Students from the University of Chichester put on their very own live Valorant event this month – the Chi Invitational – as part of the flagship module for their esports degree. Student Owen ‘pLeS-‘ Pearce recaps the day and offers his thoughts.
The event featured two university rosters: Chichester’s Chi Challengers versus Keele University’s Keele Krakens. They faced off in a best-of-three LAN match with prizes (kindly provided by sponsors HyperX and Wraith Energy) on the line.
Students from the esports course led the event and covered roles including production, hosting, casting, social media, admin, observing etc, alongside students from the lighting and sports media courses assisting with lighting and camerawork.
Chi Challengers won 2-0 on the day, and took home the lion’s share of the sponsorship prizes, including five wireless HyperX headsets and five Wraith Energy shaker bundles, while Keele Krakens left with five smaller Wraith Energy shaker bundles as runners-up.
Watch the full Chi Invitational match on YouTube here
Behind the scenes at the Chi Invitational
Host Luke Snellings described the Chi Invitational as ‘a great practical introduction to the world of event production’.
For many of the students on the esports programme, this event offered them their first experience working behind the scenes.
It gave them a chance to understand what it takes to plan, market and run a large-scale esports event, which for most, was more than they had initially thought.
The planning stage of the event started in early February 2023. This involved months of research, delegating roles, planning, evolving floor plans, and lots of back and forth between students from different departments. Eventually, there was a clear vision and plan for everyone to follow and put into effect.
On May 10th, the Chi Invitational got underway. The stage was set, the roles were defined, and everyone was ready to get the show started.
The on-air talent including casting duo Zara ‘zxra’ Horton and Joe ‘lockrev’ Monkcom-Burk, and host Luke Snellings, did a fantastic job of overcoming any nerves and running the show, despite two of the three having very little Valorant experience.
The casting duo settled in and grew in confidence as the event went on, despite dealing with some technical issues in the earlier stages.
Host Luke Snellings seemed at home being on camera from the start, introducing the teams, sponsors and event, and conducting player interviews with natural confidence.
The production team set the pace and worked tirelessly to keep the show moving. After having spent weeks learning the software in the preparation stages, as a spectator on the day, you wouldn’t really have known they had no experience prior to this event.
Finally, the admin team, none of whom had previous Valorant experience, were on constant standby to assist with any technical issues should they arise.
The entire team performed well in their designated roles. Despite some nerves in the early stages of the show and a somewhat shaky kickoff involving a false start and some minor technical issues, the team seemed to recover well and dealt with any problems quickly and quietly as they came. The event ran about as smoothly as we could have hoped for.
“There were a few hiccups, but with it being our first ever production, you kind of expect that. But we got over it, we improvised, we adapted and we overcame the issues, so it worked out pretty well in the end.”
Zara ‘zxra’ Horton
So, how might this translate into future industry work?
As previously stated, the main idea behind this live events module from the standpoint of the University of Chichester, was to give the students a practical experience and understanding of what it takes to work an esports event, and I think that’s exactly what it did.
This year’s graduates should be well equipped to venture forth into the growing industry of esports.
The students got to see and experience everything that goes into putting on an event from top to bottom. This experience will no doubt be invaluable in any future industry work they may decide to take on, having worked in or alongside every aspect of event planning and running, as well as having experience in other areas such as the coaching and business sides of the industry from previous modules.
All in all, this event was a perfect end to a good course, it allowed the students to test some of the knowledge they had learned over the last three years, and demonstrated how valuable an esports degree can be.
Interviews With Students And Lecturers at Chi Invitational
Acknowledgements
A final thank you to all of the people involved in the course and event, to the university staff, Rams ‘R2K’ Singh, Lee ‘Jammed’ Cumbers, Brandon ‘bsmith’ Smith (who was a lecturer for the first two years of my time on the course), and Harry ‘Hazzalar’ Child for all of your work put in to making the course what it was.
Also, thank you to both teams for taking part in this event, the Chi Challengers and Keele Krakens, the latter of whom travelled a long way to get here, which we appreciate.
A final note from ENUK editor Dom – thanks to Rams and the team for inviting me down to offer my feedback, and to the students for speaking to me on the day!
Related article: The Challenger Cup 2022: University of Chichester hosts its first student-run CSGO esports event
