Reed MIDEM Plans B2B Event for eSports

PARIS: Reed MIDEM is launching Esports BAR, a first-of-its-kind networking event dedicated to bringing together electronic sports professionals and commercial partners.

The inaugural Esports BAR will take place in Cannes, from February 15 to 17, 2017. The Esports BAR (short for Esports Business Arena) is meant to facilitate successful relationship development between non-endemic and endemic brands, media, eSports teams, professional leagues, game publishers, advertising agencies and more.

For its first outing in Cannes, the Esports BAR will include 100-plus curated attendees, 72 hours of networking and more than 2,000 one-to-one meetings with top company executives, making it an enormous potential lever for the evolution of the eSports industry.

“Many brands and other potential partners have a hard time finding the right contacts to get involved in eSports,” said Jerome Delhaye, the director of Reed MIDEM’s entertainment division. “Reed MIDEM wanted to address this—as it has for the music industry, tech, television and the real estate industry—with a dedicated networking experience that will help these kinds of fruitful relationships flourish.”

“We want to create a powerful mix of industry trendsetters and forward-thinkers, all hunting for new partnership opportunities,” added Delhaye. “Over 70 percent of fans are between ages 20 to 35, a critical period for developing brand loyalty. An industry this powerful and with such potential deserves its own B2B event?”