Gm, welcome to the lobby.

It’s a special edition today with a deep dive into the first Halo Major event of 2024, hosted by OpTic Gaming at Esports Stadium Arlington in Texas.

Grab your coffee, ready up, and let’s drop in 🪂
Here’s what we have for you today:

• HCS Arlington: Halo esports, viewership, and fan support 🎮

• The Return of an Icon: Str8 Rippin’, Tsquared, Dr Pepper, & Razer ✨

• Deep Dive: How to make events fans actually want to attend 🏊

• Recapping the Action: Europe makes it's mark, what's M&K? 🔁  

🎮 HCS Arlington: Halo esports, viewership, and fan support

The Halo Championship Series (HCS) is the official esports league of Halo and HCS Arlington, hosted this past weekend, was the first event of the 2024 Halo esports season. The storylines were huge with Halo hoping to bring renewed energy into the game and with how tight the race to the championship was last year, this event was one to watch.

Attendance-wise, the event sold out of spectator passes by the week of the event. However, the event still had team passes available, with only 53 teams competing in the potential 64-team bracket. This is most likely due to the structure of the amateur scene and less on the event itself.

Viewership-wise, there seemed to me a slight decline compared to the 2023 kickoff event last year, HCS Charlotte. Let’s take a look at the numbers…

📊 HCS Arlington 2024 vs HCS Charlotte 2023

• Average Viewers - 43,822 (-23% Compared To HCS Charlotte 2023)

• Peak Viewership - 190,670 (-8% Compared To HCS Charlotte 2023)

• Hours Watched - 1,296,392 (+21% Compared To HCS Charlotte 2023)

source: EsportsCharts

👀 Our POV

From a viewers perspective, HCS Arlington was a great show and had great storylines to follow but if you’re the developers, you might not agree.

I think Halo will continue to struggle to break into being an “S-Tier” esport status due to console exclusivity. The chances of you ever playing Halo are purely determined by what console you have.

For me personally, my parents started me off with an Xbox which led to Halo being the first FPS I ever played. This meant I never got to experience PlayStation exclusives like Metal Gear Solid, Little Big Planet, The Last Of Us, etc. With Halo Infinite being the first Halo to have a major push in the PC gaming market, it might take a bit for the average PC gamer to pick up.

- Justin Palacios (Private Lobby)

✨ The Return of an Icon: Str8 Rippin’, Tsquared, Dr.Pepper, & Razer

Following a successful merch collab with SpaceStation Gaming (SSG) last year, the historic Halo organization Str8 Rippin’ re-entered the Halo competitive scene. If you weren’t around for the Major League Gaming (MLG) era of Halo, Str8 Rippin’ was iconic. Their leader, Tom "Tsquared" Taylor was like the “Ninja” of his era.

Tsquared was signed to a $250K contract by MLG and hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money and endorsement deals each year, and in 2008/2009, his face appeared on over 175 million Dr Pepper bottles across the US as part of a promotional sponsorship for MLG.

Returning to Halo — right out of the gate, Str8 Rippin’ announced a partnership with Razer. As a part of the partnership, Str8 Rippin’ & Razer created a custom Octagon map, a style of map used by Halo players to warm up or to prove their skill against their friends, featuring the Str8 Rippin’ & Razer branding. HCS Arlington attendees were able to test out the map at the event using Razer products such as their laptops, controllers, and headsets.

👀 Our POV

It’s always great to see iconic brands return, especially when the face of the org is still leading the charge. Seeing the nostalgia-inducing merch they brought to HCS Arlington was great, clearly inspired by the style of merch they put out in the MLG days.

I love the idea of Str8 Rippin’ giving fans a chance to play some Halo. For myself, I always find myself itching to play a game after watching it at a high level. Being able to integrate their sponsor in every aspect from branding on the map, to using their laptops & controllers highlights both Str8 Rippin & RAZER in an easy and organic way to the Halo player.

- Justin Palacios (Private Lobby)

🏊 Deep Dive: How to make events fans actually want to attend

We live in a world where the majority of people would rather watch sporting events from the comfort of their living room instead of going to the game.

Esports is no different and more than likely skews even further towards viewing from home. So how do event organizers drive enough gaming & esports fans into stadiums for their live events to make the events sustainable?

At any event, you have to have side programming or activities that give people something to do in the downtime during the event or even just when they need a breather from the full-day event. Engaging activations, branded or not, are vital to the event experience and for creating an event fans actually want to attend.

👀 Inside Look

Let’s take a look at what the Halo Championship Series and hosts, OpTic Gaming, were able to put together for fans at the HCS Arlington Major.

Most of the activation action in Arlington was driven by the teams participating in the event. This is no surprise but the event did feel light on brand activations, perhaps a byproduct of downward trend in viewership for Halo esports.

• CordaRoy’s: The beanbag brand, who previously appeared on Shark Tank, took over the front row of the venue. They provided fans with a relaxing spot to lay down in a beanbag and enjoy the main stage. This is a really fun activation and laying in a CordaRoy is almost as good as laying in your own bed to watch esports.

• Cloud9: Cloud9 took advantage of their space with efficiency. They brought a bit of fun to their booth with the “Cloud9 Free Prize Drop” game, a “Cloud9 Poster Making Station”, and of course Cloud9 merch, all conveniently located right beside the Dippin’ Dots stand. Yeah ok sorry, that's not relevant, I just love Dippin’ Dots.
  

• OpTic Gaming: The hosts always draw a crowd with their merch. This event was no different and their Halo themed merch line they dropped just before the event gave many fans the event keepsake they wanted.

• Scuf: The gaming controller company had a booth set up in the main area, providing fans a chance to check out the new OpTic Gaming Scuf controller, along with other OpTic branded controllers. With the open bracket happening right across the hall & passionate fans of the Green Wall - this was the perfect spot to showcase their controllers. I (Justin) remember getting my first ever Scuf at my first esports event as a souvenir to remember the event (And to grind the GameBattles ladder).
  

• Str8 Rippin’: The iconic brand made a big splash with their comeback alongside Razer and their HCS Arlington booth served as an extension of their campaign with Razer. Their gaming station activation with Razer showed off the Razer Wolverine V2 controller and gave fans a chance to play Halo while at the event. Gaming station activations always do well and it's really cool to see Razer take advantage of the opportunity to plug their specific product that serves the majority of Halo fans.

5️⃣ More Things

Ok, there’s a few more levers that the HCS utilized to drive attendance beyond the event activations. Let’s dive in:

1. 3-Day General Admission Tickets:

   • Price: $50

   • Entry into the venue for the entirety of the event.

   • Free Access to compete in FFA and Side Tournaments.

   • GA will receive a Halo Waypoint token that unlocks all in-game Twitch Drops offered during the event.

2. Team Discount Codes: To provide extra value to fans and allow fans to support participating teams directly, you could use a teams’ code at check out to receive a 10% discount on your tickets and when you saved 10%, the teams received 10%.

3. Open Bracket Tournament: Teams of 4 players could enter into the event for a chance to play through the open bracket and make it into pool play to face off against professional players on the partner teams in the HCS for a share of $250K.

4. $5,000 FFA Tournament: Open to all event attendees!

5. Side events:

   

   Source: Halo Waypoint

⚡ Quick Take

It’s not easy to get people to events, especially in games that aren’t at their peak right now like Halo. The HCS and OpTic did a good job of giving the more hardcore Halo fans things to do. Though fans that were looking to keep themselves entertained instead of watching or playing Halo throughout the 3-day event were likely disappointed.

Events are expensive. Event organizers need brand activations, both for the financial incentive, but also to flesh out the event experience. I love the effort and work out of the teams that did activate at the event but I would hope to see more brand activations at this event next year, if it happens.

- Zach Eller (Private Lobby)

🔁 Recapping the Action: Europe makes it's mark, what's M&K?

The thing I love about Halo is that you never really know who will win it all each weekend. Any of the top teams could come out hot and take it all - and that’s what we saw from Spacestation Gaming (SSG).

SSG made one of the biggest moves this offseason in dropping Deadzone (aka Penguin) for European star Lqgend. SSG proved the move to be worth it, taking the win in the grand finals against OpTic Gaming.

🌍 Europe Makes Its Mark In Halo

With Lqgend winning it all with SSG in Arlington, he becomes the highest-placing EU player in Halo HISTORY.

🖱️⌨️ Mouse & Keyboard Makes History

Halo is traditionally played with a controller due to strong aim assist & the movement mechanics needed to compete at the highest level. It’s rare to see players opt to use a mouse & keyboard. However, 17-year-old WuTum defied the odds and made history placing top 6 at HCS Arlington. The highest placement for any Mouse & Keyboard player.

- Justin Palacios (Private Lobby)

💼 Job Board

• Sponsorship Sales Manager for Complexity Gaming (Frisco, TX)

• Accounting Clerk for Complexity Gaming (Frisco, TX)

• Social Brand Strategist for 100 Thieves (Culver City, CA)

• Head of Marketing for Flashbulb Games (Copenhagen, DK)

• Sales Director for Esports Awards (Remote)

A huge shoutout to James Clark for getting us these great shots from the event! Check him out on Twitter!

🤝 Share Private Lobby

Help your colleagues, friends, and teammates stay up to date on the latest gaming & esports marketing news by sharing our link: https://privatelobby.gg/subscribe

Disclaimer: our views are ours and in no way represent those of our employers.