It’s early in the morning and we have to leave our beloved Intel Pack4DreamHack bus; we arrived at DreamHack! During most editions this is the point where I wake up after barely two hours of sleep and when I exit the vehicle I can only think about how cold it is. This year was no different, but I have to say that the 2014 DreamHack editions were way more worth it. Both DreamHack Summer 2014 and DreamHack Winter 2014 were a lot of fun with great moments! To be honest, after my first DreamHack I wasn’t sure if I liked the event much. Working at Duh-Events I haven’t had the opportunity to skip an edition since DreamHack Winter 2011 and whenever people asked me why they should join our bus, I answered that I wasn’t really the audience. After that I told them what other people liked about it of course, so I talked about the competitive esports scene, the hardstyle acts and being with friends. I had great moments at the 2013 editions of DreamHack as well, but after the two 2014 editions I can finally be enthusiastic about DreamHack. So let’s tell you some of my positive experiences!
The esports scene is something that is always fun to follow, but after we entered the ice hockey stadium next door to see some StarCraft II for three minutes (we really entered the stadium at a wrong time) I unfortunately haven’t seen a lot of it myself. Or well, nowadays the esports part of DreamHack moved their booths to Hall B, where we are sitting as well. It’s impossible not to see any esports when the view behind your computer screen consists of the HearthStone stage for instance. Also, the Counter-Strike audience was going wild enough to check out what the heck was going on, so I did manage to check it out. Since I was busy doing other stuff for our packers as well, I mostly had to be up to date by checking out the brackets online. The Netherlands scored quite some points this year in StarCraft II, Hearthstone and Counter-Strike. During the summer edition, Packer SjaaK managed to promote from an unknown player to an eyecatcher, getting into the Best of 16 before getting knocked out. ThijsNL reached the quarter finals in Hearthstone during summer, and managed to reach second place during the winter edition. Counter-Strike team Nodachi came with us this winter and won one of the three BYOC CS:GO tournaments, while obtaining the second place a day later. Quite something to be proud of.
Earlier I named the esports scene, the hardstyle acts and being with friends. Let’s add the cosplay scene to that list. While I missed the cosplay show during DreamHack Summer, I was determined to bring some cosplayers with us to Sweden. There were a few cosplayers at Firstlook in Utrecht and I quickly became a fan of one of them: Merel, better known as Willow. She cosplayed Hecarim, my favourite League of Legends champion, so I simply had to invite her to come to Sweden with us. After she signed up to tag along together with a few other cosplayers, I learned a lot about the cosplay scene. I had a good time with the cosplayers and they seemed to have fun as well, so I was very happy.
What made me even more happy was the costumes the cosplayers brought. Both Jeroen Weimar and Luc Marc made some great pictures, showing off Merel as a World of Warcraft Worgen DeathKnight, Shannon as Ahri, Erik as Ezreal (both from League of Legends) and Diana as Ahri, Miss Fortune (League again) and a bad-ass Diablo 3 Barbarian. Unfortunately, Merel had some bad luck. Someone apparently broke her sword and before she got on stage for the official cosplay competition, one of her stilts broke, leaving her unable to enter the competition. While Merel was having her worst cosplay experience possible, Diana had her best one yet: she won first place! After Chris and I were very careful with her Barbarian weapons and helmet, she just threw them on the stage in some kind of spectacular motion, winning the love of the judges. Totally awesome and well deserved!
We had a lot of fun during this edition. A few packers even made me look forward to the hardstyle acts. Normally I listen to rock and metal, but listening and dancing to some hardstyle for a little more than an hour is actually a lot of fun as well.
DreamHack finally managed to convince me about its hotness. Esports is growing fast, the cosplay show is a nice addition for their mainstage, there is enough great music to ensure that you aren’t on your computer the whole time and there is a cool expo with a lot of variety. Hope to see you all next year!
– Jeroen den Hartog
