IEM Chengdu to feature crowd during all stages

Fans will have the opportunity to see more teams from up close as the group stage will feature a live audience.

ESL has announced that early-bird tickets for the upcoming IEM Chengdu event will go on sale on September 11, with both the group stage and the playoffs featuring a live audience.

The tournament will be held between November 3-9 at the Chengdu Financial City Performing Arts Center. It's the same venue that hosted last year's IEM Chengdu, where the group matches were played behind closed doors.

ESL states that this year, 60 percent of the tournament's matches will be played in front of a live audience. This is due to group stage mathes running concurrently, which means that one series has to be played off-stage.

One-day group stage tickets will cost between 388 CNY ($54) and 688 CNY ($96). Prices for three-day tickets for the playoffs will range between 1,188 CNY ($166) and 3,888 CNY ($545).

Earlier on Monday, Marc Winther, Director of Game Ecosystems for Counter-Strike at ESL FACEIT Group, announced that the team list for IEM Chengdu remains unchanged,after teams were offered a 48-hour grace period to withdraw from the event.

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ESL gives IEM Chengdu attendees two-day grace period to withdraw

This followed a request from Valve, which determined that ESL's rule regarding event withdrawal "was not clear enough and vague in some areas."

The rule update came amid suggestions that a number of teams had expressed interest in attending PGL Masters Bucharest and IEM Chengdu. The Chinese event starts the day after the Romanian tournament ends, making it impossible for the teams that reach the semi-finals in Bucharest to fulfill media day obligations and play their opening matches in Chengdu.

The team list for IEM Chengdu event is as follows:

Vitality
FURIA
The MongolZ
MOUZ
Falcons
Astralis
3DMAX
Virtus.pro

Spirit
paiN
TYLOO
Natus Vincere
FaZe
G2
Lynn Vision
HEROIC