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This is a continuation of my students’ League of Legends Rampage experience. The first part can be found here. To give you guys a brief background, I was invited to this event but since my students happily volunteered to go in my stead, I let them have fun (since I swore off MMO games a long time ago).

By Guest Bloggers:
Thaddeus Brillantes , Danica Esguerra, Jaryd Ramos & Gillian Tan

Garena holds its annual League of Legends Event at SMX Convention Center. Merchandises, such as ballers, key chains, shirts, were available for the people’s consumption. Attendees were also kept entertained as events were scheduled and handled out perfectly. As the convention was happening, the elite teams compete to be the best, to represent our country in the upcoming South-East Asian Tournament, and soon, the World Championships. People who were also eager to dress up as their favorite champion were spotted along with the crowd. People who attended the event got good freebies as well.


However, reports say that as early as 6:30am, the queue for tickets was already so long that people who are already in line were starting to get pissed. We arrived at the venue at around 1pm since all of us still had a class to attend to. When we arrived at SMX, thousands of gamers are scattered all around the area, with no knowledge of where the line for the tickets began. We tried scouting the area to locate the venue’s entrance since people were literally scattered all over the place. A few minutes after scouting the venue, we heard an announcement from one of the event organizers that they can no longer accommodate people inside the venue. This caused negative outbursts from the people who were still outside. People kept on saying that they had been lining up since this morning and it was unfair they had not been granted access to the event. Another outburst of anger and disappointment erupted when the event organizers announced that all the merchandises including t-shirts, ballers, key chains etc. were sold out and will plan on putting up the said merchandises online. Even the police had already been deployed to ensure the safety of the people in the said event, countless of players still tried to force their way inside the venue.

It hurts me to review this event when I can see the thousands of people who came to RAMPAGE!, only to find out they can’t enter anymore. After traveling a good number of kilometers, they were only welcomed with disappointment.

Personally, I think that this event should either reserve the whole first floor of the convention center or hold this event for 2 or 3 days. The organizers are at disarray when it came to managing huge — and I mean HUGE — crowds. I could really tell that they haven’t foreshadowed the number of participants in the said event. Also, miscommunication rose during all the commotion outside the venue. Rumors flew of tickets being available for sale at 3-4pm and then after a few minutes, they took their word back since they couldn’t really accommodate all the people who went out of their way to go to this event even though they came from far places. It is really obvious that whoever is in-charge of the risk management is inexperienced and is not used to accommodating large crowds. It would be wise if they would reserve a bigger venue since they have a vague estimation of the number of people who are coming over for this. If they have managed to accommodate all the participants, not just the players for the tournament or the cosplayers, a smooth flow of the event will commence.

After witnessing the commotion outside, we finally got in. We went inside the SMX Hall 1 and 2. They told us they rented two function rooms, which was very small for this kind of event. We went in the room and inside we found a stage in the middle, stalls around the area, a tournament area, and a cosplay holding pen. We didn’t know which area we wanted to go at first but then we decided to visit the different stalls. These stalls were actually the event sponsors and we just browsed through their products. They showcased their high end products that give an edge to gamers’ performances while playing League of Legends and other games. Unfortunately, since we came late, we didn’t get to buy any merchandise that we were looking forward to (lesson learned: go early next time). (Skysenshi’s comment: I did warn you. Haha.)

After we looked through the stall, we walked over to the tournament area. It might just be me or maybe it was just too early in the afternoon or maybe we came late since there were two groups that were battling each other. It may be exciting if we got to see pro players like the Manila Eagles, but alas, they weren’t there. Also, they only have three monitors where two display the match ladder and the other one is the stream of the game.

Personally, they could have used a projector to show the stream of the game and have the two monitor to show the tournament ladder. Also they should have made it more extravagant to increase hype. We stayed for a few more minutes then we headed on to the cosplay holding pen. (I didn’t invent the name; it was written there). I didn’t take a picture because it might startle the people there (just like in a zoo haha). Anyway, it was just an area where cosplayers can relax or prepare themselves for the cosplay event. We didn’t stay too long in Rampage to watch the cosplay event itself but there where awesome cosplay. Some, however, were what we call “fail”.

After looking over the cosplay area (oh, by the way, the Malphite costume is awesome) we headed to the middle where the stage is. It is crowded so we stayed in the back. We heard a band called SQ1 (Square 1), whose members consisted of kids around 10 – 12 maybe. Even though they are young, they enjoy rock music and can sing rock songs very well. It was entertaining because they were small and cute and can sing/play rock songs. After they played a few songs we stuck around to see what will happen next. We stuck around just a bit to see them give freebies to the crowd then we headed out of the event.

All in all, the entire event was just okay. They have more to improve for the next League of Legend event such as the venue, ticket selling, merchandise selling, more sponsors for shirts, jackets and ballers and accessories. I just hope they won’t look at this event negatively but I hope this serves as a lesson for their future events to come.