English Football League Championship club Sheffield Wednesday is set to host the UK’s first Virtual Pro Gaming (VPG) 11v11 Pro Clubs exhibition in person.
This will include a clubs tournament in popular football game EA FC 24, and feature teams such as UK esports organisation SAF, as well as Turkish org Altay Espor and more.
It will take place at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium on Sunday July 14th 2024 from 9am to 5pm BST.
This year, it will take over the entire South Stand of Hillsborough, transforming the venue into a gaming area featuring activations from EA FC to Fortnite and more.
FC 24 Pro Clubs esports and VPG Premier caster George Overton will be on casting duties for the event.
There will also be meet and greets with footballers, content creators and games personalities, plus industry panels and showcases.
Organisers have promised ‘discussions from industry leaders and behind the scenes looks at upcoming games from developers’.
As well as the main VPG 11v11 Pro Clubs event tournament, there will also be casual play areas.
Owls Esports is the official esports team of Sheffield Wednesday.
Last year, a VPG 11v11 World Cup FIFA tournament also took place.
Earlier this year, gaming hardware brand AGON by AOC entered into a collaboration to equip the Sheffield Wednesday Esports Arena.
Sheffield is also of course home to UK esports organisation Endpoint, who opened their Pracrooms.gg space and began hosting LAN events last year, and rival football club Sheffield United, who also have an esports space.
Tickets to the 11v11 Pro Clubs exhibition start from £7 for under 12s, to £12 for under 16s and £15 for adults. You can buy them on the Sheffield Wednesday Ticketing site here.
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.
