GameStars Live to feature major gaming tournament

Event organisers London EventCo have revealed that the forthcoming Game Stars Live consumer videogames show is set to play host to a huge multiplayer gaming tournament, billed as the largest of its kind in the UK.

The European Online Gaming Championships is the co-creation of London EventCo and World Cyber Games organisers Sujoy Roy and Dominic Mulroy, and the finals events at Game Stars Live will be the culmination of months of qualifier rounds held around the UK and via online leagues.

As well as those who have qualified through earlier rounds, visitors to the show will be able to turn up and enter on-site qualification rounds, with entry to the Championship included in the price of admission to the show.

Details of the prizes on offer have yet to be announced, although cash prizes are promised as well as "money can't buy" packages - whatever they are. It's also not yet known which games will be played, although the organisers rather optimistically claim that this will be a 25,000 player gaming championship - which is rather a lot of gamers.

"Launching the European Online Gaming Championships is a dream come true for Dominic and I," according to EOGC organiser Sujoy Roy - a bit of a dab hand at Quake himself, we might add. "A large-scale event such as this sitting under the umbrella of the greatest-ever consumer games exhibition will really help put competitive PC gaming on the map."

Game Stars Live runs from September 1st to 5th 2004 at London's ExCeL exhibition halls in Docklands, and hopes to attract 100,000 consumers over the course of the event. It will run alongside European Games Network, a trade-focused show which will also be held in ExCeL.