Feedback 4 Dreamhack (S24)

As Helena Kristiansson kindly reminded me of, it's mine (and her) 20 year anniversary with Dreamhack. Me being predominantly a winter-gal, now that winter has moved to Stockholm the only time I will be in J?nk?ping is likely to visit the event during summer.

One of my future visions is bringing my kids to see where mom studied and played many moons ago, which is why I see it as important to surface some feedback with regard to the event this year - so that there is an event to bring them to in the future.

I do believe that if we work as a community together, we can restore the Nordic esports scene to what it was (or more) and not risk losing these events - as already a number of LANs like Birdie have been cancelled or permanently shut down.

Here are (with love) my two cents on what can be done better:

Logistics & Layout

There is a logical order and way to do booths at DH and we've known it for decades. I've built some of them myself (thanks Steelseries for letting a 20sth girl do everything on her own). So to me, there is not reason to move things around - gamers don't want THAT type of novelty. We just want to be able to zombie our way to the stores without having to use our mental capacity - as we are spending that on games.

It was impossible to move in a smooth manner, in spite of there being less visitors on Elmia than I am used to. Booths were sub-par, oriented in weird manners, furnished badly and often non-manned and with low to no engagement. And for the Webhallen store (which is now the Elgiganten store?) if you want us to leave jackets, bags, and what not at the door there needs to be a secure way of doing that.

Food

My biggest pet peeve this year. I ate sallads for a week to prep my stomach for the delicious goodness of deep fried goods and energy beverages, only to find there were hardly any on site. No Billy's pizza, no burgers, no churros - but an expensive sub-par wok, sandwiches and sallads were freely available. The D-hall (more on the D-hall itself later) had nothing, it was completely empty. I get Elmia has a contract with whomever to deliver food to the event - but a big organization as yourselves is bound to push that suggestion away for the sake of your target group. Festival food is our culture - let us have this one weekend of fried goodness.

Age group orientation

I get that we are attracting a younger audience, and I am fine with that. But what is there to do for anyone above 17? Especially business wise. Where are the partner engagement areas, where can we network and meet eachother? I know you sent out an email and highlighted which DH spokes person is on site, but we would kinda need a bit more than that. Why not do a meetup for mgmt teams and partners? Or big non-endemic brands? Easy things to do to have an impact beyond J?nk?ping.

D-hall

Seriously you guys, what is going on with the D-hall? One of my favorite moments at DH is going down the escalator and seeing the LAN in all its glory. This year, I saw an ARLA cow and some big paper walls. For the love of God, I respect that you did a premium segment but can you perhaps merge that in the hall and separate it by sections so we still get the vibe of LAN? Because right now that was the most underwhelming view I have ever seen (and I pumped my friend up about that part for hours, as it was her first DH).

Stages

Again difficult to understand the logic behind, sound isolation was non-existent. If you moved them to the A-hall instead you could have made that part more focused. I also don't understand why you would put ESL Challenger way in the back? Next to a screamy dodgeball tournament. This had a negative effect on the crowd and some people (like MIBR) were playing in dead silence. I'm sure it affects player performance. Additionally, when making the schedule, perhaps make sure the local teams play on the day with the most visitors (?) so that the fans who have fulltime jobs have a chance to see them too.

On the plus side, I felt the tournaments themselves were running like clockwork and all the animations on screens were clear and great. Would have loved someone like friberg, Devilwalk or equivalent to be commenting this so that we could get more in depth analysis rather than comments about hairstyles etc. But perhaps that is just me being me, and my history talking.

Entertainment

If you have oriented this event around children, I have a hard time understanding why you would invite artists who sing about drug use, or call themselves Miss Filth? Like I appreciate there were female artists on site and the female talent ration overall on the event was really good, but please find a way to be consistent about target group and representation. Where is Dj Mangoo? Kygo? Alan Walkers? Or Basshunter who has been re-releasing classical hits again. Gamers will be happy to play at DH, ask them.

Again, I LOVE this event. I'm excited for it every year. The more I have to work the less I have an opportunity to be on site, so these are the few chances I get to meet my old friends. This event was my first home, my first job and I grew up there.

I'm just really afraid that if we don't step it up, we're going to have to shut it down. That is the only reason I feel like I could deliver this level of radical feedback.

Am open to hear if anyone else had any other perspectives to share? Let's help eachother make DH great again ??