Insomnia Gaming Festival: Dubai & Saudi

Insomnia is a Gaming Festival which started all the way back in 1999, and is now the UK’s biggest gaming festival which see’s over 100,000 people through its doors at each event. Having now done 65 gaming festivals, Insomnia has now gone international, with festivals now in Dublin, Scotland, Egypt, and now GEM Events have brought the iconic Insomnia Gaming Festival to Dubai and Saudi for the first time ever this year!

Insomnia’s classic format was followed to produce an extremely successful event, from esports tournaments, cosplay competitions, pc gaming, console gaming, retro gaming, tabletop games, virtual reality and main stage shows. Of course, GEM added their own flare with lots of strolling entertainment, choreographed shows which replicated popular games, and even flash mobs!

Insomnia Dubai Gaming Festival took place from 17-19 October 2019, at the Meydan Grandstand. Here, we had a combined prize pool of AED 1/4 million for 12 esports tournaments, which were run by the fabulous Gamers Hub Middle East, and was a huge success and a huge foundation of the whole festival. Not to mention the cosplay competitions, which saw both professionals and amateur cosplayers battle it out for a huge $10,000 prize pool – one of the biggest prize pools the region has ever seen! We also had some special guests in attendance, such as the legendary Sidemen, who have a combined 20 million followers on YouTube! Pokemon singer, Jason Paige, also gave his first-ever live performance in the Middle East, exclusively at Insomnia Dubai. We even had a fabulous coverage on CNN! Here are some of the highlights from Insomnia Dubai Gaming Festival:

Equally, our Insomnia Saudi Gaming Festival was also a huge success, taking place as part of Riyadh Season from November 27-30 for a 4 day spectacular. We actually sold out of tickets on the 3rd day! Huge influencers such as Multicreators (including the likes of Banderita, MrFifaSA, and S3Gaming), as well as three members of FaZe, the biggest esports team in the world, were at the festival for meet and greets, main stage appearances, and even 1v1s on video games! Here are some of the highlights from our Saudi show:

We had such great first-year events in both Dubai and Saudi, and we can’t wait to make them bigger and better for 2020! Watch this space….