HKeSports SC2 Tournament

rkshox

Taiwan536 Posts

September 05 2013 14:14 GMT

Hey all, rkshox back with another entry.

This past weekend was HKeSports first ever eSports tournament. It featured over 40 pro-gamers from across 5 different games, won't get too much into it all the details, but being my first ever eSports event, as well as the first eSports tournament for the organizers, I think it ran pretty well. A lot of people expected technical difficulties, but that actually didn't happen too much.

I know SC2 and all the other games ran smoothly, but, all hate aside, LoL ran into the most trouble with Garena servers crashing every other minute.

Before I got into the pictures, I wanted to express my own opinion on the management of the tournament. Personally, I have had a little experience in event management, so this criticism is not coming out of nowhere. I hope if any of the tournament organizers are reading this to not see this as me flaming them, but more along the lines of helpful criticism.

Since I was exposed to the volunteer part of the event, I will mostly speak about it.The key factor was not having the manpower to be able to manage and be able to do the things the tournament organizers wanted to do. I know this for a fact because I was not given much direction as to what I was doing as a volunteer. I think this could have been easily solved by granting a "head volunteer." Someone to act as liaison between the staff and the volunteers. A lot of times, spectators asked questions to the volunteers and the volunteers had no idea how to respond and could not find someone who could answer.

I noticed a lot of volunteers and there's no doubt in my mind that any of them would do anything to help even more. Some of you may think, why? Who would want more things to do, especially as a volunteer? You are forgetting one thing, they are here for eSports, people do awesome things for eSports. Don't believe me? PM me XD

Another thing that I saw could have been done better was managing the competitors. A perfect example would be our dear friend, HuK. As we all can see from Huk's twitter during and after the event, he was not having the greatest time. Personnel was needed to make sure the players were well taken care of. A cooler full of free Red Bull, does not fix everything. A lot of the players had no idea what the schedule was until they looked for staff.

The staff needed to know that, yes you paid for them to come here, but you are also marketing your tournament to the players as well. What will they tell their pro-gamer friends about you? About your staff? Will it be good or bad? We live in a world were news can travel like wildfire. One sentence could possibly ruin the reputation of anyone or anything in one tweet. Technical difficulties is one thing you have to worry about, but the players are just as, if not more important.

I think I will stop myself there. I know there is a lot more to what I saw and experienced. Sorry if I offended anyone, but I'm just trying to help!

Of course there were a lot of good things that happened that day. I will say that the fan interaction with the pros was pretty awesome. Since the venue was small, the players area to the booth area and main stage gave the fans easy access to the pros for autographs and pictures. I mean, from what I have seen, fans love interacting with the pros and pros love interacting with their fans!

Without talking too much, let the pictures come!

Lowely!

nicholashk HK qualifier winner!

HuK!

Sen, won his first round match and played this game to keep his fingers warm? So pro

Rossi!!

KingKong

Hurricane

The command center

From the back of the auditorium

player area/lounge, mostly occupied by LoL players

caster table

20HKD ticket holders had a pretty awesome seat

Tastosis, fun fact, Tasteless doesn't wear shoes while he casts!

The go anywhere and do almost anything you want badge

Tastosis being interviewed

Reppin' China, MacSed

right before everyone was filing in for grand finals

yaaaay starcraft!

Hurricane crowned Champion and KingKong photobombing haha

Highlight of my night, fellow TL member wearing almost the same exact thing I was wearing! Haha

Sen, always your fan!

Rossi right in between a casting archon sandwich

Hurricane and my first Korean "fighting" fist pose haha

I had almost 300 pictures that I sorted through to bring you guys these. Maybe in the future HKeSports will have another event and I will have the pleasure to help them document again. Hopefully next time I will be able to afford a better lense, I'm tired of my kit lense! Gotta move on up!

Until next time!

orangeorange

134 Posts

September 05 2013 15:02 GMT

Nice blog, but were those pictures of the players taken while they were actually playing the games? No wonder there were no crowdshots during the broadcast

ETisME

12740 Posts

September 05 2013 15:22 GMT

I dislike photo taking during the player playing the game as well, the flash light could have affected their games and it just feels weird to have someone walk around with a camera.
otherwise my thoughts are the same with you, not that many technical issues except the audio department and lol server issue.

thezanursic

5500 Posts

September 05 2013 16:45 GMT

How many people actually watched this event?

rkshox

Taiwan536 Posts

September 06 2013 01:26 GMT

On September 06 2013 00:22 ETisME wrote:
I dislike photo taking during the player playing the game as well, the flash light could have affected their games and it just feels weird to have someone walk around with a camera.
otherwise my thoughts are the same with you, not that many technical issues except the audio department and lol server issue.

Sorry about not getting more profile pictures, but as you can see not much space in between each player, so I couldn't sneak in between them without distracting them. I actually had some shots of the players playing, but they were not the best shots, so I decided not to share. I personally do not like getting into the players line of site when taking pictures. I'm no professional photographer, but I know I wouldn't like someone snapping pictures when I'm playing, very distracting.

Mind everyone I was helping out with stuff as well as taking pictures, so unable to catch a lot of things. I am sure the HKesports people will release some pictures soon.

slowbacontron

United States7722 Posts

September 06 2013 02:23 GMT

Thanks for the pictures! The venue looks to have been rather interesting.

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