I wish I had done this sooner, is the big takeaway. Ticket sellouts were usually the reason I didn’t attend, including the ridiculous re-sell prices by scalp-bots. But man… now I wish I would have coughed up the cash back then. This was a great experience from which I have been missing out.

The venue itself was pretty great. Seats were comfortable (at least for an arena). I tried many views and they were almost all great except for the corner sections (which is why they stayed mostly empty).

The theatre/art district around the venue was great. It was easy to get a hotel that was within walking distance to the venue. This did not stop me from oversleeping and needing a scooter to prevent being late for the games.

Time is your biggest foe, at TI. You have to pick to miss something if you want food, drink, or use the restrooms. This is ideal for remote viewing, but when viewing locally, the lines/queues for everything are massive. I ended up choosing to go after first bloods happened, and miss the first 5 mins of laning. Most people go after game, during panel and interviews, but thats when lines are the worst.

Prices are insane, but expected at a sports arena. A small soda can was 5 bucks. A small water bottle was 7 bucks. A large alcoholic beverage was 19 bucks. The amazon stores were neat, and I’m sure the staff got tired of saying, “Yup it is cool. You can just walk out with your stuff. No checkout.” If you wanted hot food, you were doomed to line/queue hell again. The arena was clearly used to feeding 10-20k people for a 3-hour concert or hockey game, but not for feeding 20k people for 10-14 hours. Most places ran out of some form of hot food by 7pm, sometimes earlier. The games got done around 11pm on Fri and Sat.

The casters audio was difficult to hear most of the time. That was partially due to crowd noise but even when it was quiet farming time, CK smacking 5 creeps boomed through the arena but Lina’s Laguna Blade was a whimper.

Most of the talent and players were super nice and happy to sign and photograph at-will. I stayed after broadcast finished and chatted with Purge and Sheever for like 5 mins a piece. But a media availability day or time-slots would have been better. Cuz while its neat the talent would stick around at the wall of front row and sign stuff, it was also annoying to be sitting there and having a wall of people constantly by you if in an aisle seat. I imagine the front row people were annoyed as well when trying to watch the game. Signing sessions or something would be helpful.

Almost everyone in the audience is friendly, aside from people trying to reserve entire rows with water bottles. I’d just be sitting there, watching the draft, and accidentally make a comment out loud. Next thing I know, the person next to me,behind me, and I are having a fun conversation about the draft. One guy (Hi Carlos) even buddied up with me to save each others seats as the other left for the bathroom or vendors. This was helpful as we both came alone.

Doors opening 2-3 hours early was nice, as the one day I did it, allowed me to explore all the booths in the arena that I would have to miss entire games otherwise to visit.

The worst thing about TI are all the word-of-mouth things happening. I come to TI to watch great dota, sure, but I can do that at home. I came here to be in an atmosphere with other dota people, and outside of the games, it was difficult to do so. The next day I’d find out about, “X talent had a party in this Y hotel lobby” or, “There was a small gathering at X bar last night.”

Even the Late Game was secretly held in an upstairs bar in the arena that almost no one knew about. Even the final Late Game’s location wasn’t announced save for a few second blip from sheever after the crowd had mostly left the arena after Game 3. I’m glad I stuck around and heard the location, and booked it over to the theater just down the block. Even Pyrion when he came out said he was surprised at the crowd because these events are all word-of-mouth. And when the fun show was over, Pyrion laughingly said, “Let’s all go get pissed!” But I had no one to drink/hang with so it was back to the hotel room for me. Tried looking on reddit and discord servers for any hangouts but found nothing.

Why word-of-mouth? I wanna meet and hang with dota people. Its hard to do so when everyone comes here with a clique and stays with that clique once the game is over. Events are an easy way to overcome cliques, and most of them were not posted anywhere despite them being open to the public.

During the games, it was amazing and I’m so happy I came and will try to come next year. Once the games were over, it was hard to chase down places to be with other dota peeps. Thanks to Crimson Witnesses for posting their event on this sub. It was a great warmup event. Felt like a tailgate party.