CyberShowdown took place on May 15th 2025 in the University of Chichester’s Bognor Regis campus, sponsored by NSE, Gamer vs Depression and ODD Trinket.
This Valorant showdown saw university teams across the Southeast of England come together to compete for a £300 prize pool, with rosters from Portsmouth, Winchester, Sussex, Chichester and Southampton representing their universities. The event was organised by esports students in collaboration with sports media students at the University of Chichester, combining expertise in esports plus cameras and lighting to deliver a a live esports event experience. Esports students (and broadcast talent for the event) Sven Schoonhoven and Thomas Foster report on the day for Esports News UK.
Funding and developing the CyberShowdown
The first step in putting our event together was coming up with a solid foundation. As a group, we chose Valorant, the reason for this was that everyone had some experience with the game, and we were confident we could put on a good event.
The next step was a name, and we went with CyberShowdown: no one had experimented with a ‘Cyberpunk’ theme before, so we knew we were onto a winner. Next, we found the players by contacting local universities that would compete in our online qualifiers.
The winner would secure a spot to come down to Bognor Regis to play in our live event against our very own University of Chichester team. We invited University teams from Portsmouth, Winchester, Sussex, and Southampton, who were all eager and excited to play.
With teams secured, the next step was fundraising. We decided to run a 10-hour stream, with every team member involved. We set goals to incentivise people to donate, including a 5k run, leg waxing, and head shaving. The fundraiser was a huge success, raising an impressive £350!
With that money, we now had the funding to create an incredible event.
With the fundraiser finished, our next task was to run the online qualifiers. Over three days, the four teams played an intense best of three, with Southampton stomping Portsmouth 2-0 on day one.
Day two saw another dominant 2-0 victory for Sussex beating Winchester.
On day three, the two powerhouses of Southampton and Sussex collided, with Southampton taking it 2-0, securing their place in the CyberShowdown Grand Finals.
Now, knowing the two teams that would be playing in our event, we decided to visit the champions of our online qualifiers. This was a great experience as we got to put names to faces, film interviews, and get to know the players who would be showing up at our event.
We ended the amazing day with giving them a package from NSE, one of our sponsors, as a prize for winning the qualifiers.
Preparation day
On May 14th 2025, the preparation day for our live event took place. We arrived bright and early, excited to set everything up.
Lighting was first on the agenda, this was the calm before the storm. Once the lighting was rigged, it then meant we could get started on the rest of the setup. This involved bringing in all the tables and chairs, setting up the computers, cameras, green screen room where we would be commentating, and the production and observing desk.
After a 10-hour shift, we were finally ready for tomorrow, our event day.
The main event – from the casters’ point of view
It was another early morning as, finally, after 9 months, we were all super excited to see all our hard work put into motion.
We went straight into some practice runs and loading people into the game to make sure everything was running smoothly. After getting our run of show in place and correcting any issues we came across, before we knew it people started showing up.
The players from Southampton had brought along their friends to support them, and the Chichester team also invited some of their friends and family. Voila, the venue was packed with supporters from both sides, creating a great atmosphere.
With the event about to start, we got into our position in the greenscreen room. As the show went on, we found our casting only got better and better throughout the day as nerves were shaken off. Our casting flourished with the perfect combination of Tom’s hype moment-to-moment casting, captivating the audience and building up the atmosphere, combined with Sven’s analytical commentary enforcing how intense the matches were between the two teams.
Before we knew it, Southampton had won 2-0 in an unsurprising victory given how dominant they were in the online qualifiers.
However, the Chichester side still gave them a run for their money, resulting in it two very entertaining games.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, we are very proud of what we have been able to accomplish. As a group we would like to thank [esports lecturers] Rams Singh and Lee Cumbers for their guidance and support throughout the year.
Another thanks to Vernon Francis, Cliff Harden and the sports media students for helping us put on an amazing event, we could not have done it without them.
Special thanks to [Esports News UK founder] Dominic Sacco for coming to our event and giving us valuable feedback!
