Viewers have expressed disappointment with the appearance of the venue for VALORANT Champions 2025 in Paris, describing it as looking cheap. Riot Games’ Leo Faria clarified that prioritizing a larger venue was the main reason for the aesthetic choices.
Wow, Champions has been wild so far! We’ve seen some crazy upsets, MIBR looking really strong, and Boaster absolutely popping off. But honestly, a lot of fans, myself included, have noticed the stage just doesn’t *feel* as polished as it did last year. Thankfully, Leo Faria from Riot actually addressed those concerns and explained what’s been going on.
Venue Split Between Les Arènes and Accor Arena
I’m so excited for VALORANT Champions in Paris! It’s cool they’re using two different venues. The group stages and the early playoff rounds will be at Les Arènes, but then the semifinals and the grand final – the top four teams – will be held at the massive Accor Arena, which holds 20,000 people! It’s going to be an incredible experience.
Similar to the 2024 VALORANT Champions in Seoul, matches were split between two locations this year. However, many fans have commented that the venue used for the group stage looked inexpensive and lacked polish.
Riot defends venue choice
When asked on X about the reason for the stage setup on September 17th, Leo Faria from Riot Games explained that they selected the venue to accommodate a larger number of fans.
Using a studio allows us to carefully manage things like the set, lighting, and screens, which helps create a higher-quality broadcast. However, it limits how many people can attend live. Last year, when we held the Champions groups and playoffs in a Seoul studio, it looked fantastic on camera, but only accommodated around 250 spectators, explained Leo Faria, Global Head of VALORANT Esports.
Closer to the pros, bigger audience
Faria explained that they’re making VALORANT Champions 2025 bigger and more accessible to fans, based on what the community has asked for. They want to bring fans closer to the pro players.
This is the biggest venue we’ve ever used for the early rounds of the tournament, with a capacity of 3,000 people.
It’s always a challenge to keep a venue full for a long stretch like fifteen days – most concerts only play in a city for a night or two before moving on. However, we expect things to be much busier and more energetic during the playoffs.
The reality is that most esports will likely continue to hold most of their competitions in smaller, private venues without live audiences, saving the big, spectacular events for just a few days each year. It’s good to keep this in mind when thinking about the future of esports.
Faria clarified that the stage setup and location were intentional choices, but also mentioned Riot Games is continuing to make further improvements in other areas.
Faria noted that some parts of the show weren’t meeting expectations. Specifically, the energy during walkouts has been low, and they’re working to improve it.
If you’re like me and love a good show with awesome scale and a huge spectacle, you absolutely need to watch the finals at Accor! That’s what Faria said, and I totally agree.
Early matches at VALORANT Champions 2025 suggest that strong gameplay is captivating audiences, even with some technical difficulties. Now, all attention is focused on Accor Arena to host an unforgettable final.
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2025-09-17 22:11