The BLAST Formula: How to select an esports host destination

LoL Park, Seoul. Lanxess Arena, Cologne. The Spodek, Katowice. Climate Pledge Arena (formerly KeyArena), Seattle.

The number of systems that makes up a successful esport event is numerous but selecting the right host venue and city is key. And, as the esport calendar — particularly in Counter-Strike — opens back up, organizers like BLAST are planning their year out and taking location into account.

They've even got the man for the job: James Woollard, Director of Market Development and BLAST "location scout" sat down with esports.gg to talk about how factors like local support, the needs of the attendees, and venue infrastructure make an esports event tick.

BLAST is gearing up for a busy 2025 as far as CS2 is concerned. The organizer has already laid out their three-step Bounty, Open, and Rivals system, locked in over a dozen events through to 2026, and will host their second Major in Austin, U.S. later in June.

From Lisbon to Monterrey and their mainstay in Copenhagen, BLAST is keeping to its trend of global expansion the organizer has been building on the past few years. Woollard's job as director of market development at BLAST is to see the organizer evolve, both in its product and how it is delivered to fans.

"My role is essentially looking at where we go with our major esports events across titles, building a global calendar of events to bring esports closer to the fans. and also looking at kind of who we partner with to make the events as successful as possible," Woollard said.

"We try to make sure that all of the events have a really local feel, that we engage with the local esports ecosystem and community, and that every event benefits from local culture and interest to make them all unique; to have the character of the place where they're staged.”

Woollard was kind enough to break down the factors that make up the perfect esports host location and the intricacies that go into picking a destination for BLAST to call home. Above all, he says, there must be a way for BLAST to play to the local audience. A great arena is all well and good, but it's not enough on its own.

"Quite a lot of it is checking out cities and making sure that we do our market research to see whether we think they'd be a good fit," he said, "but I guess there's some nuances which are quite specific to esports as well.

"We want to make sure that there's a vibrant or a growing local community in the game and the title. We want as many esports fans and BLAST fans across the world to have the chance to see the best live entertainment shows in person. There's no point in us bringing a major event somewhere where there isn't the audience for that title."

From there, Woollard's job evolves to scouting infrastructure and speaking to local governments. Everything is considered; access to the venue from airports, contact to local media outlets for coverage, commercial deliverables and what staff will be needed where.

A vital factor, Woollard says, is the pitch to local tourism developing the partnership with the city on a bureaucratic level. "We very much try to be a good partner to the hosts and destinations that we go to. We work super closely with all of these organizations to really drive success for the city and for the local community, as well as just for the fans or for BLAST. We really try to have an impact and the legacy when we host our events."

This is where BLAST's pitch to Singapore for last year's World Finals began. Woollard helped broker a partnership with the Singapore Tourism Board and AEG Presents Asia. BLAST then planned the best approach for the Counter-Strike tournament thanks to the "advice, guidance, direction, and support" of the pair.

The end result: A successful S-tier Counter-Strike tournament in Southeast Asia — something not seen outside of Oceania or China in a decade.

"That partnership helped us to deliver a really successful event and also to make sure we marketed not just in Singapore, but we were able to reach fans all across Asia and beyond," Woollard said, adding that over 60% of the World Final attendees came from outside of Singapore to watch.

"When you're entering a market for the first time, you don't necessarily know who the best production partners are, which channels are going to be most effective for marketing, which media channels are going to be best for actually bringing the event to the fans in local language."

The decision to open BLAST's Southeast Asia account in Counter-Strike is an interesting one. BLAST put the event together in a short space of time, and deep in the heartland of rival esports Dota 2, VALORANT, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.

But after testing the waters with the sold-out CS2 World Finals, Woollard and BLAST affirm they'll return to the region in 2025 — this time with Dota for the BLAST Slam. They'll also be back in East Asia with Counter-Strike in November for a BLAST Rivals event.

"Listening to the local esports community, some teams who are based in Singapore, and publications in esports from the region was hugely valuable as well," Woollard said. "There's practical things like language barriers, operational considerations that make a new place a challenge the first time around.

"When you go to a place which is thousands of miles away from your home location there are some considerations, but luckily we've got the right local partners to make them super successful."

Social study is a big part of Woollard's job. He and the BLAST esports team work to understand what makes a region's fanbase tick — and do their best to cater to that location's fans when they arrive at an event.

"We always are interested by how fans behave in different parts of the world. I think what an esports fan looks like in Singapore might be very different to what a fan may look like in the U.S. or in Europe. And sometimes you kind of learn by doing, right?"

"In some parts of the world, the fans want a really good day out, they want to drink a few pints of beer. In some parts of the world, it's more about getting close to the players and we adapt accordingly. And in some parts of the world, it's all about merchandise and how can you kind of take away a memory from the event.

"In every case, we work with local partners to try to anticipate that, but sometimes we are kind of taken off guard by some of the things that happen as well."

Woollard credits the BLAST team, who have now run nearly three-dozen events in five continents, and the organization's ability to adapt to every location and esport.

"We can make changes really quickly where we need to. For several years we've been delivering events in far-flung places like LA, we've done events in Abu Dhabi, we've been to Atlanta and Washington D.C., São Paulo, Singapore..."

"We're quite used to working with the right local partners to deliver hugely successful events and also to give those local partners opportunities and experience of events at the top level as well."

Whether it be Counter-Strike, Dota, Rainbow Six, Fortnite, or any other esport, BLAST is working hand-in-hand to cater to the needs of both the local audience and those watching from home online.

"We know that the audience is growing across a lot of our titles and it makes sense; the demand is there," Woollard said. "BLAST now hosts more events than ever before, and our mission is to take them all over the world and to bring them closer to the fans."

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