Reed Midem announces the launch of Esports BAR, the first-of-its-kind networking event dedicated to bringing together electronic sports professionals and commercial partners. Its goal: to facilitate relationships between mainstream investors and "esports" businesses on a global scale.
The inaugural Esports BAR will take place in Cannes, February 15-17, 2017.
The Esports BAR -short for Esports Business Arena- will ensure successful relationship development between non-endemic and endemic brands, media, esports teams, professional leagues, game publishers, advertising agencies and more.
Esports has attracted significant commercial attention in the past year, thanks in part to its massive reach and revenue potential: The esports industry currently enjoys over 115 million unique viewers worldwide, with revenues expected to reach US$ 1 billion by 2019, according to Newzoo.
More than 40 mainstream brands, including Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Gillette, Turner and ESPN, have already entered this competitive space, which is currently insulated from much non-endemic advertising. Yet existing esports conferences remain either industry or education-focused, with little or no focus on forging successful cross-sector business partnerships.
"Many brands and other potential partners have a hard time finding the right contacts to get involved in esports," says Jerome Delhaye, Director of Reed Midem’s Entertainment Division. "Reed Midem wanted to address this - as it has for the music industry, tech, television and the real estate industry - with a dedicated networking experience that will help these kinds of fruitful relationships flourish."
The esports networking wish list, all in one place.
For its inaugural event in Cannes, France, the Esports BAR will include 100+ curated attendees, 72 hours of networking and more than 2,000 one-to-one meetings with top company executives, making it an enormous potential lever for the evolution of the esports industry. From 15-17 February, 2017, esports companies from around the world will actively meet with prestigious brands, media and agencies in pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings.
To provide the most productive esports matchmaking event possible, Reed Midem has aligned itself with an advisory team of elite sector professionals, directly invested in the future of esports: Arnd Benninghoff, EVP, MTG & CEO, MTGx Ventures (Sweden); Matthieu Dallon, CEO, ESWC & Toornament.com and President, France Esports (France); Mike Sepso, SVP, Activision Blizzard (USA); Wouter Sleijffers, CEO, Fnatic (UK); and Susan Tully, CEO, H2K Gaming (USA).
"We want to create a powerful mix of industry trend-setters and forward-thinkers, all hunting for new partnership opportunities," explains Jerome Delhaye. "Over 70% of fans are between ages 20-35, a critical period for developing brand loyalty. An industry this powerful and with such potential deserves its own B2B event?"
