What’s on at Insomnia 69 this month – and when? We run through some of the activities, including cosplay contests, the panel line-up, Intel Arc graphics card reveals, stage shows and more.
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Insomnia Gaming Festival, the UK’s longest-running gaming festival, will return to the NEC in Birmingham from August 26th to 29th 2022, and its scheduling info is now public.
We already know what kind of esports activities will be taking place at i69. There will be tournaments in Rocket League, Rainbow Six Siege, League of Legends, Overwatch, Valorant, CSGO and Team Fortress 2.
Most of the BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) Open finals will be on Sunday August 28th, with CSGO finals on Monday and Rocket League and Rainbow Six finals on Saturday.
A Women in Esports showmatch will also take place on the Saturday, as will Super Smash Bros Dailies Finals.
An Armed Forces Halo showmatch and Royal Ravens Call of Duty showmatch will take place on the Friday too.
Attendees can also expect to see a number of Insomnia-exclusive events, reveals and competitions.
The expo hall will be filled with well-known and familiar brands including Intel, who will be revealing never before seen details about their upcoming Intel Arc graphics cards.
Hado will also be returning, letting attendees get involved in the 3v3 augmented reality battler.
“We’re so excited to be able to bring a suite of exclusive fan events and experiences to i69 in collaboration with some huge names in gaming.”
Phil Crawford, Player1 Events
Insomnia will also be hosting an exclusive 15th anniversary Assassin’s Creed cosplay contest, alongside Ubisoft, with a true Assassin’s Creed VIP experience up for grabs for the winner.
Insomnia will also be introducing their first live-action zombie experience, taking place across the entire weekend, where attendees can buy on-the-day tickets, or pre-book online, to jump in and battle hordes of zombies with family and friends.
There’s also Wifi Wars on Friday at 1.30pm, a live comedy game show where spectators log in with their smartphone or tablet and compete in a range of games, quizzes and challenges to win the show, and prizes.
Regular attendees can also expect to see the famous Insomnia Pub Quiz, as well as the return of the infamous Dark Room.
There’s a cosplay championship on the Saturday, as well as a Just Dance showdown, and a cosplay masquerade on the Friday. A careers in esports panel will also take place on Friday, and a panel on ‘how Influencers can get involved with studios and IR/PR agencies’ will get underway on Saturday.
Phil Crawford, brand manager at Player1 Events, said: “We’re so excited to be able to bring a suite of exclusive fan events and experiences to i69 in collaboration with some huge names in gaming. We hope that fans will enjoy all that Insomnia has to offer and take advantage of some of the exclusive activities that we have planned for this summer’s edition of the Gaming Festival.”
Esports News UK will be covering a ton of the action from Insomnia 69 too. We’ve teamed up with AGON by AOC and ESI London to provide our biggest live coverage of Insomnia Gaming Festival yet, so bookmark our website and follow us on socials to make sure you get the latest from us.
For specific i69 scheduling and dates and times for activities, see the Insomnia website here. Tickets for i69 are also on sale now and can be purchased here.
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.
