Update: The fate of RuneFest 2024 is uncertain after redundancies were made at Player1 Events, the organisers of Insomnia Gaming Festival (which RuneFest was due to take place alongside).
Second update (July 3rd 2024): The RuneFest 2025 rearranged dates, venue and ticket info has been confirmed.
Original article:
RuneFest 2024 will be held alongside Insomnia Gaming Festival 73 in the UK, after several years of absence, RuneScape developer Jagex has announced.
Runefest is being held alongside Insomnia73 and is being delivered by Insomnia organiser Player1 Events, with Jagex involved.
The celebration of all things RuneScape is returning some five years after the most recent event took place in 2019.
Like other events, this was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to covid, but it hasn’t taken place in 2022 or this year either. Now Jagex is now bringing it back for 2024.
The capacity for the event is around 2,000.
There’s lots more information about RuneFest at Insomnia 73 in this announcement stream on the official RuneScape Twitch channel.
RuneFest 2025 Dates and Location
Jagex had originally announced that RuneFest 2024 was set to take place alongside Insomnia Gaming Festival 73 this September, at the Birmingham NEC, UK, on the weekend of September 7th and 8th 2024.
RuneFest was also set to have its own camping area at Insomnia too.
However, in an update in July 2024, while RuneFest 2025 will still take place at the Birmingham NEC, it will now run on March 1st and 2nd 2025, as a standalone event, given Insomnia is no longer taking place.
RuneFest 2025 tickets release date, cost and where to buy
Tickets previously bought for the event will carry over to the rearranged RuneFest 2025.
An additional 1,000 tickets will also be made available later this summer.
“All existing tickets will transfer automatically, meaning RuneFest will be bigger than ever,” Jagex said in a press statement.
Any ticketholders who are unable to attend the new dates will be able to claim a full refund. Those who wish to claim a refund can do so via this SeeTickets RuneFest customer service page.
As Insomnia will no longer be a part of RuneFest, there will be no access to other events at the NEC and camping is no longer available – all camping tickets purchased will be automatically refunded.
Old outdated info based on the September 2024 event can be found below. This was due to take place alongside Insomnia, which was delayed following the news that Insomnia had been cancelled.
Tickets for RuneFest 2024 are not yet on sale.
Update: It’s been confirmed that tickets will go on sale at midday on March 27th 2024.
In terms of the price of tickets, it’ll cost £150 for first 500, then £175 for everyone else after that. Organisers said this is a £25 increase on the price of tickets for RuneFest 2019 and that they have tried to keep this cost rise minimal given the state of the economy.
Jagex also said that a ticket to RuneFest will give guests access to event for the whole weekend, as well as the rest of the Insomnia Gaming Festival as well, plus a goody bag, but it will not include camping. It costs around £45 extra for camping.
It’s also possible to buy a ticket to Insomnia and upgrade it for RuneFest, but organisers said buying a RuneFest ticket is the best way to get in.
As stated, RuneFest 2024 will have a capacity of around 2,000.
Jagex also has a mailing list for RuneFest 2024, where it will send out the latest information around the event.
Past RuneFest controversies
In 2017, the winner of the Old School RuneScape Deadman Invitational was disqualified following an investigation.
“Following our standard investigation into the winner of the tournament, we discovered they were responsible for the creation of a bot farm,” the developer told Esports News UK at the time. “As a result, the winner has been disqualified and all accounts linked to the botting activity have been banned.”
And in 2018, UK streamer Gross Gore vowed never to talk to women at events again following harassment accusations at RuneFest.
Jagex said that he breached its code of conduct and banned him from future events.
Another event taking place around Insomnia 73 is a UK SuperDome esports event, which is happening as part of a £3m West Midlands funding boost.
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.
