ESL One Cologne celebrates 5th year anniversary at LANXESS arena in 2019

ESL One Cologne powered by Intel will once again fill the Cathedral of Counter-Strike with fans from over 60 countries from around the world. Returning to LANXESS arena, Germany's largest indoor arena, on July 5-7, 2019,  the record-holding event will feature competition between the sixteen world’s finest Counter-Strike teams for their share of a US$300,000 prize pool.

For the past three years, ESL One Cologne has consecutively sold out and welcomed up to 15,000 visitors at its peak. Our 2018 event was broadcasted in 23 different languages to 75 destinations simultaneously. It is the absolute highlight of the competitive CS:GO calendar, the one event every player dreams of winning.

With all eyes on the Intel Grand Slam and its main title chasers Astralis and FaZe Clan, it was two unexpected teams who grabbed the headlines in the Cathedral of Counter-Strike in 2018. Both Natus Vincere and the hometown heroes from BIG eliminated the favorites in the semi-finals respectively before Na’Vi eventually crowned their performance with a 3-1 in the Grand Finals over BIG.

What they’re saying:

Ulrich Schulze, SVP Product at ESL: “ESL One Cologne remains our home ground. Fans from all over the world know this event and we’re proud to have delivered some of the most epic CS:GO moments since the first installment back in 2014 at gamescom. The visitors on-site established the LANXESS arena as the one and only Cathedral of Counter-Strike and the venue will always be a memorable part of the global CS:GO community. We’re working hard to make this anniversary completely mind-blowing for viewers both on- and offline and we can’t wait to see how everything comes together next summer.”

What you need to know:

-TEAMS: The event will consist of 16 teams: 12 invites and 4 qualifiers. Regional qualifiers for ESL One Cologne will take place in March and April 2019 across Europe (2 spots), North America (1 spot) and Asia (1 spot).

-FORMAT: Before taking the iconic LANXESS arena stage, teams need to survive the group stages that will take place July 2-4. Two groups of eight teams will face off in a double-elimination format -- the second and third place teams within each group will move on to the quarter-finals, while the first place teams directly qualify for the semi-final match.

-TICKETS: Presales for ESL One Cologne in the LANXESS arena begin on November 29th at 2pm CET with public sales hitting the market on December 1st at 2pm CET. Tickets will be available for general entry, premium experience, and lounge access, starting at 24€ for a single day ticket. Around the event, there will once again be a lot of side activities, many of which will be at the ESL One Camp, which offers accommodation and a friendly community for those attending ESL One Cologne.

Follow our official CS:GO accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date with all things ESL One Cologne.

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