Shanghai Major 2024 venues revealed, live audience announced for all three stages

Chinese esports tournament organiser Perfect World has revealed the venues for Counter-Strike 2’s Shanghai Major 2024.

According to a release, the opening and elimination stages will take place at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center. Meanwhile, the Major playoffs will be hosted at the Shanghai Pudong (SDP) Bank Oriental Sports Center. The latter venue was previously used in 2017 during the semifinals of the League of Legends World Championship.

The Shanghai Major will see the best 24 Regional Major Rankings (RMR) teams from Europe, America and Asia-Pacific compete to win a share of the $1.25m prize pool (~£950,000). Each RMR will take place during November and all tournaments will be held offline in Shanghai ahead of the event.

For the playoff stage, the best eight teams will fight to become champions at the SDP Bank Oriental Sports Center which features a capacity of up to 18,000 fans. The playoff matches will be held from December 12th to December 15th. More details about tickets will be released at a later date.

Interestingly, it is a rare occasion for Valve to host a major that will have all three of its stages (Openin, Elimination and Playoffs) in front of a live audience. However, Valve’s push into the Asian market could be a factor in this decision. Despite Counter-Stirke’s long history in esports, the Shanghai Major is the first Valve-backed Major in China.

Since 2015, Perfect World has been the exclusive operator in the Chinese market for Dota 2 and Counter-Strike. This includes running several Counter-Strike events in the country such as the Perfect World Arena Premier League.