Games festival EGX will provide an esports bonanza later this month, in what ESL is describing as one of the biggest esports activations in the UK.
They said it would be big, and they’re sticking to their word. ESL’s area will take up 4,830 square metres alone, consisting of a Main Stage, Premiership Stage and ESL Arena.
EGX 2017 will take place at the Birmingham NEC from Thursday September 21st to Sunday 24th, following on from EGX 2016’s impressive esports activities.
This year, the Main Stage will feature international drone esports competition The Platinum Cup Finals on Friday afternoon and Nintendo’s Splatoon 2 finals on Saturday afternoon. See more of Nintendo’s esports goings on at EGX here.
Then, on ESL’s Premiership stage, the UK & Ireland League of Legends finals will take place on the Thursday while the CSGO finals will take place on Saturday and Sunday.
A special one-off Ubisoft Rainbow Six: Siege EGX Invitational will get underway on the Friday. This follows on from the Siege tournament at Gamescom, which Esports News UK reported on live.
‘We want to build this into a global esports title’ – interview with Rainbow Six Siege devs
Elsewhere in the ESL Arena at EGX, there will be an open LAN area where attendees will be able to play PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on 32 Alienware machines, as well as an ASUS Build-a-PC workshop and Intel Experience Zone featuring Project Cars 2 VR pods, new Intel tech and a mix of streamers and influencers.
ESL will also be operating a Twitch area. Elsewhere, an ESL Playground/Community area will allow visitors to sign up to ESL Play and get a free code for ESL Premium, allowing them to compete in prestige cups for cash prizes and hardware. There’s a bunch of old school arcade machines, a mobile gaming tournament area, ESL shop and more.
Finally a mix of exhibitors will be showing off their latest goodies, including Zotac, MSI, Gigabyte, HyperX and more, with Corsair bringing some Method influencers along.
“The arena is far more than just a tournament, it’s a full-360 celebration of all aspects of esports which promises something to see or do for all EGX visitors.”
James Dean, ESL UK
“We’re ecstatic to be partnering with EGX, Intel and Twitch to deliver what’s set to be the ultimate esports experience in this calendar year,” said ESL UK MD James Dean. “The Arena is far more than just a tournament, it’s a full-360 celebration of all aspects of esports which promises something to see or do for all EGX visitors.
“The ESL Arena would not be possible without Intel. ESL has recently entered into a global partnership with Intel after working together for over 10 years to hold incredible events such as Intel Extreme Masters, ESL Pro League, and many others. We’re thrilled to expand this partnership in the UK.”
Esports at EGX: What else is happening?
Aside from all the ESL activities, there’s the Overwatch Road to EGX grand final. This six-month competition began at EGX Rezzed 2017 back in March.
There’s also the Capcom Pro Tour Street Fighter V Premier Event, which is offering ranking points and prize money to the top 16 players.
Unequalled Media will host this 256-player tournament which will take place from the Friday to the Sunday. Pools will commence over Friday and Saturday, with the top 32 players and the grand final top eight players competing on Sunday.
And as mentioned earlier, Nintendo has a bunch of esports activities taking place at EGX too.
Are you going to EGX?
If you’re interested in an Esports News UK meet-up in the ESL Community Area, let us know via Twitter or in the ENUK Discord channel.
You can grab EGX tickets and read more info on the EGX website
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
