$7,500 CS:GO Winter Warfare tournament cancelled

Seven hours after the scheduled start, the event was called off due to numerous issues.

SEMPHIS attended the event with a mix

The Gaming Stadium hosted a $7,500 CS:GO event at the weekend, entitled CSGO Winter Warfare, at the Element Hotel by Westin, in Burnaby, BC. Or at least they attempted to, as it turns out the event did not go to plan.

Highlights of this lan so far, els /semphis pssing the fuck out, @ANewOldPerson literally about to faint from no sleep, Semphis eating straight up just chicken and @CARDIAClive pissed as fuck we havent played yet — .smiley (@smilescsgo) December 3, 2018

It wasn't too much longer from that tweet that Ricky "Smiley" Sandoval announced the LAN had been cancelled. Smiley was competing at the LAN with a mix called The Bangers, featuring fellow Canadians Victor "cardiac" Kwan, Ellis "els" Clay, Robbie "ANewOldPerson" T., and Kory "SEMPHIS" Friesen. We reached out to Smiley, who told us:

The Gaming Stadium hosted a $7,500 non byoc lan, was suppose to start at 10am doors opened at 11am, after that every one set up and the internet wasnt working then whole rows of pcs just kept shutting off. So they are trying for hours. They get the internet working and matches start getting played but then pcs kept shutting down mid match. Then they fix the power but then the internet is now not working for some people fast forward to 5:30pm [PST] they just call everyone to the front and announce they are going to cancel it. My team didnt play 1 match.

Smiley's teammate at the event SEMPHIS agreed with Smiley's description of the events, as well as stating that the "fuse box got fried and knocked out the power." A reply to another Tweet from Smiley wishing the organizers well in the future is, so far, the only official written notice the event ended prematurely.

Thanks for the kind words! Next time will be better we promise. Need. More. Power!! pic.twitter.com/Gg1Cj4EPRu — The Gaming Stadium (@GamingStadiumCS) December 3, 2018

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On behalf of the organizers, caster Brandon "MLGAnakin" Darby revealed onstream that the event had been cancelled due to a number of issues, and revealed that the attending teams had been given $400, double the cost of the tickets. There's a portion after the clip below, which can be seen on the stream VOD, that stated it was a combination of issues and was "not quite the hardware, more of the venue not being able to support the computers as well as the internet" as reasons for the cancellation.

We reached out to The Gaming Stadium for comment, and as of publication they had not provided answers to questions offered.

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UPDATE: Spiro Khouri, VP Sales & Marketing at The Gaming Stadium told us: