“Esports is the easy part,” says EFG’s VP of festivals on the secret behind DreamHack’s magic

DreamHack Stockholm 2025 will kick off on Nov. 28, expanding on last year's success that brought in over 52,000 visitors from 59 countries. The event will feature an immersive celebration of gaming culture, and esports.gg sat down with the Shahin Zarrabi, ESL FACEIT Group's (EFG) vice president of festivals, to talk about the growth of DreamHack and what makes each festival a unique experience for attendees.

In his interview with esports.gg, Zarrabi explained how DreamHack continues to grow each year while keeping each festival exciting and consistent. He also went into the challenge of balancing financial and environmental sustainability with creating new experiences for fans. To make every event unique while maintaining a blueprint that is repeatable, his team reviews every event to avoid doing too much or too little.

The strong collaboration with partners and internal curation also keeps the festivals evolving. Zarrabi even drew a comparison to cooking shows, noting that the best restaurants constantly change their menus. DreamHack only runs three days per event, totaling around 12 to 15 days a year, but each event is special. According to him, anyone can build an esports event. However, DreamHack stands out by creating memorable experiences that go beyond the competition and leave fans with moments they can share and remember forever.

"Esports is the easy part," Zarrab said. "We've done that so many times with so many different games, the stage show, the broadcast, the elements of that are much more complex than I make it out to be. But for me, the live experience when you're coming as a fan -- it's not so much about what happens on stage. It's about how you can create memories with the friends that you came with or with the friends that you met along the way. So everything in between the games, before the games, after the games is what's important to me."

Examples of these DreamHack experiences between and around the games include meeting players for autographs and photos, checking out large and interactive props, and visiting an indie playground that showcases new titles.

"For a couple of the events here in Stockholm, we're building huge props where you can stand next to and take a photo so you can print that out and keep it on your fridge or something like that. Those are the types of things that I think about on the daily, and that's also what makes us a little bit different than a lot of the other esports events," Zarrabi said. "It's the fact that we try to fill this gap between games before games [begin] so that there's an added value to coming here rather than sitting at home on your couch or in front of the computer and watching it on your screen."

Next year, Birmingham will host the first DreamHack festival of 2026 after DreamHack Stockholm 2025. It will also mark EFG’s first event in the UK. The festival will also feature ESL One, a major Dota 2 event, and a Call of Duty League (CDL) Major. According to Zarrabi, the demand for CDL was so high that the hall had to be expanded twice.

"It's our first festival in the UK. Super exciting for us. We're coming there, we're also bringing along with us ESL One [and] a CDL Major. The response for both Dreamhack, ESL One and CDL coming has been massive online. For CDL specifically, we've had to expand the hall twice in order to be able to seat more people because we just didn't expect that many people to come. But the UK, apparently, wants to watch Call of Duty."

He continued, "ESL One has been in the UK before, and we're glad to see that traction picking up. What we want to add to both CDL and ESL One is that festival element where we can fill a big gap in the UK after events like EGX are scaling down [and] Insomnia disappearing. So we're trying to build an experience that also appeals to the wider gaming and esports audience, to content creators in the country, and to brands and game publishers that want to be present somewhere where all of UK gaming will be."

That's all for now. DreamHack Stockholm 2025 will go from Nov. 28 to Nov. 30 this year. Meanwhile, DreamHack Birmingham 2026 will happen between March 27 and March 29. Stick around on esports.gg for more news, interviews, and updates!