UK gaming LAN event epic.LAN – which returns this month in an online format – has announced a trio of partnerships.
Not only do these sponsorships support what is a staple event in the UK esports calendar, but they give the esports prize pools a lift too, starting with epic32 next week from February 25th to 28th 2021.
There will be four esports tournaments this time around in Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege, Starcraft 2 and CSGO.
First up, epic.LAN (also known as epic.WAN in its online format) will be powered by Intel throughout 2021.
Casual gamers will have the chance to take part in the Intel Community Championship, while aspiring esports players will also see Intel headline epic.LAN’s Valorant tournaments for the year.
For epic32 next week, this means that the Valorant prize pool is now a guaranteed £2,000 at the bare minimum, rising to £4,300 depending on the number of teams taking part. The winners of the last epic.LAN Valorant tournament were SUMN FC, who are now Fnatic’s Valorant team.
Other prize pools dependent on numbers include CSGO (£700 to £3,000), Rainbow Six Siege (£700 – £2,200) and Starcraft 2 (£250 – 750).
“It’s been fantastic to see epic.LAN continue to grow and nurture the esports community throughout 2020,” said Mark Walton, EMEA technology and gaming comms manager at Intel.
“Social gaming has been a welcome outlet for many during these challenging times and Intel remains committed to supporting esports at both grassroots and professional levels.”
Next up, Overclockers UK (OCUK) is on board as headline sponsor and noblechairs is the official chair partner of epic.LAN.
epic.LAN worked closely with OCUK last year 2020, including getting them involved in a mix of content.
The partnership will again predominantly have a content focus and will see the Overclockers UK team joining in with a range of live shows during the epic.WAN events, before returning to having a physical presence once the events return to the LAN hall.
Andy Welsh, Overclockers UK’s events & partnerships manager, said “Whilst events may look different right now, community is still at our core, and we couldn’t be happier to support epic.LAN during these times. We’re all still waiting until we can hang out together (and throw bags and bags of Haribo at you) – so until that time, we’ll be joining in the fun online & hopefully bringing some goodies too!”
Steven Levitt, UK business development manager at noblechairs, added: “Chairs.”
Thirdly, Logitech G has been named epic.LAN’s official peripherals partner for 2021.
Logitech G has a history of supporting epic.LAN’s community going back to 2014, getting involved in the event’s fun tournaments, casual gaming programme and esports tournaments over the years.
The partnership will bring a range of improvements for the mix of casual and competitive players attending epic.LAN’s online and offline events in 2021. In particular, esports competitors will see prize pools increased for all of the event’s titles for the whole year (Valorant, CSGO, Rainbow 6 Siege and Starcraft 2).
Jon Winkle, epic.LAN MD, explained: “The Logitech G team has worked with us regularly for many years supporting everything from charity fundraising, to free pizza for everyone in the event pub quiz, to launching our first Valorant tournament in 2020.”
The Fall Guys and Age of Empires II community tournaments are sponsored by Be Quiet, while the Tekken 7 tournament is sponsored by Insert Coin.
Last year, epic.LAN adapted to the covid situation by running online-only events. It saw a 97% increase in viewership year-on-year and won Tournament of the Year at the 2020 UK Esports Awards.
There’s more info on epic32 including tickets, esports tournaments and activities on the epic.LAN 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.
