes off, still doing it and singing or something. They were all pretty god damned hyped and their energy and joy was infective :p Spent the rest of the night on a high going around and joking and having an amazing time with my crew mates.
Anyways, that’s about it. DreamHack is one of the staples of ESPORTS in Europe, as all kinds of games are there - if you care about that sort of stuff. The atmosphere is completely unique, it is really something a bit different. The SC2 was fantastic, and the fans are absolutely phenomenal. All the pro players and casters are amazing to talk to as well, and I would like to thank any of them incidentally reading this for their time. Thank you all aswell for reading this long thing.
Oh, and I saw ThorZaIN having a race in the outdoors obstacle course area with MaNa, and Ret was involved aswell with another Mouz member. Those can be found here with pretty shitty quality: ThorZAiN vs MaNa and Ret vs some guy from mouz
Oh, and I forgot to say I met MC during the CS finals. He was standing with his translator and watching the whole thing
CS is still very alive, lots of people watching. SK fucking took all three of the contests though, lol gg.
