YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT'S NEXT

Guest Columnist - Cory Vincent

In my eight years of working for NRG, I can safely say that October 2024 was my proudest month here. Our no-hill-too-big-to climb team hosted two large-scale experiential events at the Spectrum Castle: the Intel Night Market and Spectrum’s Storm the Castle: Haunted House! Within two weeks of each other, we transformed the NRG Spectrum Castle into two dramatically different experiences for two of the world's leading technology and telecommunications companies. The feat of conceptualizing, selling this idea, organizing, and executing these two events is incredible by itself, but what makes me most proud of them is that they were pure NRG.

In esports, it’s easy to stay active and engage fans when your teams are competing, but when the offseason hits, many teams either kick their feet up and post memes or do nothing at all. Andy challenged us this year to “Find our Own Fun,” and we took that to heart. It was our VP of Brand Experience, Nicole Borhani, who suggested on a call how cool a Night Market could be in the Spectrum Castle, which started a chain reaction of creativity that led to our sales phenom, Hauk Nelson, pitching it to Intel as a platform to launch their latest generation of gaming CPUs. We then worked with our social media and content team to craft the main event of the Night Market: The Clout Clash! This larger-than-life VALORANT influencer showmatch allowed them to be the first esports tournament played on Intel’s latest chip, while they competed for one-of-a-kind Intel-branded diamond chain pendants. We got big crowds, and the Castle was bumping for over 8 hours of pure gaming joy!

It only took two weeks to morph our extremely immersive Intel Night Market experience into a theme park-quality Haunted House, when we debuted the first major tentpole event in our “Spectrum Storm the Castle” event series! The goal was to do something unexpected and fun, like a video game-themed Haunted House, and bring as many people into the experience as possible to send the message that you never know what is going to happen next. Through NRG’s connections and reputation for hosting banger events, we were able to collaborate with rapper Super Duper Kyle to host an album listening party for his new album dropping next month. The event was a major success for the launch of our three-year deal with Spectrum, a big win for Super Duper Kyle, and a huge accomplishment finding our own fun.

We had well over two thousand people engage in person with NRG and its partners through exciting and interactive experiences, which is important, but where we really separate ourselves is in our content and digital media strategies that generated well over 100 million impressions online—and still counting! The Spectrum Castle is the only gamer-centric venue in LA that can go from an Intel CPU Tech Convention and VALORANT Showmatch to LA’s hottest Haunted House/Rap concert and party in just two weeks. We are already back in the lab planning our next big beat to prove that you never know what’s going to happen at the NRG Spectrum Castle.

SEN CITY AWAITS

With a few weeks of practice under their belts, NRG VALORANT is set to debut at the SEN City Classic this coming weekend in Los Angeles. The event begins on November 1st, with our first matchup against Evil Geniuses. The tourney is a 4 team showcase, featuring NRG, EG, SEN and C9, that will start with a quick round robin phase on Friday and Saturday, followed up by a playoff bracket on Sunday. We can’t wait to get back to action and see how the new squad comes together.

CELEBRITY IMPOSTER IS BACK FOR SEASON 2

Fitness icon and internet sensation Bradley Martin came in to shoot the first episode of Season 2 for Celebrity Imposter Powered by Rockstar. As one of the biggest names in online culture, Bradley’s influence spans millions of followers who tune in for his fitness tips and his bold personality. Bradley is even more unhinged than the Squad so this episode should be a huge hit.