M4 Championship changes venues a month before the event

15 December 2022

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Mobile legends M4
(ESI Illustration) Image credit: MOONTON Games

The M4 World Championship (M4), Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’s (MLBB) final event of its seasonal esports circuit, has changed its venues less than a month before the LAN event.

In a statement issued by the organisers, the original venue, XO Hall, was replaced by Bali United Studio for the group stage. Meanwhile, the knockout stages will now occur at the Tenis Indoor Stadium Senayan.

The developers of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, MOONTON, noted “a recent unfortunate incident” as the reason behind the change. Unfortunately, the original venue for its Group Stage, the XO Hall, suffered a fire on Monday, December 5th. Although the fire was put under control, it is reasonable that it is not plausible for an event such as M4 to take place there such a short time afterwards.

The Istora Senayan GBK was originally meant to be the venue for the competition’s knockouts. However, the stage has now also been moved to a smaller venue at the Tennis Indoor Stadium, which is located close to the previous venue.

MOONTON shared the following statement: “Due to these unforeseen circumstances and in order to provide the best possible experience for fans, we have decided to move the group stage venue to the Bali United Studio and the knockout stage venue to the Tennis Indoor Stadium Senayan. This is done to ensure that we can provide a safe and conductive experience for our teams, fans, and gaming community.”

Unfortunately for fans who already purchased tickets, the new venues will have less seating space than the original venue, as such some ticket holders will be issued refunds. MOONTON shared that impacted ticket holders for the knockout stage will also get 250 MLBB in-game diamonds as compensation, in addition to a refund.

For context, the Istora Senayan GBK has a capacity of over 7000 whereas the Tennis Indoor Stadium Senayan holds an estimated 3300.

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The M4 is set to take place on January 1st, 2023, in Indonesia, and will have a prize pool of $800,000 (~£648,000). The event is the largest MLBB event in the calendar. Its last edition, which took place in late 2021 attracted almost 3.2m peak viewers, according to Esports Charts. The M3 saw more peak viewers than PGL Major Stockholm 2021 and was the fourth most-watched esports event of 2021.

Ivan Šimić
Ivan comes from Croatia, loves weird simulator games, and is terrible at playing anything else. Spent 5 years writing about tech and esports in Croatia, and is now doing it here.