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Just 30 minutes away from home, ESL One was the perfect chance to experience a dota 2 tournament!!! Of course, my brother didn't need any convincing, he was just as excited as I was.. Tickets were bought, dates were marked and the event heavily anticipated!
My favourite three things of the tournament:
1. The crowd was absolutely AMAZING. Especially when cheering for mouz!
2. Puppey's charming smile! <3 Out of all players asked for signatures over the weekend, I liked him best. He seemed to actually care about every single fan 
3. No queue at the ladies' room. (Instead occasionally there would be male visitors.)
Least favourite three things:
1. Constantly being checked for the wristbands even if you're just going from one Premium area to another Premium area with no chance of people sneaking into them from the outside without being checked in the first place.
2. Not being able to directly go from Premium to the Normal or Early Bird area except for leaving the stadium and entering it through another entrance.
3. Queuing (or pretending to queue but in reality just squeezing and shoving oneself to the front) for the signature sessions. And waiting there in vain because some teams just didn't show up at all.
Some other thoughts on ESL One:
1. The Bavaria suit at the caster's desk on day one .... I still shudder when I think of it! Also, why did they swap suits? ^^
2. The venue ran out of beer for the Premium area just before game 3 of the Grand Finals. Some people suffered a real shock when they heard that this could happen even in Germany.
3. People were actually nice! Encountered some very unfriendly people trying to jump the queue for the signature sessions and got help from others in the queue. Not all gamers are socially akward nerds
4. ESL One FAQ stated smoking was not allowed in the stadium so I expected two days of no second-hand smoking ... not that anyone cared 
5. Day 1: We are in a football stadium during a World Cup and no one thought of turning on all those tvs in the Premium area? Only way to watch tv? Through a tiny little screen at the other side of the stadium.
If you look closely, you can see the little green rectangle in the back. And the crowd of people standing around it.
At least they learned it for day 2 ^^
We had an amazing weekend! If there is another ESL One in 2015 (I very much hope so), I'll definitely go again
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opterown
Australia54784 Posts
wow, super pics, i'm so jelly ;;
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I agree with most of your points. They had those huge screens in the roof of the stadium. Why didn't they show the football games?
The amount of smoke was also less the second day than the first one, guess people learnt a bit.
You didn't have any problems on the second day during the downpour? Had to use my bag as a rain cover. :/
You could actually go between premium and early bird, for the first 3 hours of the event, then they closed the path for anything except staff...
The signs on where to get the wrist bands was a bit bad the first day as well. I went to the normal queue since I didn't know you were supposed to enter the premium one to get the wrist bands.
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Katowice25012 Posts
These look great, cool venue
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Woah that's awesome! Looks like you had a good time =)
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Germany531 Posts
HA you caught me on picture as well ^^
the Alliance signing session, on the top there are 2 ppl with red shirts. im the guy with the blue shirt right of the more centred one.
i was a bit pissed how the did the signing on day1, pretty crappy ...
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oh dang, dota event at a World Cup stadium.
Never would have thought...
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Luckily, we didn't have any problem with the rain.
The signing situation on day 1 was absolutely horrible. I waited in the very front of the crowd for Navi to appear for ~ 1,5 hours only to get thrown back into middle of it when ESL staff decided to introduce a queue. After waiting for another 45 min they made a cut shortly after me and didn't let people after me to Navi anymore. And throughout all the waiting, there was no way to watch the games. They really should have used the screen in the roof for something better than the stupid ESL intro.
In general there are lots of things that will hopefully be improved next time. I will happily provide them with a huge list of flaws ^^
@hapa: It was so much fun. And I got this very fitting wristband:
+ Show Spoiler +
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On July 04 2014 20:30 Ange777 wrote:
2. The venue ran out of beer for the Premium area just before game 3 of the Grand Finals. Some people suffered a real shock when they heard that this could happen even in Germany.
Wait what? I heard that you could only get one drink at a time, but that it run out!?!?
...
Ok, it seems, it's the "old" problem, that "outside" people think we are all just nerds and drunk after 2 beer!
Little story:
I play a browsergame. While there are "seasons" I play it for like 10y already! One time one of the members organized a "community meeting" and birthday party (two players had birthdays). So it is not the biggest game, but ~40 people came together - me included. It was organized in a pub. We all paid a fee (I think it was around 15 EUR) and could drink and eat (there was a buffet with salads, noodles, ...) what you wanted.
It was a great party! We had fun, meeting people that you only knew online and hell we drank! It was one of those nights where "everybody" had such a good time, the beer "didn't" affect anyone! I think I had around 10 beers over the evening, and I still wanted more but ... the bar run out of beer! The owner just put a last case of beer on the bar and said that is all he has left! We were still (~2-3am) 10 people and were shocked, that we couldn't get more!
So, people, remember: There are gamers of all ages and from all society classes! Don't think that we never go out for a drink (or know women only from Tomb Raider  ). Stock your beer reserves up!!!
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Had a blast they took really good care of visitors.
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