The International

On the train to Vancouver as I hit publish on this one.

So, the reason I flew all the way to Seattle in the first place was to watch the International.

Tickets for the event were sold through Ticketmaster.

There were three types of ticket, VIP, Floor Seating, and General Admission.

VIP tickets were sold out in approximately 4 seconds, the floor seating was gone shortly after that, and general admission was mostly gone in 15 minutes, but if you kept trying you could pick up a general admission ticket for about an hour because of how the ticket master system works.

There was a post on the Dota 2 Reddit by a guy who had missed out on getting a ticket when they went on sale, and so he had contacted Key Arena directly to find out if there was any other way of attending. They said that there was one suite/box available and it seated 32 people, and cost ~$10,000. So he was looking for 31 other people willing to trust him with their credit card numbers to arrange the suite. (The Arena was willing to charge multiple cards but they wanted a single point of contact for organising the thing).

I already had a general admission ticket but figured, hey, if I'm travelling half way around the world for this; go big or go home. So I gave him my details, and ended up watching the International from Box seats.

(an aside, as I sit in the Westlake Center food court and write this, Bulba just walked past)

Hands down the best decision I made.

Valve had booked all the other suites for production staff, the teams, press, and Valve employees. We were effectively backstage at the event, and no one really seemed to know that we were an exception to the rest of the area. As a result we had random players and commentators come into the suite at various points and sit down and watch the matches with us. At one point the entirety of Team Zephyr was in our suite watching a game. Sheever came in at one point to prepare for an upcoming cast, as it was quieter in our box than where she was allocated to sit. Synderen watched the first two games of the Grand Final with us.

(second aside, Ken has been here for less than 15 seconds and already has sprayed Dr Pepper all over my brand new laptop)

I felt bad bothering people for photos or trying to chat to them too much as we were effectively backstage where they would probably come for a break from fans, but some of them were quite happy to chat to us, sign things, or pose for photos.

The queue to get in. This is the pleb queue, we got to enter via the player/VIP entrance.

The view of the arena from the suite.

Close up of the analysts desk.

Photosphere of the Arena

Fireworks and confetti post Newbee win.

Purge

Selfie with Pyrion Flax. Yes that is ixmike behind me.

Godz signs a cosplayer's shoe. Shoeless void?

Big Daddy with N0tail's biggest fan. (She made a banner with a dog with no tail on it, which he signed)

Siractionslacks films an interview in the bathroom of our suite.

Kaci Aitchison.

The crowd attempting to leave post finals.
We get to leave via the player walkway. Suckers.

Also, the queued up fans look expectantly as we
come out the doors, then realise we aren't players.
Such disappoint. Double suckers.

I've got to say, I'm massively impressed with Dendi and iceiceice. I was walking past the venue a few hours later to go to the post office and post the various swag and merch I got back to Australia and I noticed something was still going on outside. I later found out that they had stayed behind after the finals to sign autographs for fans. When the arena staff told them they had to leave because they were locking up the venue, they simply relocated outside and kept on going.

Keep an eye out behind Zeus:
http://ti4.edgesuite.net/player/ti4/player2.html?prefix=dota2&content=main0719en_1@15211&title=Main&lang=en&start=1405785932