‘Spark Game Arena Live’ coming to Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland

Spark has announced a gaming festival called ‘Spark Game Arena Live’ coming to Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland’s Spark Arena on Saturday, 7 September 2024.

‘Spark Game Arena Live (SGAL)’ will bring the best of gaming to Aotearoa with interactive experiences, finals of an esports tournament played live, and guest appearances from globally recognised gaming personalities.

The festival will have capacity for approximately 8,000 attendees across the day, and will be split into two parts – a morning and an afternoon session lasting five hours each.

A key feature of the festival’s morning session will be the second instalment of ‘The Rise Cup featuring Fortnite’, delivered in partnership with LetsPlay.Live – a nationwide online tournament that saw over 1,400 participants play in the inaugural event last year. The winners took home a share of the largest prize pool for a Fortnite tournament played in New Zealand worth $30,000.

This year’s tournament will consist of two qualifier rounds played online later this month with the emerging 50 finalists competing in-person at Spark Game Arena Live on 7 September, and the tournament broadcast live to Fortnite fans across the globe.

Tournament participants will have the chance to win a share of an even larger prize pool than last year worth over $140,000 consisting of Logitech G equipment, cash and more. Registrations for the tournament, restricted to New Zealand residents 13 years and over, will open on Wednesday, 3 July at 11am.

Spark’s Director of Marketing and Data, Matt Bain, says: “We know that New Zealand gamers have been waiting a long time to see a dedicated gaming event in our own backyard that brings together some of the best experiences the industry has to offer.

“This festival is about creating a platform for the New Zealand gaming industry to come together and showcase some of the incredible game developers, animators, and visionaries that are building award-winning experiences.

“Aotearoa’s video game studios earned $434.4[1] million in the year to 31 March 2023, and 95% of this came from high value digital exports – so we’re excited to celebrate our homegrown gaming expertise while also bringing in inspiration from offshore.

“At Spark we want to leverage the power of technology to unleash an Aotearoa that is full of possibilities. This makes gaming a natural area of focus for us – we are investing in the networks and technology that make gaming possible, and it is one of the fastest growing forms of entertainment not only in New Zealand but globally. Spark Game Arena Live is our way of saying Hello Tomorrow to new opportunities and backing New Zealand gamers of the future.”

The first half of the day will run from 9.00am to 2.00pm giving families the opportunity to explore gaming experiences from 10 New Zealand game studios who are part of the New Zealand Game Developers Association, and activations from some of the most well-known game brands, with more to be announced in the coming weeks.

In addition to watching the live action of the tournament, festival goers attending the morning session will also have the chance to play their friends in a game of Fall Guys, a multi-player obstacle game that’s fun for the whole family. These matches will be shown on giant LED screens spanning a total of 653 square metres inside the bowl.

The second part of the day is restricted to 16-year-olds and above and will run from 3.00pm to 8.00pm and feature similar activations to the morning session, with an additional esports tournament to be announced. Attendees will also have the chance to put their own skills to the test with free-play Fortnite available and keynote speaker seminars featuring some of the gaming industry’s brightest minds.

Presale tickets for Spark customers are available from 11am today (Monday 1 July) with general public tickets on sale starting 11am, Wednesday, 3 July.

100 Spark Game Arena Live tickets will also be provided to students around the motu to help budding gamers and game developers who may not otherwise be able to, attend the event.