VaKarM.net
"La ville de Marseille nous a contactés" - nix0n, organisateur du tournoi
|
Page 2: English Version
|
What will be the biggest CS:GO event to ever happen in France, the DreamHack Masters Marseille, is just a few days away. We asked a few questions to the organizer, Marc "nix0n" Winthers who explained us how the event came into existence.
 |
|
VaKarM : Why did you choose Marseille? Who were you in talk with to organize this event? Local businesses, national, “PACA” region or the city of Marseille? Marc "nix0n" Winther : We saw a good match taking CORSAIR DreamHack Masters to France and an opportunity came with Marseille. Marseille showed interest towards us, including multiple local officials and city heads and as such it was a pretty easy fit for us for our 2018 roadmap. Combine with our strong presence and success from what the French DreamHack team has put up for Tours over the past years, we believe this was a natural setup for us When was the beginning of your action to set the DreamHack Masters to Marseille? How long does it take to make an event like that, from the confirmation of the event to the first game? There is many hoops that you have to jump through before an agreement is finalized, let that be handshakes and or paperwork. We visited Marseille in late August last year, which was the first step in the process, until we announced the event in the early 2018. Since then planning and executing has been up in full speed. We sit on a strong team and many processes are similar to the previous events, though obviously with different challenges for each event.
What are the cost of a DreamHack Masters? Does it vary a depending on the host country? It varies a lot depending on location, accounting for renting and transporting material plays a huge part in that, including travel for staff and teams. To carry the costs of an event, you'd have to pocket out in the millions of euros. What is DreamHack’s business model? Are you still sponsor-dependent? B2B sponsorships obviously play a vital part in funding events, broadcast rights are becoming a great part of that funding too, on top of that B2C revenues for ticket sales, merchandise and so on. All in all, without sponsors there's no show. DreamHack is doing its “Open” circuit around the world but not is Asia or Oceania, where CS is growing. Aren’t you interested in doing an event there to be even more worldwide? DreamHack Open is an integral part of the DreamHack festivals around the world, where ever our festival events go, DreamHack Open follows. This year we are taking DreamHack Open to 8 different locations across the year, on top of that we have two CORSAIR DreamHack Masters events, so 10 in total. We are definitely always on the lookout for new locations and locations we've not been in before. While we are eager to go to a new country and city, or even continent, it has to make sense and local partners and contractors are important in order to achieve a success first step when entering a new marked. That said, we looking at Asia, amongst other countries around Europe and North America for the next expansion, so interest is definitely there.
During the first years of CS:GO, events productions were very innovative because everything had to be done. Now, it is rare to see a significant change from event to event. Do you feel this stagnation? If so, what causes it? There’s no doubt that we've come a long way since the early days of CS:GO, both when looking at the game itself and the event productions. I do believe we've reached a high standard for most event organizers now, but also that we've come to a point where raising the bar becomes even more difficult and mostly, comes at greater costs. I have no doubt that each organizer is toying with their on initiatives and developing behind closed doors, some will never see the light while some will eventually. Has it stagnated? Likely a little bit, but I still see boundaries being pushed. Valve launched a direct attack to gambling websites two weeks ago. What is your opinion on the advertisement for skin gambling websites aimed at our community, which is composed of many underage players? It's a subject which has been talked about lengthly over the past weeks and rightfully so. In my opinion, there has to be regulations around gambling, considering our community is consisting of minors. Whether the most recent move towards the gambling websites will have a great negative impact on the community, I do not know, but it's obvious that there has to be a line between regulating how sites and users can gamble, without violating terms and conditions, and or local laws and regulations. |
 |
nix0n est le maître de CS:GO chez DreamHack
Le dôme de Marseille, arène de la compétition|
Page 2: English Version
|
