BLAST's Chrystina Martel On R6 Manchester Major: "We Know The Crowd Shows Up"

For the first time in Rainbow Six Siege history, an R6 Major took place on UK soil. British crowds in general are an experience to behold, but up in Manchester there’s an even more electric atmosphere with fans hungry to see top-tier esports in one of the North’s most important cities. 

“The UK has always been a favorite because we know the crowd shows up. If you've been in the arena, and I'm sure you can hear it from up here, you can hear the crowd. They've shown up. So that was a big factor for Ubisoft. But also we knew the crowd would be amazing, and they deserved a major and it was time,” Martel explained. 

Plenty of international fans made the trip to witness the best R6 esports teams fight it out for the very striking Deimos-themed trophy, but that also meant those fans got to experience British chants, all freshly adapted for esports from the football stadiums — fully uncensored. Though, this is to be expected when hosting an event in a city that houses not one, but two Premier League football teams. But aside from the lively crowd, Martel explained that there were logistical reasons for hosting the R6 Major in Manchester.

“Expecting people to come to London for events, there's a cost associated with that, but having people come to Manchester seemed more affordable for fans who needed to travel in. So that was also a factor. We wanted to make it accessible and from an affordability standpoint, Manchester was accessible. “

This year we’re seeing a significant amount of esports events being held in the UK up and down the country. ESL One in Birmingham has been and gone, but upcoming in London we’ve got the Rocket League Major 2, Counter-Strike 2 BLAST Premier: Spring Final and, of course, League of Legends Worlds. With so many big events lining up the year, how do you go about giving each one its own distinguishable identity?

“I think we've learnt as we've gone along how unique the Rainbow Six Community is, and I know everybody says that. I've done a lot of esports in my time and every Community is unique but the Rainbow Six Community I think is special in the way that they are a very fun Community.

This event, we've taken a different route with content. So you'll have noticed that we don't have a lot of pre-produced content at this event. We've instead gone for live on-the-fly content. So, rather than having a media day, where we film everything, quizzes, interviews, and all the rest and we reuse that content throughout the event, what we've done instead are different live things. We’ve had fun skits,  we've been able to film with different teams backstage, get quick interviews, get the talent in on. Cheeky bits here and there that we can filter into the broadcast. So, I think we're learning to be a little bit more flexible and have a little bit more fun, because we see that the Rainbow Six Community really likes that and enjoys this more laid back approach.” 

With the dust from the R6 Manchester Major having settled, and NA team beastcoast having secured their first Major victory, the competitive scene looks ahead to the R6 Montreal Major, set to take place this November. For BLAST, it’s the perfect time to take a look at what worked, and what still needs some time in the oven.

“With BLAST, the thing that we love so much is being able to try new things. [In Manchester] we've tried a completely different content approach, and I think it's really worked. I’ve been speaking to a couple of different people in the crowd, which I always try to do at events just to  gauge “Is this landing? Is this not landing? Should we pivot?” And there seems to be quite a good response to changes like that. So I think the content approach is definitely something we'll keep moving forward with, because I like that flexibility, I like being able to highlight different stories. 

But there's things we've tried that maybe we won't do again. We've tried for a more community-centric showmatch this time around, which I think has been a huge success in many ways, because again, we're very community focused. We want to include fans in what it is that we're doing. I think it'll probably be more of a balance next time. We'll have to go back to the drawing board on a couple of different things, but it's important to see where we land, and where we don't quite nail things. And I think this showmatch was great, in many ways, but we've not perfected it yet.”

Beastcoast won the R6 Manchester Major 2024 after an impressive Grand Finals match against Team BDS, earning themselves not only their first Major victory but the top share of the $750,000 USD prize pool. Next up in the R6 Major calendar is Montreal, set to take place this coming November.