The world’s largest digital festival, DreamHack, just released its 2019 schedule on its 24th anniversary! The Swedish-based production company specializing in esports is in the Guinness World Records as the largest LAN party ever. It’s likewise in there for the computer festival with the fastest internet connection and most traffic. Yesterday was also DreamHack Day, which celebrates the festival’s humble start in 1994. In addition to presenting an opportunity to reflect upon past, present, and future, it was the day that DreamHack officially announced its 2019 schedule.

New events added

DreamHack will debut in three new, never-before-hosted locations this year. This reflects its growing popularity as well as a booming esports market. DreamHack will make its first big splash this year in Rotterdam, Netherlands; Dallas, Texas; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Other locations this year include Tours, France; Valencia and Sevilla, Spain; Leipzig, Germany; Montreal, Canada; Atlanta, Georgia; and, of course, DreamHack’s summer and winter festivals in Jönköping, Sweden.

What there is to do at DreamHack 2019

There’s a myriad of different activities and events to witness at the digital supergiant. The festival itself is essentially a massive LAN party where people from all over come to game, chat, and practice. Every participant at DreamHack gets a table, a power socket, and a LAN socket (which has one of the fastest internet connections in the world) for their console or computer. The event even has sleeping halls, as the action is 24 hours a day.

Competitions galore

DreamHack hosts a number of esports competitions as well during the event. The prize pool is over 3 million SEK (over $330,000) and is streamed live across many platforms — including Swedish national TV. DreamHack broke another record at DHW11, where viewership was over 1.6 million people. There are also many digital art competitions, where participants create everything from photographs to games to films. At the end of the event, there’s an hours-long final ceremony where all the submissions are presented on the main stage to a roaring audience.

Live concerts

Every single evening, there are huge musical groups playing on the main stage. While the individual guests are still to be announced, past guests in Austin, Texas, included electronic stars Krewella, Pegboard Nerds, and Tokyo Machine.

DreamHack’s 2019 calendar continues our strategy to grow our festival globally, while also continuing to celebrate the roots of our beginnings through ‘DreamHack Day’ each year on the 9th of December. It’s also a day to celebrate all who visit our events all over the world, and to thank the thousands of people who make these events safe and fun for all. – Marcus Lindmark, DreamHack CEO

DreamHack saw a big 2018

The year 2018 saw DreamHack make another debut for its first time in Asia — DreamHack Mumbai. The festival saw more than 290,000 visitors attend, with a staggering 375 million views from its esports broadcasts. More than a couple of its festivals also showed considerable growth in total visitors — with Leipzig increasing by 23 percent, Valencia increasing by 44 percent, and Atlanta growing by 40 percent. The total prize pool across the board for DreamHack last year surpassed $5.3 million as well.

Check out the full schedule for DreamHack here

Are you going to DreamHack this year? Let us know!