EU LCS : The Backstage Experience

by Chase "RedShirtKing" Wassenar

For the average fan, attending the LCS is an incredible experience. You get to sit with a few thousand people, each of whom are just as passionate about the scene as you are, as you watch your favourite teams face off head-to-head in front of your very eyes. Much like more traditional sports, there's a certain sense of energy that comes from joining in chants, seeing the players' reactions in real time, and bonding with fellow fans over that crazy triple kill that you couldn't see coming and OH MY GOD HOW DID HE ESCAPE THAT GANK?!? Add in the more personal touches like the ability to high-five players after the game or get autographs from teams willing to stick around that have been lost from many live sporting events, and you have an experience that cannot be matched.

I love League of Legends, but this eSport is more than just a fandom for me. As a writer for Paravine with my own weekly podcast and the occasional talk show appearance on Into the Rift, the ability to attend the LCS is not just a chance to see my favourite teams try to prove their worth on the big stage, but is also my chance to get some serious work done. While the fans go crazy over their poro gear in the stands, I'm backstage in the press room live tweeting games, arranging interviews with team managers (after desperately trying to track down their information, of course), taking notes, prepping for the next piece of content, and making professional connections that will help in my future work within the scene. It can be hectic at times, especially when you're not used to the experience, but it is also easily some of the most fun I've ever had. Ever wonder what it's like to attend the EU LCS as a semi-professional journalist? Read on to find out.

It's Not about the Style

You know that incredible crowd I was telling you about in the opening paragraph? When you're working in the press, you don't spend much time in the stands. Instead, as soon as you pick up that fancy press pass (which takes only slightly less interrogation than it takes the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to pick up their lanyards if they don't find your name on the press list right away), you're led backstage through a small dining area to the press room. With the exception of the big screen TV constantly playing the LCS in the background, there's essentially no difference between this room and the types of meeting rooms you'd expect at any place of business. At first, I missed the paper screens adorned with all your favourite champions that decorated the former Cologne location, but the new setup is undoubtedly more functional. The internet is speedy, the room is mostly soundproof once the doors are closed, and there's plenty of space for each writer to have their own personal table set-up. That may sound pretty dull for those of you who use the LCS as an escape from the tedium of ones daily work life, but the good news is that the stands are only a couple of minutes away if you need to feed off the crowd's energy to keep you going. That said, I doubt you'll have that issue because...

You're Constantly Working

This is probably a “no, duh” moment for a lot of you, but when you're going to an event like this as a journalist, you're not there to enjoy the games; you're there to get stuff done. Every minute you spend out there listening to the roar of the crowd is a minute you could be studying your notes to better understand why a team picked that particular composition or how that player has performed on this specific champion in their previous matches. If you're like me and only get to attend the LCS during breaks from University, you've got to find a way to cram in as many interviews as you can, which means even more preparation than normal. Don't forget that interviews don't just fall from the sky, so you'll have to spend a great deal of time on Skype trying to track down team managers, or roaming the hallways trying to physically grab somebody's attention. Oh, and you better be keeping a strong social media presence throughout the event, because if you don't, no one will notice when your content goes up. By the way, you're taking time to meet as many new people as possible so that you can take advantage of the networking opportunities in front of you, right? Because that's how you turn a freelance job into one that lets you do this for a living. It's a lot for one person to balance, so you're probably hoping that someone will be there to help you out, but...

No One is Going to Help You

When you email Riot for your press pass, the first thing they do is ask with which teams you'd like to interview so they can let the teams know you are coming. That's how it all works in theory. In practice, the LCS is a huge production that takes a ton of time, energy, focus, and stressful work from pretty much everyone involved in order to pull off. If you spend the day sitting in the press room waiting for Riot to bring in a player or team manager for you, you're going to have a bad time. It can be a tough lesson to learn if you find yourself shy or are the kind of person who is afraid of getting in the way, but an essential one if you want to succeed in this industry.  But assuming that you're a strong, independent journalist that doesn't need anyone else to help them do their job, you'll soon find that...

The Press Room is Filled with Awesome People

In another section that will likely come as no surprise, it turns out that watching League of Legends with a bunch of people who are passionate about the scene and happen to be incredibly educated about every aspect of the league is a lot of fun. There's always an interesting handful of people hanging out in the press room, ranging from veterans like Adel “HypeAlgerian” Chouadria from Azubu to individual team's PR departments hoping to grab good photos for their social media pages. It takes a lot of work and effort to make a living out of eSports, and the people who have made it are among the most knowledgeable and interesting personalities in the scene. Even better, they each offer something new to your understanding of the game, as it's easy to find someone whose strength in analysis is your weakness and vice versa. There's nothing quite like being able to improve at what you do while also having a great time. And the best part of it all is...

You Never Know Who Will Drop By

True story: after catching a glimpse of Pr0lly in the hallway, I chased him down to arrange an interview with KaSing. He was talking with someone I didn't immediately recognize who introduced himself only as Nick. After I grabbed the interview, I headed back to the press room, but to my surprise, Nick was following close behind. He ended up hanging out with us for about ten minutes or so talking about Magic: the Gathering, travelling with his wife, and the merits of the Karthus farming mini-game. Eventually, he was pulled out by a Rioter who said they needed him for something important. When he left, I asked who it was we'd been talking to, since everyone else seemed to be quite familiar with him.

It was Nick Allen.

I'd feel more embarrassed about that story if it wasn't so common for key figures in the industry to stop by and say hi during the few moments of downtime people had. I knew Devin “Piratechnics” Younge was going to say hi because we'd worked together on Into the Rift in the past, but we also were joined by Thomas “Flyy” Mihailov, ROCCAT's owner during the team's must-win match against Giants Gaming. Couple that with the constant stream of players, coaches, analysts, managers, and casters that roam up and down the halls throughout the day, and it eventually starts to feel quite normal. Speaking of the players...

Interviews Matter Above Everything Else

If you're more a features writer like me, there's a temptation to spend your time just trying to network and plan out your article for the upcoming week with whatever extra pieces of info you manage to grab from the other journalists and your hopefully fine tuned listening skills. That's what I did the first time I was in Cologne, and while I enjoyed myself, I left feeling like I had failed to get the most out of my time there. It's so much easier to arrange interviews in person than it is to grab players over Twitter or Skype, and those conversations can often be the most enlightening. And once you actually sit down and talk to those players, you realize...

The Players are Just Like You

Much like a little kid can't imagine their parents as anything other than “mom” or “dad”, it's hard to imagine your favourite celebrities as being regular people. That's why Imgur is filled with gifs of people like Anne Hathaway or Jennifer Lawrence being regular human beings; it blows our collective consciousness to see public figures we look up to or admire acting so normal. When I told my Twitter followers I was heading to Berlin and would ask any questions they wanted passed on, the most popular question by far was “What is (insert player name here) like in real life?”, and in the vast majority of cases, the answer is that they're pretty much like everyone else their age, except much, much better at League of Legends.

Once I understood this, I started noticing a lot of little moments that had gone over my head before. There was a great moment right before the Elements vs. Gambit game during which Woolite and Jankos ran into the press box like two 5-year-olds on Christmas morning and pleaded with Flyy to let them watch the game before the shuttle took them home. I decided to leave the press room to sit with the team and see if I could learn anything from watching players break down a live game. I quickly realized, however, that they, like the Gambit fans that took over the crowd, were more interested in cheering big plays and making Reddit-style jokes when someone made a misplay. It was easy to see not only how much these guys cared about keeping their playoff hopes alive (a task about which they felt quite confident at the time), but also how much they still loved the game itself.

Ultimately, my greatest takeaway from my time in Berlin are the stories I gained while I was there. There were a lot of silly moments, like when I took a bunch of ridiculous pictures with Piratechnics while he told me about Berlin's sneaky good Japanese restaurant scene, or when the entire press room banded together to laugh at my microphone, which was so big it looked like a webcam from first glance. Other times, the room got deathly quiet as team managers and staff watched nervously as their teams battled for playoff seeding or just to keep their season alive. It is an incredible experience to watch a coach or analyst break down every mistake their team is making, wincing at every missed CS as if that creep will be the difference in the game. If their team won, the room would erupt with cheers and hugs and promises of players for interviews. If they lost, however, there would be mostly silence as the team staff packed up their gear and quietly made their way back to make sure their players took the loss in stride.

My favourite story, however, came as I left the Berlin studio after the second day of games. On the way out, HypeAlgerian and I ran into Leviathan and the rest of Gambit getting ready to head home. Cabochard asked me what had happened with the stream, which had sadly struggled from technical difficulties preventing their convincing win over Elements from being streamed live. I told them that Riv had come on stream and told everyone they would rebroadcast the game later. The entire Gambit team looked at each other for a split second, smiled, and said, “LATA!!!” in their best Trick2G voice. I couldn't help but burst out into laughter with them as they climbed back into the car, giving their best blue card salute as they drove off into the distance.

As soon as their van pulled out of the parking lot, I realized that my adventure was over just as quickly as it had began. I had watched ten games of my favourite teams battling head-to-head on one of the largest stages in eSports, but the crowd was long gone. The energy they brought with them had disappeared into the night, replaced instead by the sound of a light breeze and the moonlight lighting our way towards the train station. I was no longer in the eSports bubble that had provided so much entertainment during my time there, but the friends I had made and the memories we created have stuck with me ever since.