The epic.LAN CS:GO Championship in association with Grosvenor Casinos is returning for a second season, and organisers have outlined what’s changing this time.
Season 2 will run from March 2nd to May 6th, concluding once again at Grosvenor Casino Coventry in the Ricoh Arena.
The qualifier prize money is dropping but the overall pool will still be £10,000. The online qualifier prize money is designed to help smaller teams’ cover their transport costs to reach the finals, as announced in this post on the epic.LAN website.
Organisers made it clear that the tournament is for participants aged 18 and above. The tournament last time around received some negative coverage from the Daily Mail’s This is Money website.
The grand final in Coventry will now be split over two days on the weekend and hotel rooms will be provided for all teams that make it to the final.
Online qualifiers and wildcard will be announced from the start, so all teams know that their entry fee will give them potentially four chances to qualify.
“With our commitment to responsible gambling and our well-regulated casinos, we are pleased to support community esports for adult players.”
Barry Lyons, Rank Group
This time around, Nottingham, Cardiff, Manchester (Didsbury), Reading South and Newcastle-upon-Tyne have been added as venues.
There will also be free finals spectator tickets for all teams that took part in a LAN qualifier, and ‘unlimited tea, coffee and soft drinks at all venues’.
Individual entry will cost £12.50.
London Esports (pictured) won Season 1.
Jon Winkle, epic.LAN MD, said: “The aim of the first season was to encourage more grassroots esports participation from players by removing many of the barriers we often hear about when players move from the bedroom to live events. I can’t wait to work with Grosvenor Casinos once again to grow the UK community.”
Barry Lyons, head of events experience at Rank Group, commented: “We’re delighted to be working with epic.LAN once again to build on the success of our first season. With our commitment to responsible gambling and our well-regulated casinos, we are pleased to support community esports for adult players.”
For a closer look, you can watch the Season 2 trailer below:
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.
