Jelly’s community and event management team have been working on PES League for over ten years, developing the online tournament into an annual offline esports event attended by players from all over the world. This year, Jelly devised an entirely new strategy to bring PES League even closer to becoming a major contender in the world of esports.

The Road to Cardiff European Season One Regional Finals was the first of multiple tournaments that will take place in the lead up to the PES 2017 World Finals. For this, Jelly brought sixteen players to FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium for a gala competition on February 11th 2017. Jelly utilised its entire spectrum of services for client Konami to ensure the first European Regional Finals ran like clockwork and reached its biggest audience of esports enthusiasts yet.

Online & Offline Marketing

One of the very first steps in improving the quality of PES League was a revised social media campaign. Jelly’s design and community management teams collaborated to create content that would bring community members the latest PES League fixtures and tournament information. This content included a set of personalised player profile videos; maps illustrating the #RoadToCardiff journey; and a number of GIF and video assets that were used directly on FC Barcelona’s own social media channels, reaching an audience of over 600M.

Event Management

Jelly’s top priority was to make the PES League European Season One Regional Finals its most seamless event yet and to give the finalists the full VIP ‘footballer’ experience. Orchestrating every facet of the tournament, Jelly’s events team managed everything from venue co-ordination and branding to transport and catering – even going so far as to secure the official FC Barcelona Team Bus to transport the players to and from the stadium where they got the opportunity to meet FC Barcelona centre-back, Gerard Piqué.

The events team managed the PES League broadcast, kitting out the main-stage with LED screens which would simultaneously showcase the tournament and the players’ live reactions. In addition, Jelly coordinated filming with several different film crews including UEFA and FC Barcelona TV to create content to be used in the live stream, across social media, and for post-event activations.

Live Stream

Each and every offline PES League event that Jelly broadcasts draws thousands of viewers from both PES fans and the wider gaming community; the European Season One  Regional Final was no exception. The tournament was live streamed on the world’s leading gaming video platform, Twitch TV to an audience of over 2M. The live stream was hosted by Jelly’s own Head of Community, Graham Day, along with some of the most notable talent in esports commentary.  This included PES League personality Adam Butcher and professional esports commentators Alan Brice and Chris Tunn.

As a direct response to community demand, Jelly’s tech team had been working on a solution that that would allow them to stream multiple broadcasts since the PES League World Finals 2016. As such, this was the very first PES League event to record both individual matches and live stream those being played on the tournament stage simultaneously; ensuring each and every finalist had the opportunity to show off their skills and represent their territories.

Breaking into esports

The European Season One Regional Finals marked a significant change in the PES League World Finals format. What originally consisted of a two leg league (National and World Finals) developed into a tournament consisting of four cross-territory Regional Finals (two European, one American, and one Asian) leading up to the World Final taking place alongside Cardiff’s UCL Festival in June 2017.

The PES League format was revaluated after the 2016 World Finals as the first step in realising Konami’s ambition of establishing PES League in the professional esports circuit. Alongside offering the finalists a more familiar esports structure, Jelly’s events team ensured the players were treated like esports professionals throughout the tournament. This was supplemented with filming and photography sessions, private interviews, and executive travel and accommodation.

Jelly is hard at work finalising preparations for the next leg of the PES League European Regional Finals which will be taking place at Liverpool FC’s Anfield Stadium on the April 29th. The event management team is also currently liaising with partner agencies overseas on behalf of Konami to orchestrate the American Regional Finals taking place in April 2017.

Are you looking to bring your own eSports event to life? Perhaps you’d like to develop your social media and community engagement strategy? Jelly offers a range of services from partnership building and public relations to event management and streaming & video content. Contact us today.