Minor on Dota 2 will be held in Bukovel. How the Ukrainian company managed to get the right to hold it

WePlay Company! Esports will host the second Minor for Dota 2 in Ukraine - WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020. It will be held from January 9 to 12 and, notably, the location is not Kiev, but Bukovel. We learned from the director of business development of WePlay! Esports Dmitry Karpenko, how difficult it is to get the right to hold an event from the official calendar of the DPC season, why Bukovel and how much it costs.

How did you get the Minor? How long has the application been filed and how do you think it was approved?

Getting Minor, like any other Valve official tournament, is not easy. There are two conditional stages that require a certain qualification from the applicant company, confirmed through the implemented projects. The first is to earn the trust of the audience. If you have done something valuable for the community, Valve will definitely pay attention to it. We were selected to the list of bidders at the end of this winter, in the spring we received a tender request, and we learned that we were entrusted with the holding of Minor at the end of summer. By that time, we had already held ten tournaments and broadcasts and were the first to organize an Artifact tournament when the game was just released. After that, we also did one project by direct order from Valve.

The second stage is to develop a concept for the tournament. We are qualitatively different from all other tournament operators in their approach to broadcasting - we do shows in esportainment format, and not just e-sports competitions. I think this was one of the most significant factors for Valve.
Why Bukovel? There seems to be no big platform like in Kiev or other cities with a population of over one million?

Venue and location - this is undoubtedly the most important factor in the success of the event. It all depends on the approach. In our case, we took into account several factors. In the first place, of course, entertainment, and in second place - the occupancy of the hall. Attendance at the Minors is traditionally lower than that of the Majors, and this is clearly seen from the experience of other Minors that were previously held in Kiev. Against the backdrop of The International with a prize pool of $ 35 million, Dota fans do not perceive Minors with a prize of $ 300,000 as an event to attend - this is first.

Secondly, other tournament operators, as a rule, do not puzzle themselves with entertaining visitors and spectators with something other than the games themselves. We are in WePlay! we always come up with interesting collaborations and activities at the venue, as, for example, we recently did this for McDonald’s and PepsiCo Ukraine. In this case, the dates themselves (which Valve appoints) have already introduced us to the winter theme, and immediately the image of the magical Carpathians and the snowy resort of Bukovel arose. No less important is the fact that for the first time an esports event of this level will not take place in Kiev, and Dota 2 fans will see Ukraine from a new, unusual angle. No matter how pathetic it may sound, but this tournament is indeed a significant international competition, and it is great that our country is at the center of world events.

In addition, we are interested in the growth of our industry. Therefore, we want to attract new spectators to eSports, including those who watch the tournament just out of curiosity, and the ski resort as a location is most suitable for this. Already now we see that the idea of ​​holding a Minor in Bukovel is justifying itself: the world e-sports media wrote about it (and not only), we were bombarded with questions about where to buy tickets and how to get to the resort. I don’t remember that such a level of interest was in previous Minorams.

How much does Minor cost? At least the order of numbers: from $ 100,000, for example.

More than you called. Especially considering how much has been done to get Valve the right to conduct it. But much more important for us is how to make the emotions from this event remembered by the audience.
What are the main difficulties of holding the Minor?

There are several of them:

    Starting this season, Valve changed the qualifications system - now they are combined with the Major. This imposes a number of features on the organization of this process in super-tight deadlines, which Valve identified and scheduled an event on the first days of December. Qualifications consist of three stages: if to explain in general terms, then the winners of the first two stages go straight to Major, and the winners of the third stage go to Minor, from which they can also go to Major. We will have only two days (December 5-6) to hold qualifications for six regions of the world, and then we will find out who will play on WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020.
    As I already said, there is usually less attention to Minorams than to Major. This is the Small Tournament of the official Dota 2 competitive season, and fewer tournament points are played on it, due to which the teams can go to the main tournament of the year - The International. But I think that due to the non-standard location and our creative in broadcasting, we can cope with the task of attention to Minor.
    In this particular case, this is logistics, coordination and technical equipment. Because it's mountains, a ski resort.

How many people work on the preparation?

About four hundred people are involved in the process. But in fact, I think there will be more - if you count the partners of our partners.
Do you make Minor yourself or in partnership with someone?

In partnership. The first partner and co-organizer was precisely the Bukovel tourist complex (TC). In addition, at the moment we are in negotiations with both Ukrainian brands and international companies, and are open to a variety of proposals. Since the tournament will be broadcast online in at least four languages ​​- English, Ukrainian, Chinese and Russian - this is a very large both local and global audience of millenials with a fairly good family income (you need at least a gaming computer to play). That is why brands are interested in interacting with this audience as part of their sponsorship manifestations. And not only brands, but also broadcasters who use e-sports video content for OTT platforms, linear TV channels and even movie theaters.
Which TIR-1 team would you like to see?

Everyone 🙂 We are, of course, interested in WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020 played as many media teams as possible, but each team has its own strategy for participating in the current Dota Pro Cirquit season. We know for sure that some teams of the first echelon miss the first Minor and Major of the season for a number of reasons, so they will definitely play qualifications in December, and then everything will depend on their game preparation.