Esports students are hosting a three-day tournament – Campus Clash – at Staffordshire University’s new multi-million pound main campus facilities.
Campus Clash is an event that began in 2022 as a friendly two-team tournament, pitching players from the main Stoke-on-Trent campus against a team from Staffordshire University London campus.
The news comes half a year after Staffordshire University announced its esports expansion following a revamped degree. The new facilities are now open.
The event, to be livestreamed on Twitch, has now evolved to include six teams -including an alumni team and staff team – who are competing in games including Counter-Strike 2, Valorant, League of Legends, Guilty Gear Strive, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Nintendo Switch Sports.
The action started on 9.30am yesterday, Friday May 17th, and will culminate with a closing ceremony at 7pm on Sunday May 19th 2024.
Campus Clash has been organised by final year BA (Hons) Esports students Benito Marlay-Nicolson and Tarjei Torvik who have working on preparations for the event with lecturer Joshua Wales-Ferguson since October.
Benito said: “Teams are going head-to-head in the three-day event until we find out who takes home the title. We are partnering with brands such as Overclockers UK, Ducky Keyboards and Noblechairs, who are providing prizes, and we also have a good number of industry professionals coming in.”
The event leads are supported by a team of student casters and hosts who are making use of the brand new £2.7m facilities, which include a 60-seat arena, multi-camera studio and two professional production galleries.
Students will be vision mixing on Panasonic’s Kairos live video production platform, using an EVS XT-GO system for action replays and Allen and Heath Avantis audio desk – the same state-of-the-art equipment used by professional broadcasting companies.
Benito added: “The addition of the arena means that for the first time, we’ll be able to have a live audience, added to which, we’ll be making use of some of the best industry standard equipment available.
“Working on industry events is the ultimate goal for many esports students and our course equips us with the knowledge, skills and experience we need to do this by running our own professional standard events. This is testament to the encouragement and support offered by our lecturing team.”
Esports lecturer Joshua Wales-Ferguson added: “Students involved in Campus Clash have been fully involved in the testing of the new equipment and consequently we’re looking forward to the biggest and best Campus Clash so far. We’re also delighted to be welcoming our industry partners to the event and anyone interested can book to be part of the live audience over the three days.”
To book an audience seat in the arena visit the Campus Clash Eventbrite page, or watch the livestream at twitch.tv/staffsuniesports
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.
