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St. Charles, Illinois, is probably not where you’d expect to find a bustling esports tournament. It’s about an hour’s drive west of Chicago, has a population of just under 33,000 people, and more or less looks like a typical Midwestern suburb. But since 2016, the city has become known as the home of Combo Breaker, a growing fighting game event that hosts numerous tournaments.
This year’s event, held at Pheasant Run Resort from May 24-26, was the largest to date and featured prominent competitions for games such as Mortal Kombat 11, Tekken 7 
, and Street Fighter V, attracting presenting sponsors Samsung and Simple Mobile in the process. Interest is still rising, too, as Combo Breaker 2019 set a new attendance record for the event.
“We were immediately too large for the venue. We also couldn’t afford to go anywhere nearby.”
However, the organizers capped attendance for the first time, and they are more interested in further refining the event rather than growing it purely for the sake of getting larger. At Combo Breaker 2019, The Esports Observer spoke with event director Rick Thiher about the benefits of holding an esports tournament away from a major city, the impact on local businesses, and the unique vibe his team tries to cultivate.
Building the Atmosphere
Combo Breaker first emerged as a replacement for another large-format fighting game event, the Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament (UFGT), which ended in 2014 following 10 iterations. Sensing a need to fill that void in the Midwest, Thiher—an assistant director for the last few UFGT tournaments—began working with other fighting game community members to build something new.
“That event went much better than we expected it would,” said Thiher of the first Combo Breaker in 2015, which was held in Rosemont, Illinois, near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. “We were immediately too large for the venue. We also couldn’t afford to go anywhere nearby.”
Credit: The Esports Observer/Esports Business Solutions UG
Combo Breaker moved farther away from Chicago for 2016, but found a venue in Pheasant Run that provided the space to hold a growing event, not to mention an added level of affordability given its location. According to Thiher, attendance has grown roughly 20% each year, with this year’s event hitting the aforementioned capped peak of 4,800 attendees. Thiher believes that the remote nature of the event actually fuels interest and excitement over it.
“Our event sells itself as an atmosphere experience, not so much a tournament,” he said. “We run tournaments here. There’s [a] lot of games here, but this event is—by and large—simply about a collective of people passionate about the same thing, going to a remote location surrounded by minimal food options, minimal entertainment options, minimal everything but gaming. These attendees are not golfing; we’re at a golf resort. The only thing you really have to do here is celebrate fighting games and play fighting games.”
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“The first year we came here, we shut down Culver’s on Friday.”
Thiher said that Combo Breaker set its tone at that first event in 2015, and that the gradual growth has been an increasingly positive response to that. He points to the Warped Tour concert festival as a model; Combo Breaker encourages players and attendees to wander the ballrooms and find new games to watch and play, with more than 20 tournaments at this year’s event. But that’s pretty much the entire draw: Thiher and crew focus on maximizing that part of the experience instead of spending a lot of time or money on extraneous frills.
“We’ve tried to create an almost rock-and-roll aesthetic, visually, to go along with that experience,” he said. “We have a little bit of the flair that’s kind of expected from large-format competitive gaming now, but we still spend most of our resources on important basics: How many possible rooms, ballrooms, and spaces in this place can we obtain hold of for 24 hours? How many setups can we put in before the power fails? If you want to do anything here other than play video games and maybe drink, this is not the experience for you.”
Refinement Over Growth
Factoring in staff and partners, Combo Breaker drew more than 5,000 people to St. Charles this year, and Thiher said the impact on local businesses has been noticeable. Multiple local hotels sell out, Uber surge rates soar the following Monday morning as everyone heads back to their respective homes, and restaurants see a dramatic uptick in activity.
Pictured: Dominique “SonicFox” McLean (left) gets ready to do battle with Andrew “Semiij” Fontanez (right) in MK 11 at Combo Breaker 2019. Credit: NRS Esports
“The first year we came here, we shut down Culver’s on Friday,” said Thiher about the fast-food chain restaurant across the street from the venue. “There was a sign on the door that was misspelled and mistyped, like somebody just made it quickly and left—which was fantastically hilarious. I know all the businesses immediately beside the resort do phenomenally well the weekend that we’re here. This is not an area that sees 5,000 people every other Saturday. There’s always some confused golfers down by the bar.”
Pheasant Run Resort has been a cooperative partner over the years, he said, and resort management has worked with his team to keep concession prices reasonable within the venue and provide ample space and resources to pull off the event. “I don’t think we are the largest event here at all—there’s plenty of stuff in the Midwest that fills this place—but I know we’re still some of the highest concession days. We’re still sold out every time we come. The impact within about five miles is strong.”
“In competitive gaming, I see a lot of events where you chase exponential size.”
Given the growing attendee interest in the event, its high-profile tournaments, and ability to draw prominent non-endemic sponsors, perhaps Combo Breaker could attempt a larger-scale event at a pricier venue in Chicago. But that’s not the kind of experience that Thiher wants to build, and it’s not what he thinks the Combo Breaker devotees want from the event either.
“There’s definitely a strong desire to be in downtown Chicago and have that tourism component,” he said. “When I look at what lots of events are trying to do, it’s chasing big cities and chasing the tourism within them. If you go to a place with a lot of great things to do outside of your event, is your event really strong enough to hold the interest of everyone that’s there during the weekend? I question that a little bit, but when you take big city affordability into account, now I think you’re at a two-strike for us. Can we afford to be here, and if we’re here, are we selling a destination trip instead of our event? Are we travel agents now? It’s like going to Disney.”
Not everyone was thrilled about the capacity cap this year, as some prospective attendees arrived on Sunday to find the event completely sold out. But Thiher said that setting that limit allows him to play around with creating the best experience for the crowd that’s there, ensuring that there is plenty of excitement and casual competition, but not have the arena so packed that it’s uncomfortable. And he thinks that refining that controlled experience further will ultimately be better for players, attendees, and even sponsors.
Credit: The Esports Observer/Esports Business Solutions UG
“In competitive gaming, I see a lot of events where you chase exponential size. I don’t know if that’s a desire for increased relevancy, brand awareness, visibility, or just increase for increase—and in fighting games, that’s the norm,” said Thiher. “There’s this idea that everyone should be the next Evolution Championship Series (Evo), which is our largest, marquee event of the year. And I think that’s an absurd idea. If every football game is the Super Bowl, then the Super Bowl is not the Super Bowl.
“We want it to be a bit crowded,” he added. “I want people to rub shoulders, I want that engagement. But we don’t need more than this year’s attendance to get the vibe we’re after. Let’s be the big band in the medium-sized club. The arena show is cool, but my favorite rock shows are mid-sized clubs with big bands. You left the LED boards at home? Cool, I’m here for some music. Let’s rock out.”
