THOUSANDS of gamers of all ages from across the UK are set to descend upon the Ricoh Arena for Insomnia52 over the August Bank Holiday (August 22 to 25).
Multiplay, the organisers of the UK’s largest gaming festival, say it is their biggest event in the 14 years it has been running and will attract between 35,000 and 40,000 gamers.
Insomnia52 will also feature big name acts including international DJ Zane Lowe and YouTube phenomenon Syndicate of TheSyndicateProject, who has attracted almost 8 million online followers for his daily videos and blogs.
The festival has a wide age and gender appeal and will draw family visitors as well as so-called ‘hard-core’ BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) gamers. Thousands of other gamers from all over the world will also be able to watch the action online.
Josh Ling at Multiplay said: “This is the biggest Insomnia Gaming Festival we have ever held. Last year we had a total footfall of over 25,000, and even over the past year the event has gained in momentum, growing massively. The Insomnia Gaming Festival offers gamers who interact mostly online a great opportunity to come and meet each other in real life and network.”
And city-based WarwickNet, the region’s fastest growing provider of business grade broadband, says it will not lose sleep over its commitment to power the multi-gigabit connectivity at the event.
WarwickNet, which is a major national Internet service provider (ISP) delivering superfast connectivity to business parks across large parts of the Midlands, as well as powering the next generation of local television stations, is powering Insomnia for the second successive year.
With increased attendance and the fact modern games demand ever-increasing quality graphics, the connectivity of the event is critical.
Ben King, managing director of WarwickNet, said: “We are thrilled to be supporting the Insomnia Gaming Festival for the second year running. Our core business is connecting business and industrial parks so companies based there can perform both competitively and globally in the cut-throat commercial arena – which is not too dissimilar to bringing high-quality competitive gaming to life on the Internet. The event will be a lot of fun for everyone involved.”
