LEC esports fans at Riot’s Berlin studio earlier this year (Photo by Michal Konkol/Riot Games)
Riot Games has today unveiled plans for its new home of esports in EMEA – the Riot Games Arena – ahead of the 2024 esports season.
The venue, which was previously the LEC Studio, will be renamed the Riot Games Arena and will be based in Adlershof, Berlin.
The upgrade will see the venue service all current and future Riot Games Esports products held in the region.
The Riot Games Arena will boast amphitheatre style fan seating, new cinema seats and a layout designed to bring fans closer to players through the addition of a dedicated player tunnel. Meanwhile, an adaptable stage and desk area will let the arena change its design and layout, depending on the game and event.
The revamped Riot Games Arena in Berlin will offer ‘an enhanced arena and fan experience, as well as improved broadcasting and production capabilities’, with the utilisation of Riot Games’ Dublin-based Project Stryker Remote Broadcast Center Powered by AWS.
Riot says these upgrades will enable the facility to ‘switch seamlessly between any Riot Games Esports leagues and their brands, while ensuring all events are produced to the Riot Games standard’.
Riot Games Arena to also focus on tiers below the LEC and VCT
The venue will predominantly host all League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) and Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) EMEA shows live with a full audience.
In addition, it will have the ability to concurrently host other Riot Games EMEA Esports events remotely, including Valorant EMEA Game Changers and Team Fight Tactics (TFT) events, as well as tiers below the LEC and VCT, such as Valorant Challengers Ascension and League of Legends EMEA Masters.
It also has seen the introduction of an EMEA Esports Hall of Fame, which is able to switch between relevant league brands through digital technology.
“We’re all in on esports at Riot Games and in EMEA, so this upgraded, world-leading esports facility will become the beating heart of our esports operations in the region, servicing all our competitions.”
Alberto Guerrero, Riot Games
We’ve asked Riot if we can expect to see EMEA Masters and other League of Legends ERL events at the new Riot Games Arena in the future, or if those will mainly feature remote broadcasts without an audience.
We were told that whilst Riot can confirm that the venue has ‘the capability of seamlessly switching between Riot Games’ various esports titles and hosting a live audience’, Riot can’t at this stage confirm if any tournaments besides VCT EMEA and LEC will be taking place at the venue.
“We’re all in on esports at Riot Games and in EMEA, so this upgraded, world-leading esports facility will become the beating heart of our esports operations in the region, servicing all our ompetitions,” said Alberto Guerrero, Head of Esports, EMEA at Riot Games.
“Creating a venue of this scale is a testament to our long-term dedication to continue developing the future of esports in EMEA for our fans, teams, and their players, and the facility will set us up for further success in the years to come.”
How big is the Riot Games Arena and what does it have?
In an update sent out in early January 2024, Riot said the arena ‘now benefits from new cinema-style seating and an amphitheatre-style crowd setup, increasing capacity by 20% (from 178) to a total of 210 on-site seats’, including VIP and wheelchair seating.
The venue has also improved the player experience, increasing the number of dedicated warm-up rooms to six, as well as introducing an all new player lounge area and dedicated huddle spaces for teams in-between matches.
It also has seen the introduction of an EMEA Esports Hall of Fame, which is able to switch between relevant league brands through digital technology. It will introduce a caster viewing area, offering fans the ability to watch their favourite on-air talent team members during showdays through a transparent window.
Additional upgrades include a brand-new fan tunnel, as well as improvements to the meet and greet, cafe, fan lounge, merchandise store, box office and bar areas.
It has three dedicated broadcast booths (servicing up to three language broadcast feeds on-site), two co-streaming booths, 44 new cameras added to the venue and 277 new screens (including 45 in the fan zone).
LEC screens measure 250sq metres.
A player zone features six warm up rooms (two more than previously), a player lounge and bunker area, and new huddle spaces for teams.
LED flooring has been added to the arena area, and there are two dedicated analyst studio areas.
Other refurb facts include:
● 15km of new power lines in the venue
● 150 people working on the refurbishment of the venue
● Complete build time totalled three months
● 11.5km of cut cable network in the venue
● 2km of AES/EBU
Riot Games Arena promises improved fan experiences
Riot is hoping to overhaul the fan experience for those attending in-person as well as watching from home.
Fans attending the studio ‘will enjoy an experience that fully immerses them into any Riot Games EMEA Esports event on display, from the moment they arrive, to the moment they leave’, Riot says.
Meanwhile, three dedicated broadcast booths, two dedicated co-streaming booths, an LED screen on stage, and all theatrical and broadcast gear, combine ‘to offer fans at home a wider variety and higher quality of Riot Games EMEA Esports broadcast streams’ produced from the venue itself.
“When planning the refurbishment, we put player and fan needs and desires central to our decision making,” said Sarah Joynt Borger, Head of Media House for Riot Games EMEA. “On-site, we want to offer an experience that brings them into our worlds, immersing them more fully into Riot Games’ universes.
“With a large portion of our fan base watching from home, we also needed to put a lot of emphasis on the quality and diversity of our broadcast and production, to enhance their personal viewing experience.”
More details about the studio will be revealed at the start of 2024.
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.
