Official League of Legends LoL and Valorant community evenings are coming to Insomnia Gaming Festival i71 in Birmingham in September 2023.
Update: See our coverage from the i71 League of Legends community event here.
Riot Games announced the events for Insomnia ticket holders this week, which will take place on Friday September 8th (League of Legends) and Saturday September 9th (Valorant), from 7pm to 11pm BST in Hall 4, outside of the BYOC area.
Riot will be allowing players to play ARAM, 1v1s and 2v2s in League of Legends and team deathmatch in Valorant, meet others in the community and win some prizes. There will also be scavenger hunts and challenges testing out players’ aim.
The Goose House will be helping out with the Valorant community night.
You can check out sign-up info on the LoL and Valorant Northern Europe X (aka Twitter) pages below:
LoL and Valorant community evenings first at Insomnia since League Fest
While League of Legends and Valorant esports have featured at Insomnia Gaming Festivals over the years, these community nights appear to be Riot’s first UK community-focused gatherings since League Fest, a celebration of all things League which took place from August 26th to 28th 2016 at the Birmingham NEC at Insomnia 58.
The four-day festival featured a £15,000 Pro-Am tournament with former pro players and rising amateurs (including LemonNation, Larssen and more), merchandise, cosplay and opportunities to meet and greet special guests, with the likes of MagikarpUsedFly, Gbay99, Foxdrop, RossBoomSocks and others in attendance.
Despite more than 3,000 attendees, League Fest was unfortunately a one-off in 2016, with our article looking at why it may have been scrapped here.
While the LoL and Valorant community evenings won’t be at the scale of League Fest, they are certainly a welcome addition to Insomnia 71, which is shaping up to be a special one indeed, with the ESL Prem CS LAN finals, $2m Apex Legends ALGS Championship, Valorant Women’s Cup and more taking place in Birmingham in early September 2023.
We hope to see you there at the LoL and Valorant community evenings.
Update: Riot is also promoting the events at i71 in the League of Legends game client:
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.
