Vanguard Powers Esports World Cup Festival with Blackmagic Design
2,500 players and 200 clubs from over 80 countries compete across 25 tournaments.
The Esports World Cup (EWC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has quickly established itself as one of the largest and most ambitious gaming events on the esports calendar. Spanning seven weeks, it combines elite esports competition with a vast live entertainment festival that draws millions of fans both in person and online.
The 2025 edition saw more than 2,500 players and 200 clubs from over 80 countries compete across 25 tournaments for a $70 million prize pool. Surrounding the tournaments was the EWC Festival, a sprawling, multi venue experience featuring live shows, gaming activations and creator events, all taking place within Riyadh’s Boulevard City.
Responsible for delivering the festival’s broadcast and technical infrastructure was Vanguard, one of the region’s leading esports and live production specialists.
“The scale of the event was pretty unique,” said Mohammed Nasser, head of live production at Vanguard. “We were managing eight live venues, each with different show formats, technical requirements and turnaround times. Everything needed to be flexible, reliable and fast to deploy.”
Multi Venue, Multi Format Production
With the festival operating across multiple stages simultaneously, Vanguard needed a solution that would support continuous live broadcasts for nearly two months, while maintaining creative consistency and technical resilience.
The schedule included everything from high end esports tournaments to new entertainment formats such as the Content Creator League, a live stage show hosting 20 of the world’s biggest gaming influencers. Each performance had its own staging, lighting and broadcast demands, requiring a unified system that could scale between compact setups and full feature control rooms.
“The Creator Park was a completely new venue we purpose built for the show,” said Nasser. “We had less than a month from final concept to first broadcast, so speed of integration was critical.”
Building a Unified Blackmagic Design Workflow
To meet those demands, Vanguard deployed a 12G-SDI production ecosystem built around Blackmagic Design across all festival venues, allowing its teams to maintain consistent workflows and rapidly scale capacity where needed.
Each control room was anchored by ATEM live production switchers, including the ATEM 4 M/E Constellation HD, ATEM 2 M/E Constellation HD, ATEM Mini Extreme ISO, paired with Blackmagic Videohub 80×80 12G routers, forming a central hub for routing, switching and monitoring. The Creator Park relied on an ATEM 4 M/E Constellation 4K connected to a Blackmagic Videohub 80×80 12G, providing headroom for multi camera production and advanced effects integration.
Camera coverage was delivered using a combination of Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2 cameras for main shots and Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K G2 units for stage, POV and audience angles. All cameras were remotely managed through a series of ATEM Camera Control Panels, while recording was handled by HyperDeck Studio 4K Pro broadcast decks and monitoring via SmartView 4K G3 displays.
“We’ve been using Blackmagic for several years, and that familiarity really paid off,” said Nasser. “We can build, test and operate everything without retraining crews. The workflow is intuitive and extremely robust, which gives us confidence in high pressure environments.”
He added, “Compared to other vendors, Blackmagic gives us more capability for the same spend, and that affordability allows us to scale quickly without compromising on the quality of our output.”
Consistent, Scalable Live Production
Throughout the seven week festival, Vanguard’s setup delivered uninterrupted live coverage across every stage. The unified system simplified logistics and allowed operators to move seamlessly between venues using identical control layouts.
“The interoperability of the Blackmagic ecosystem is what makes our workflow so efficient,” Nasser said. “We can expand capacity or reconfigure systems quickly, and because every piece of gear speaks the same language, integration is effortless.”
The reliability of the system also helped Vanguard overcome logistical challenges, including limited venue access and fast turnaround requirements between shows. Despite the event’s scale, the team reported zero technical downtime across the duration of the festival.
Building on that success, Vanguard is now expanding its Blackmagic Design based workflow into new regional esports productions, including multiyear partnerships with Riot Games and the Saudi Esports Federation.
“The Esports World Cup pushed us to deliver one of the most complex live productions we’ve ever undertaken,” concluded Nasser. “Blackmagic gives us the speed, flexibility and confidence to make it happen and to keep improving year on year. We’re already planning next year’s event with even more ambitious ideas.”
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