Multiplay, organiser of the UK’s largest gaming festival, Insomnia, and subsidiary of GAME Digital plc (“GAME Digital”), the UK’s leading video gaming specialist, is delighted to announce Insomnia56 as the largest ever Winter Insomnia Gaming Festival to date.

Compared to the previous Insomnia event in Winter 2014, Insomnia56 saw a remarkable 68% increase of people attending, from over 16,000 to over 27,000 for the event in December 2015, with 56% attending for the first time. The scale of the event itself increased over a monumental 140%, from over 10,000 SQM to over 25,000 SQM. 15 million social media impressions were made surrounding Insomnia56.

Esports featured heavily at Insomnia56, with a total prize pool of $30,000 won during Insomnia’s first major Esports Hearthstone tournament, the Truesilver Championship. Altogether a combined prize pool of £50,000 was available across Hearthstone, League of Legends, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Halo 5, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, FIFA 16, Super Smash Bros. 4, DOTA 2, Battleborn and Rocket League tournaments.

Across all tournaments at Insomnia56, a combined total of 770,000 unique viewers tuned into the live streams via Twitch broadcast during the weekend, which at its peak resulted in over 68,000 concurrent views across all competitions. 14,000 grass roots players and 1,226 tournament players participated; as over 46 million minutes of competitive gameplay was watched.

With three Insomnia Gaming Festivals per year, 2015 saw a 39% increase in footfall compared to 2014, as well as an increase in the sheer scope of the event by 57% in SQM. Throughout 2016 there will be three Insomnia Gaming Festivals at the NEC, Birmingham, as well as two more with Insomnia Ireland and Scotland taking place for the first time.

“With every Insomnia festival we look forward to seeing the great numbers of passionate gamers attending, as well as the games on show,” said Craig Fletcher, Founder CEO of Multiplay. He continued, “2015 was a huge year, with more people attending our events than ever before. Having hosted our first major Hearthstone Esports tournament, the biggest YouTube personalities and showcasing some of the best games around to play at Insomnia – we’re already looking forward to bringing more exciting content in 2016.”