CEE Esports Report is a fortnightly news series covering the Central and Eastern Europe region, written by Esports Insider’s esports business media partner Esport1 CEE.
With several events already on the horizon, in this report we share details about some of the regional events coming in 2023. For a look back at 2022’s most important stories from Central & Eastern Europe, check out our earlier report here.
IEM Katowice returns with free expo
Poland’s Spodek Arena will host the world’s best CS:GO teams for the 10th time at IEM Katowice — a highly coveted event in the CS:GO tournament circuit — this year. The teams will fight for a share of the $1,000,000 (~£807,000) prize pool.
Organised by the ESL FACEIT Group and running since 2014, IEM Katowice will also feature female CS:GO competition ESL Impact, the StarCraft 2 EPT Championship, and for the first time, the freshly announced ESL R1 sim racing series.
Additionally, three years after the COVID lockdown, the IEM Expo is returning to Katowice and will once again be free to enter for visitors, who might have a chance to enjoy the best CS:GO teams in the free areas of Spodek.
Wandercon festival to host 11 esport competitions in Croatia
Croatian agency Reroot Gaming has announced Wandercon, a gaming and esports festival between 3rd-5th February 2023 in Osijek, Croatia.
The three day programme will feature various concerts, a global release for an upcoming puzzle game, influencer shows and 11 esports tournaments with a total prize pool of €40,000 (~£35,300). These include CS:GO, League of Legends, FIFA 23, VALORANT and others.
Visitors will also be able to try out the new Croatian game, Frozen Pixel Studio’s Joe Wander and the Enigmatic Adventures, during the event and participate in challenges to win prizes.
The Game Gang show to feature esports €10,000+ prize pool esport competitions
Between 31st March and 2nd April, The Game Gang show in the Ljubljana Exhibition Center will gather some of the best gamers from Slovenia to compete in six different games for a total prize pool of more than €10,000 (~£8,800).
This includes games like NBA 2K23 and F1 23. Alongside the esports programme, visitors can test their skills in various games, meet with content creators or play board games onsite.
Polish Hussar Cup to organise a $1m international CS:GO tournament
Poland’s Silesian Stadium will play host to the Hussar Cup, an international CS:GO competition and technology fair that claims to be “the largest esport event in Poland.”
According to the announcement, the event will be held under the patronage of Jakub Chełstowski, Polish local government official and ‘Marshal of the Silesian Voivodeship’. It will include a city military parade with ‘hussars’, conferences, and fan zones.
The $1m (~£878,000) competition will feature open and closed qualifiers, with four directly invited teams and the four best teams from the qualifiers competing at the offline event in the first weekend of September.
