League of Legends & Valorant
TESS Creative Safety is proud to be the active risk management partner of RIOT GAMES and their events around the globe. In 2023, Valorant brought its championship series to Los Angeles, which was supported by TESS Creative Safety experts, who looked at aspects from technical and production safety, to crew, health and wellness, and crisis management planning. The team helped the tour through challenging events, such as both a hurricane and an earthquake during production.
TESS Creative Safety deploys team members to League of Legends tournaments all over the world, including the championships that have happened in South Korea, China, Brazil, Europe, and beyond.
Asian organizers ConCom Inc and League of Legends contracted us to support them hosting three events. The over-arching aim was to adapt buildings not designed to host this kind of event into world class venues suitable for safe, effective Riot Games regional semi-finals and final.
E-gaming is a rising star in the events sector, with fans craving the opportunity to see the on-screen players competing in live e-gaming tournaments. We were entrusted to protect the assets to the gaming world, in particular the integrity of the servers and the live streaming and broadcast elements so central to the fabric of the event.
Our trusted global experience of event risk management and live production, coupled with local knowledge of event production having worked on the previous years’ League of Legends World Final’s in Seoul, was invaluable. This meant we were prepared for the additional technical elements integral in e-gaming shows, along with the more generic, but never-the-less detailed, contingencies for ingress and egress.
As qualified event professionals, we were present throughout the planning, installation and during the events. Hong Kong based TESS production manager Craig Maroun was on the ground for the Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi events. With the first show in a temporary structure, on the roof of a sixth-floor shopping Mall in a region prone to electrical storms, particular attention was paid to ingress, egress and evacuation contingencies. The second show was in a basketball arena, with the 22 basketball players usually resident replaced with hundreds of gamers and equipment. Jon Curbishly and Hong Kong based TESS director Jimmy Chan began their build in Taipei for the next level of regional finals, while Craig was overseeing his event’s load-out went off safely in a seamless cross-over.
