Prince Constantijn of Orange and Anneke van Zanen make appearance at opening Rabo Esports Stadium

Tomorrow the doors of the H20 Esports Campus and Rabo Esports Stadium will officially open. With this, game lovers can meet each other in the largest and only permanent esports stadium of the Netherlands. Anneke van Zanen, chairman of NOC*NSF, together with author and former esports player Koen Schobbers, will officially open the stadium. As icing on the cake, Prince Constantijn of Orange will make his appearance in an online broadcast from the Inside Esports Studio.

Event in corona times

Despite the Corona conditions, a striking and unique opening programme was creatively put together, with an online and offline event. Organising an event during the current global pandemic requires creative thinking, as experienced by General Manager at H20 Sjaak Kuil. "With a maximum of 30 participants in a room, it was quite a puzzle how to organise the opening. We divided the day up into time slots and each time slot has 30 visitors. They will be treated to an attractive programme on our main stage in the Rabo Esports Stadium."

Laying the foundation stone in Minecraft

In each time slot we have planned a special highlight. For example, the entire H20 building, covering 10,000 m2, has been reconstructed in Minecraft. The last bricks are symbolically laid by the children of the founders of H20. This moment concludes the long preparations for this unique project. Kuil: 'We are extremely proud that we can bring gamers together and help the next generation with their development through gaming, esports and creative tech. The help we get from our main sponsor Rabobank and all our partners has helped us tremendously.

Live Gaming

Apart from the opening ceremony, there will be show matches in the stadium. By, among others, the number two Fornite player in the Netherlands: Milan. And also Dutch champion Zwift (ecycling) Mick Kemper will cycle a live race. Moreover, a Virtual Reality stand is unveiled where visitors of the H20 Esports Campus can play games with VR glasses.

Online broadcast at 20.00

Sjaak Kuil believes that the launch event should take place both physically and digitally. "It is a hybrid event, so various items and highlights will be recorded live. At 20.00 hours there will be an online broadcast on Twitch from the Inside Esports Studio and Prince Constantijn will join us."

The broadcast can be seen at https://www.twitch.tv/H20_esports. From Saturday it can be watched again on the website of H20."