MSI Beat IT - Behind the Scenes

Olli

Austria24422 Posts

November 11 2014 14:34 GMT

MSI Beat IT - Behind the Scenes

Arriving in Taiwan and MSI's Welcome Party

MSI Beat IT took place in Taipei last weekend. Competitors as well as media from all sorts of organisations were flown in to participate. I was lucky enough to be one of them. Not only did MSI cover flight and hotel expenses, they also assigned each media writer an assistant to help translate and support them throughout the whole weekend. I arrived in Taipei on the October 30, after over 20 hours of travel. The time had passed reasonably quickly - I discovered in-flight entertainment (I watched Mutiny on the Bounty for example), met up with Khaldor in Dubai to kill some layover time, and slept a bit. Immediately upon arrival I ran into Harstem and a few Dota guys from South Africa. We had some fun getting through immigration and selfies were taken.

MSI picked us up from the airport and drove us right to the welcome party, which we almost came in late for. Players and journalists got to meet each other at Vapiano in the ATT 4 Fun center, the same mall/convention center in which the event would take place over the weekend. Food at drinks were all paid for, and lively discussions were going on throughout the restaurant. At the same time, players were doing a photo-/video shoot for the upcoming tournament.

I got to meet and talk to a few awesome media people from GosuGamers, pcgamer.com, and lots of other companies, got to ask Iaguz if he remembered which TL writer once accused him of being from New Zealand (he wrongly pointed towards stuchiu), got to talk to Breaker, the host and translator for the event. The video below shows a few impressions of the welcome party.

Due to our late arrival we were excused earlier than most others, so I jumped on the shuttle back to the hotel for media guests (players/casters and media were staying in different hotels), discovered a rather amazing hotel room (with better wireless internet connection than I have at home), jumped in the shower and fell asleep a few minutes later.

Day 1 - MSI's headquarters

The jetlag-gods were kind to me and I woke up fresh and early in the morning. I had received a schedule for the entire weekend, and Friday the 31st held a tour through the MSI offices in store. A bus picked the media guests up at the hotel and drove us right to MSI's huge headquarters. We were treated to a short welcome speech and intro video, after which we went on our tour through MSI's offices.

The first room they showed us had a small exhibition of recent MSI products. Especially the X99S GAMING 9 ACK (Motherboard) and the GTX 980/970 (Graphics Card) models were being presented to us - their new developments. These were also on constant exhibition during the MSI Beat IT event and could be purchased there. My assistant and translator Linda, who I'd been introduced to before flying out to Taiwan, was constantly with me to explain products and answer any questions I had.

We witnessed a demonstration of Overclocking and an experiment with a special type of liquid which would evaporate immediately upon exposure to regular room temperature. Other stations of our tour included MSI's hardware testing room, a room full of machines in which products are tested under extreme conditions (such as extreme temperatures, pressure, etc.), a bus-simulator to demonstrate tablets, headsets and similar products in vehicles, and a hardware storage room.

We were then driven to a restaurant in the ATT 4 Fun building, after which the responsibilities for media guests were over for the day. I took the rest of the day to explore the city with a few media friends and then went to sleep rather early to be fit for the first day of the MSI Beat IT tournament.

Days 2, 3 and 4 - The Tournament

MSI once again picked us up at the hotel and we got to see the arena for the first time. We sat down right behind the sponsors in the second row and got to enjoy the flashy opening ceremony as well as opening speeches. We then got to see the intro video that players had been filmed for earlier.

Now, probably the most important aspect for media guests was our ability to enter any area we wanted to. I was able to spectate the games from the VIP area above the crowd, where the production was set up, as well as the alternate SC2 and Dota streams. There was a 24/7 buffet here as well, which meant that players and media were always taken care of. The area was perfect for interacting with players and staff, I got to do two interviews here as well as hang out and watch a lot of games with players. During the group and playoff stages, I would go downstairs and be able to enter the player area and watch them live in action as they played their matches.

The event was unfortunately hit by connection issues early, the reason for which I am still not exactly sure of. After that delay however everything went smoothly offline, even though I heard that there were issues with the online viewing experience. There was an issue with MSI's main stream not showing up on TeamLiquid, which I could eventually help out with - it was a band-aid solution, which is why my ID showed up as the one streaming the event for a while.

Blizzard and other sponsors had small panels set up where attendants could buy hardware, shirts, action figures and a lot more. I ended up buying a protoss shirt for the very affordable sum on 500 Taiwanese dollars (about 11€ I believe) and I was gifted a protoss keycap which is sure to replace my A-key in due time.

I had originally planned to do live updates, but the wifi in the arena was not sufficient to do so. Instead of running back and forth between press room and player area, I focused on getting my hands on "quality content" to release later:

Harstem/Khaldor/Iaguz "interview"
Solar interview

MSI got lucky with a fantastic finals in the end, as Solar came back from a 1-3 deficit to beat Parting 4-3 and earned himself another championship as well as a nice amount of money.

My flight left at midnight on the next day. Once again, MSI covered all expenses for me to get there safely and on time. After more than a weekend, I hadn't spent a single cent on anything event related, neither had anyone else. MSI took care of everything for us and we only had to do our end of the whole deal.

MSI's Giveaway

MSI are ready to run a giveaway on their Facebook page, which will start once they reach 100.000 likes. You can like their page and sign up below. You'll also find additional pictures taken at the event and information about their products there.

https://www.facebook.com/MSIHQFANCLUB

All in all, MSI Beat IT was a fantastic experience for everyone involved, and I've yet to hear from anyone who didn't enjoy the event and their time in Taiwan, and didn't feel extremely well taken care of. Here's to hoping for another great event in 2015.