UK eSports specialist Multiplay targets worldwide expansion

Birmingham NEC is just the start of a proposed global expansion for Insomnia.

Event organiser Multiplay – which was acquired by GAME in a 20m deal in March – runs Insomnia three times a year. It has historically taken place at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena. It has now outgrown that venue, and boss Craig Fletcher believes he can fill the Birmingham NEC, which is the largest venue in Britain.

But that’s not all. The company wants to take Insomnia around the UK with smaller events, and is even targeting countries such as Spain and Ireland.

We say we are the UK’s biggest games festival, but I want to drop the UK from it,” said Fletcher. It is about making it the biggest games festival, whether that is in the UK or further afield. We already have plans for events in other locations in the UK and it’s useful that GAME has a lot of stores in Spain. We have some big international and global aspirations for Insomnia.

We are already doing some activity at Madrid Games Week, we have an Insomnia stand over there. And that is obviously a toe in the water for something bigger. We also have another two countries that we are looking at.”

We are not hanging around about this. We have increased the size of Multiplay by 50 per cent already since the acquisition. We are rapidly recruiting and growing just to keep up with the opportunities. We are not hanging around and are going as fast as we possibly can.”