ESL’s Managing Director Pro Gaming, Ulrich Schulze, was recently interviewed by Entania.com regarding ESL's Dota 2 event to be held in June.

GosuGamers brings you the translated version of the interview. While the first part touches on various general topics, the second part exclusively revolves around the upcoming Dota 2 event that aims to be the first to fill a football stadium in Central Europe in barely three months time.

Interviewer: Can you please describe the concept of the first months of the initial ESL One Dota 2 season for better understanding of the full scope of things?

Ulrich Schulze: Our first major event in Dota 2 will happen in the Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt. After our announcement at the end of February we will start with ticket sales and run qualifiers in multiple regions in April and May. The community will be able to increase the prize pool and we’ll be running a few other interesting activities. By the end of June the real event will happen over the course of two days. The Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt will become an eSports stadium.

Interviewer: By selecting the Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, this is the first eSports event on German soil to take place in a large stadium. What led to this decision?

Schulze: The operator wants to fill the off-season of football with a variety of activities. A part of this time will be used for public screening events during the Soccer World Championship, another aspect will be concerts. We got into conversation since the whole topic of eSports was entirely missing, even though there is the potential to attract thousands of spectators. Dota 2 was identified to the ideal title quickly. We searched for a date, worked out a concept and started planning.

Interviewer: Which number of spectators does ESL require for this event to be profitable?

Schulze: We had 50000 spectators across the whole duration of IEM Katowice last year. If we can gather half of that for both days combined in Frankfurt we’ll consider the event a success. But we’ll of course work hard throughout the next months to excel this figure and create the largest live event in the history of Dota 2.

Interviewer: Is that realistic?

Schulze: Other eSports events of similar size sold out in very short time. Plus there is no other comparable event in Central Europe but The International 2011, which happened during GamesCom in Cologne. Frankfurt is easy to reach from all corners of Germany and Europe. And the event itself is meant to have pioneer character: for the first time eSports will happen in a FOOTBALL STADIUM – the atmosphere will be unique. All this makes us very confident, even though we’re fully aware that we need to put in lots of work still.

Interviewer: Which planning points require most attention until the start of this event?

Schulze: Despite our experience this event will be a next level challenge in terms of logistics. Ensuring that all spectators are comfortable while the teams are comfortable as well is what we will have to focus on the next weeks and months. And of course the ticket sales. We will be advertising with TV commercials, community websites and also want to loop in the participating teams and any other channel possible.

Interviewer: Which existing and new channels of communication will you trigger for this event in Frankfurt?

Schulze: We’ll be utilizing the common channels like Reddit, community websites and our own portals and social media accounts. On top of that we’ll be cooperating with traditional TV and are going to put traditional advertising creative in the area of Frankfurt.

Interviewer: As an event on German soil, cooperation with local eSports media appears to be of major importance, but those are dwindling for some time already. How much does this impact the development of ESL and your events?

Schulze: It’s a pity that websites like readmore.de don’t own this position as a leading media anymore. Certainly though our own channels and new platforms like Reddit are well-placed and the interested User has followed us to those places. German Dota 2 fans now seem to prefer the website of joinDota, which is also produced in Germany. We had to adjust our approach to those platforms, but apart of that there’s no real negative effects.

Interviewer: Will this Dota 2 event in the Commerzbank Arena in its size become a blueprint for upcoming ESL One tournaments or will it remain a unique event for now?

Schulze: CS:GO will happen in a stadium in Katowice. Battlefield 4 is going to have its final event at GamesCom. And in the second half of this year we already got a bunch of interesting plans. Of course it won’t be a stadium every time and especially events in our own studio have their own and special atmosphere as the spectator is really close to the teams. But in general Katowice and Frankfurt set the agenda for eSports development as a whole: really huge locations with corresponding crowds.

Interviewer: a small scenario at the end: how could an ESL One event in one or two years from now look like?

Schulze: To be honest I just hope that our event in Frankfurt will become a benchmark for the next two years. A stadium packed with fans and a stage with the best teams of the world. If this comes true I’m all fine if it stays like this for the next two years.

Interviewer: Thanks for the conversation, Mr. Schulze.

Source: Entania.com