ESL UK is partnering with Intel to bring the ESL Arena to the EGX gaming festival for a second year in a row.
EGX takes place from September 20th to 23rd at the NEC in Birmingham, unfortunately clashing with the UK’s CSGO Major.
Last year, ESL hosted League of Legends, CSGO and Rainbow Six tournaments at EGX, plus there was an expo, Twitch stage (where ENUK editor Dom Sacco chaired a panel discussion stream on grassroots esports), Capcom Pro Tour EGX, Intel Experience Zone and more.
This year, ESL is returning with Intel for the Esports Arena, which again measures a whopping 5,000 square metres in size.
ESL and Intel will be launching a competition to find the UK’s best young casting talent. The winners will join ESL UK and Intel at EGX to work with their professional teams on the esports competitions that take place at the festival. They’ll also have the opportunity to work with ESL UK on rounds of the semi-professional ESL UK Premiership.
If you’re a budding caster and want to enter, head to esl.im/futuregencomp for more information when the competition opens on Thursday July 12th.
ESL will also be hosting the Hearthstone UK Premiership finals live on stage at EGX.
Did you know? A streaker was once bundled off stage by a ‘jedi’ at a past UK Hearthstone finals. No BS.
Anyway, 16 players will compete in the fifth season of the ESL UK Hearthstone Premiership, but only eight will make it through to the live final at EGX – where they’ll compete for the championship title and a slice of the £8,000 prize pool.
“The ESL Arena at EGX is the largest esports activation in the UK, with over 5,000m2 of competitive action, brands and booths to visit”
James Dean, ESL UK
The ESL Arena will offer space for thousands of fans to watch the esports action, plus an expo space featuring the latest PC hardware will return.
It’s all part of ESL and Intel’s celebration of an incredible year of esports in the UK – and ESL will be talking to some of the biggest names in the scene to find out how competitive gaming in the UK has grown and changed.
They have already released this teaser below of a chat with legendary British esports host Paul “Redeye” Chaloner, and the full interview – where he discusses his love for the UK esports scene – will be released soon.
EGX is billed as ‘the UK’s biggest gaming event’. Gamers can attend to play hundreds of releases months before they’re announced, learn from game developers, take part in cosplay competitions and play retro titles, tabletop games and indie games. Last year’s show saw 80,000 gamers attend across three days of exhibitions.
Since EGX was launched back in 2008, more than half a million visitors have attended the event across locations in London and Birmingham.
James Dean, Managing Director of ESL UK, said: “The ESL Arena at EGX is the largest esports activation in the UK, with over 5,000m2 of competitive action, brands and booths to visit. We can’t wait to get stuck into our second year at EGX, where we’ll meet old friends and create new fans. We can’t reveal everything right now, but I that more fantastic plans will be announced soon.”
Scott Gillingham, Intel UK Gaming and Esports Lead, commented: “Intel is committed to growing esports and gaming across the country. Alongside our partnership with ESL UK, we will continue to invest in the community with key activations like EGX.”
More events and competitions for the ESL Arena will be announced soon on the dedicated site esl.im/eslarenaegx.
Finally, if you’d like to share your thoughts on UK esports and get involved, there’s the #yearofukesports hashtag and the #ESLArena hashtag.
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.
