Location(s) Europe | Country Sweden | |
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Genre Esports
LAN Party and computer festival Frequency Bi-annual (Winter and Summer) Venue Elmia Exhibition and Convention Centre Inaugurated December 9, 1994; 22 years ago (1994-12-09) | ||
DreamHack is a Swedish digital festival, the largest in the world. It's a local area network gathering with live concerts and competitions in digital art and eSports that was first held in Malung, Sweden. DreamHack consists of several events held throughout Europe: in Stockholm and Jönköping, Sweden, Tours, France, Bucharest and Cluj, Romania, Valencia, Spain, London, England and Leipzig, Germany. In May 2016 DreamHack held its first event on the American continent in Austin, Texas. In August 2016, it held its first event in Montreal, Quebec.
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It is recognized by the Guinness Book of Records and Twin Galaxies as being the world's largest LAN party and computer festival, as well as having the world's fastest Internet connection, and the most generated traffic. The Internet connection record was beaten in 2012 by the second largest computer festival in the world: The Gathering in Norway.
In 2007, the founders of DreamHack received a diploma of honor from the municipality of Jönköping, Sweden for being important to business, education and society of the local community.
Event summary
DreamHack calls itself the world's largest "digital festival". The winter event consistently has approximately 10% more visitors than the summer event, but in other respects they are quite similar. Both events are 72 hours (stretching over 4 days), and have scheduled activity around the clock, every day.
As of winter 2011, the event covers the entire Elmia Exhibition and Convention Centre as well as the neighbouring ice hockey arena and racket sports centre. The total number of participants were 27,000, of which ~800 were crew.
Attendees' ages range from elementary school to senior citizens, though the average age is 16-17. People arrive from all over the world to participate. The latest DreamHack competition took place in Romania Bucharest between 24 and 27 April 2015.
The event consists of five major components: the festival, the gaming competitions, the digital arts competitions, the live concerts and the expo.
DreamHack is arranged with the help of about 800 volunteers, set up in "Crew Teams". They work in shifts to provide service for the visitors around the clock, like the support crew that have a helpdesk where the participants can address their technical problems. The organization also relies on local police and security officers who patrol the area.
History
DreamHack began as a small gathering of schoolmates and friends in the basement of an elementary school in Malung in the early '90s. In 1994 it was moved to the school cafeteria and became one of the larger regional demoparties at the time. The 1994 gathering was also the first one to go by the name DreamHack.
In 1997 the event took place at Arena Kupolen in Borlänge and became the largest LAN party of Sweden and the third largest party in Scandinavia at the time. Furthermore, DreamHack 2001 and the upcoming events were held at the Elmia exhibition centre in Jönköping, where it has been since.
Starting the year 2002, DreamHack became a semiannual event with DreamHack Summer, aiming for games, taking place in June and DreamHack Winter, slightly more specific for the demo scene, being held during the last weekend of November. This difference has since blurred and perhaps been completely erased.
In 2011, DreamHack AB went through a corporate reform, renewing the company administration. DreamHack Winter 2011 was host to the League of Legends Season 1 World Championship. The next year's League of Legends World Championship was held independently.
It was announced on November 15, 2012 that DreamHack would be partnering with Major League Gaming (MLG) and Electronic Sports League (ESL) to help facilitate the growth and development of the North American and European eSports scene. This partnerships includes universal rankings, unified competition structures and more.
In 2013, the now fully featured corporation DreamHack AB also began arranging a third event during the late summer, in Stockholm. It was hosted at Globe Arenas in 2014.
In November 2015 Modern Times Group bought 100% of DreamHack for an enterprise value of SEK 244 million. At the Winter 2015 event, commentator Richard Lewis and Alliance Dota 2 player Jonathan 'Loda' Berg had a physical altercation, which resulted in Lewis's permanent ban from future DreamHack events.
Ultra Street Fighter IV
This was part of the 2014 Capcom Pro Tour, the series of qualifiers for Capcom Cup 2014.
Ultra Street Fighter IV
DreamHack Winter 2015 was the last Premier Event of that year's Capcom Pro Tour and the third to be won by Kun Xian Ho.
Street Fighter V
DreamHack Summer was one of the eleven Premier Events of the 2016 Capcom Pro Tour. The Street Fighter V tournament was won by Arman "Phenom" Hanjani, who beat Fuudo in the finale and subsequently earned $7,000 USD and qualified for the 2016 Capcom Cup.