The Shenzhen Cartoon Animation Festival and Intel Extreme Masters was hot, crowded, and completely amazing

Yesterday was the last day of the Shenzhen Cartoon Animation Festival (SZCAF), where the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Shenzhen tournament took place. The day was hot and the venue was crowded, but I just couldn’t miss the chance to see World Elite and Edward Gaming face off live for the IEM Shenzhen League of Legends finals. Well, apparently most of Shenzhen thought the same thing, because the event was completely packed.

Buying tickets. The lined actually moved quite fast.

And even though the SZCAF is actually about anime and cartoons, IEM clearly stole the show with its League of Legends match. This is how the venue looked during the Starcraft II finals:

Which then turned into this for the League of Legends finals:

When there were no seats, people sat on the floor. When there was no more space on the floor, people started sitting on the stage. Seriously, a security guard looking like Faker had to tell them to back off.

And this was even before the match even started, which just goes to prove that League of Legends is indeed the most popular PC game in China.

(See: The top 10 hottest PC games in China)

In addition, the match was delayed a bit and when the backstage isn’t covered up, it leads to people moving back and forth (myself included) to catch a glimpse of the teams.