Every year, League of Legends fans scramble to buy tickets to the esports’ biggest event of the year, the World Championship. Tickets usually sell out in minutes, and with this year’s event taking place in North America for the first time since 2016, things were tougher than ever before.
The tickets were sold out in mere moments today as fans logged into the Ticketmaster website and lined up in the virtual queue, according to multiple would-be Worlds attendees. With thousands of fans vying to watch their favorite teams compete on the grandest stage of them all, there weren’t a lot of expectations around a smooth purchasing experience.
The venues for the play-in stage, group stage, and knockout stage are all relatively small. The LLA Studio in Mexico City only seats 130 people, while the Hulu Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York City can only hold about 5,600 fans.
The State Farm Arena in Atlanta, on the other hand, can hold about 21,000 people for the semifinals, while the finals will be held at the Chase Center in San Francisco, which could have around 18,000 people in attendance. It’s unknown, however, if the State Farm Arena and Chase Center will have all of their seats in use.
It also didn’t help general admission fans that over the past two days, Verified Fan users and Mastercard holders were given pre-sale access to tickets, making it even harder to grab tickets once access for all was given. Once fans were given the seat map for the various venues, many seats were already taken.
For those who weren’t fast enough to buy tickets, there are already resellers who have jacked up the ticket prices for each stage. Some prices have gone up by twice the amount they were originally set for, with lower-level tickets going for as much as $200 each in New York.
