Honour of Kings Champion Cup gets first e-sports live audience in China since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic

Honour of Kings World Champion Cup 2020 only released 2,000 tickets for a stadium with a capacity of 19,000

It was the was the first major e-sports event to get a live audience in China this year while most international events still face delays

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The Honour of Kings World Champion Cup 2020 has a sparse audience at Beijing's Wukesong Arena on August 16 thanks to strict controls because of the coronavirus. Photo: Tencent

Published: 9:00pm, 17 Aug 2020Updated: 10:44am, 20 Aug 2020

After going more than half a year without attending live games, e-sports fans in China were finally able to show up in person to the finals of one of the country's most popular tournaments.

The Honour of Kings World Champion Cup 2020 finals took place in front of a live audience in Beijing on Sunday. It was the first e-sports event with a live audience since the coronavirus outbreak spread across the country in January.

Attendees had to pass temperature checks and present their health codes before entering the event. Photo: Tencent

Thousands of people showed up to Wukesong Arena to see Dynamite Gaming defeat Turnso Gaming. Beijing held the championship and two e-sports conferences over the weekend as part of a government initiative to boost the city’s e-sports industry.

Fans were apparently eager to finally be able to watch e-sports live again, with tickets reportedly selling out within just eight minutes. But there was also another reason for this: You had to be a super fan to be allowed to buy a ticket in the first place.

Beijing was taking strong precautions to guard against the Covid-19 pandemic for the event. The city faced a second wave of Covid-19 cases in June, which resulted in 335 new cases at the time.

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