Durham University Esports and Gaming postpones 2024 North East Esports Festival

Dom Sacco, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 19/06/2025

Update: The festival has been postponed to later in the year.

Original article:

Following the inaugural event held in March last year, Durham University Esports and Gaming (DUEG) is returning for a second running of the North East Esports Festival.

The university esports event will take place on the weekend of March 2nd and 3rd 2024.

For 2024, the North East Esports Festival is diverging by creating an educational opportunity for college and university students interested in esports. The purpose of this event is to provide insight into various careers in esports, with the hope that students will find new interests that they wouldn’t have considered otherwise.

Guest speakers will discuss a range of topics, following different sectors of the industry in a series of talks and workshops. The second day will see teams battling it out in a 3v3 Overwatch 2 tournament with an opportunity to win prizes.

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It comes after the 2023 North East Esports Festival (aka NE Esports Fest) was hosted at Durham University in March of last year that welcomed over 120 people from all over the UK.

It concentrated on highlighting North-Eastern esports and student pathways into the industry through a series of talks, as well as providing an opportunity for networking. There were also gaming tournaments held throughout the weekend.

Founded in 2013, Durham University Esports and Gaming (DUEG) has been the leading gaming society within the university and the northeast for over 10 years. DUEG competes in university esports across more than nine games.

“NEEF 2023 was the first in a series of successful esports industry based events held at Durham University by Durham University Esports and Gaming,” said Kylie Kendrick, Technical Specialist – Esports at Durham University.

“Attendees found it useful in gaining additional knowledge about the esports industry whilst also being able to network with professionals from said industry. It was wonderful to see students reaching out to professionals and putting themselves forward for opportunities as a result of developing their networking skills at the event. It was also encouraging to see attendees from the local area getting involved in the event to help esports gain more positive exposure in the North East.”

Tickets are priced at £10 for general admission including tournament tickets (with a discount available for college students), or £6 for tournament entry only. 2024 North East Esports Festival tickets are available here.

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Dom Sacco, Senior Editor

Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He has almost two decades of experience in journalism, and left Esports News UK in June 2025. 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 also previously worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation.

All Posts By Dom Sacco