An in-person event is any event where the participants and some of the audience are physically in attendance. In-person events aren’t a new kind of event, especially not in the esports space, but since COVID, it has become less popular and less safe to have people congregate in an enclosed area.

So for all of 2020 and most of 2021, tournament organizers did not even suggest in-person events in secret. But as the shadow of the pandemic finally fades away, we are slowly easing back into normalcy or at least a form of it.

Online events proved to be a financially sound alternative, with no cost of food and accommodation; the focus was on the games and nothing else. But this led to a very detached structure of esports and competitive gaming — gamers, like everyone else, want to connect with people of similar interests.

With 2020 and the pandemic, physical interaction with other people outside your family was minimal — the quarantine had the world on lockdown. Little did we know that this action would indirectly feed a desire we had long overlooked in the human experience — the desire to interact and mingle with other people. The passion for community.

In comes 2023, and this desire continues to grow; according to a study by Eventbrite, gamers prefer in-person events because it presents them with the opportunity to be among their community, see their favorite gamers or watch with friends they hardly spend physical time with. No more headsets and lobbies; now it’s a seated crowd, bright lights, and the air of competition.

Esports is on the rise, as it has been even during the pandemic, but now so is the desire for gamers to play, connect and earn with their friends, colleagues, and team members — but more importantly, doing all of this in person. 

So, as normalcy returns to the world in every industry that adjusted to cope with the pandemic, tournament organizers would be wise to cash in on this resurgence. Gamers want to connect, gaming enthusiasts want to watch their favorite stars live, and there are more benefits for sponsorships in in-person events.

According to a study by Eventbrite, 81% of gamers (potential gamers) attend in-person events to be part of the community, 80% do so to watch their favorite players and teams, 61% attend to meet up with friends they’ve made online, 52% come to see the top pro players, while 46% participate in in-person events to become better gamers.

To the tournament organizer, ticket, and merch vendor, online events look like the cheaper option on the surface, but the returns pale compared to in-person events. While online events have viewership numbers to boot, in-person events also boast ticket and viewership numbers.

With online events, the ad placements are often inconvenient “no skip” ads on the streaming platform and do not draw in enough business. But with in-person events, fans have merch literally in their faces, but in a non-intrusive way.

Giving credence to this shift in the paradigm, Call of Duty League has favored an in-person event style for 2023 as well — seeing as it’s perfect for building their community of users, placing merch on display, and raking in loads of consumer money as well.

Do the maths, and that’s 100% revenue waiting to happen. Even now, the sales of esports merchandise are on the rise — from monitors, keyboards, and consoles, the market is setting itself up for a boom, and it would be wise to get ahead of it and benefit from the wave instead of basking in the bright lights from the revenue explosion.

Speaking of getting ahead of things, in 2022, Gamr organized and hosted Africa’s first, most prominent, and most acclaimed LAN gaming festival – Gamr X. And yes, you guessed it, it was an in-person event, and it had all the bells and whistles — gaming, competitive atmosphere, merch, music, and loads of fun.

2023 is here, and as industry experts, we didn’t wait to be told; at Gamr, we blaze trails for others to look at and go, “that’s awesome, hey! why didn’t I think of that?”. In the spirit of resurgence and continuing tradition, Gamr X will return this year in June of 2023.