The International 10 without Live Audience: Valve Refund Tickets

VALVE have announced that The International 10 will be held without live audience due to the rise of COVID-19 cases in Romania and the resulting new restrictions. The company has decided to refund all sold tickets, the process will be carried over automatically. The event’s dates remain unchanged.

The International 10 was initially planned to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, in August. However, the Swedish government did not allow VALVE to host the event with live audience, so in July the company decided to relocate and reschedule the event. At that time, Romania used to have under 100 daily cases of COVID-19. Now the number is over 12,000 and raises almost daily. Intestinally enough, the relocation of The International 10 forced the Swedish officials to reconsider their approach to esports events, and now Stockholm plans to host CS:GO major PGL Stockholm 2021 next month with live audience at the same venue that was supposed to accommodate TI10.

The first International since 2019 will be played on October 7th – 17th. All eighteen participating teams have already arrived to Bucharest. VALVE have introduced strict rules for the participants of the event, limiting their movements and contacts with others. Earlier we reported that all members of Team Aster tested positive for COVID-19 while being in the same hotel as other Chinese teams. Later IG announced that their offlaner also received a positive result. Reportedly, VALVE are working on a solution to allow ill players to compete in the event.