VCT CN’s Beijing Stop Was a Glimpse Into VALORANT’s Bigger Future in China
With its Beijing stop, the V26 VALORANT Tour showed how VALORANT events in China are becoming destination experiences beyond the matches.
CHINA – The ten-day Beijing stop of the V26 VALORANT Tour was built around the 2026 VCT CN Stage 1 Playoffs, but the event stretched far beyond the matches inside the venue. Held in Beijing’s Shijingshan District, it brought together top-level competition, live music, fan activities, tourism tie-ins, local brand collaborations, a charity basketball event, and a wider festival atmosphere around one of the most distinctive event sites in the world.
This was a window into how Riot Games and TJ Sports are building VALORANT in China as a live product, where the tournament becomes one part of a much larger city experience.
At the center of everything was the competition. EDG reclaimed the top spot in VCT CN after taking down Xi Lai Gaming 3-2 in the Stage 1 Grand Finals, ending a 470-day wait for another domestic title. The win also secured EDG the region’s first seed for VALORANT Masters London, with XLG and Dragon Ranger Gaming joining them as VCT CN’s second and third seeds.
Their playoff run made the victory feel even heavier. EDG entered the bracket as the third seed among eight teams, worked their way through the field, beat XLG in the upper bracket final, then met them again on the biggest stage and won another five-map battle.
A five-map grand final is exactly what fans hope for when they manage to get a ticket to the final day, and Beijing delivered that. XLG struck first on Fracture. EDG responded with an overtime win on Sunset, then moved ahead on Breeze. XLG refused to let the series end quietly, forcing a decider with a win on Abyss. Then came Pearl, where EDG finally shut the door and sealed their return to the top of China.
Smoggy was named Stage 1 Finals MVP after a standout series. Meanwhile, ZmjjKK, who had already claimed the Regular Season MVP earlier in the stage, delivered the line that summed up the night in the post-match interview: "VCT CN, your kings are back!" With Champions 2026 coming to China later this year, EDG picked a perfect time to return to the top. The trophy felt like a warning shot for everyone else chasing the biggest stage of the season.
But while EDG's title run was the headline, the Beijing stop stood out because of everything surrounding the matches.
Before the grand finals, Chinese singer and actor Karry Wang appeared at the venue for a VALORANT PC and mobile celebrity showmatch alongside professional players and streamers. Karry is known to play VALORANT casually, and that came through once the showmatch started. He looked comfortable in the server, pulled off a few highlight plays, and helped lead his team to the win.
After the match, he also gave the moment a local touch. Speaking in his post-match interview, Karry said Beijing had become a second home to him after living there for many years. He also encouraged fans to visit some of the city’s most iconic landmarks, including the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.
Around the venue, there was plenty for fans to do before the matches even started. Photo spots, large art installations, fashion and styling booths, a collectibles market, and food areas. It was built for people to spend the whole day there. Come early, walk around, grab food, take pictures, check out the side activities, maybe meet other fans, then head inside for the matches.
The music programming pushed that festival feeling even further. Daytime performances featured Chinese indie rock acts Huichundan and Re-TROS while international electronic act Brutalismus 3000 headlined the night program. A charity basketball party brought VCT CN pros, streetball personalities, and rural youth players onto the same court.
This is what VCT CN has been calling the "esports+" model, and Beijing was its latest execution yet.
The idea is that a VALORANT tour stop should not exist in isolation from the city hosting it. It should use competitive gaming as an anchor that pulls in music, food, culture, tourism, and local commerce, giving people who might not have come for the matches alone a reason to show up anyway.
Shougang Park. Once a functioning steel production facility, the site has been reimagined into one of Beijing's most recognizable cultural spaces. The old blast furnaces and cooling towers are still standing and were deliberately preserved as part of the visual identity rather than torn down.
The impact showed up in the numbers too. The competition drew more than 24,000 spectators on-site, with around 70% coming from outside Beijing. Across the wider Shougang Park programming, visitor traffic reportedly passed 500,000. During the May Day holiday period, the district generated 427 million RMB in combined culture, commerce, tourism, and sports spending, up 6.4% from the previous year.
What VCT CN is demonstrating, consistently and now with measurable outcomes, is that the live event experience is a product in itself. Separate from the broadcast, separate from the match results, and increasingly central to how a regional league builds long-term relevance. The 70% out-of-city attendance rate is the number that tells you people planned their travel around this. That is what a destination event looks like.
What strikes me most about the Beijing stop, stepping back from the individual elements, is how considered the whole thing feels. There is a version of "esports+" that is just a buzzword attached to a music stage and some food trucks, then call it a festival. The venue choice was deliberate. The music bookings were credible.
The basketball event had a genuine community angle. The brand partnerships connected to actual Beijing identity rather than generic sponsorship inventory. Every piece did not need to be perfect for the concept to work. The broader intent was clear, and the execution was strong enough to make people fly into Beijing for a VALORANT event.
For international audiences who follow VCT CN mainly through results, the region may still have some catching up to do before it can claim to be the most competitive in VCT. But when it comes to the live event experience, that is a different conversation entirely.
In recent times, VCT CN events have consistently felt like they are operating above the level of every Masters event. The experience in Beijing felt bigger and more complete than what we saw in Bangkok, Toronto, and Santiago, which helps explain why tickets continue to sell out within minutes, sometimes even seconds.
With EDG, XLG, and DRG heading to Masters London from June 6-21 as the CN region's top three seeds, the conversation will shift to the international stage. After London, the V26 VALORANT Tour continues with its fourth stop in Changsha. VCT CN is treating VALORANT as a reason for fans to travel, explore, gather, spend, and experience the game as part of a wider cultural moment, and we are only in its third out of seven stops throughout 2026.
For VALO2ASIA, being invited to VCT CN is something we never take for granted. We’re genuinely thankful for the trust, warmth, and openness shown to us every time we get the chance to be there in person. It is a rare opportunity to experience the region up close, meet the people behind the scenes, and understand how much care is being put into building VALORANT in China.
Through VALO2ASIA, we hope to share even a small part of that perspective with the rest of the world, especially for fans who may only know VCT CN through results, highlights, or social posts from afar. Thank you once again to the VCT CN family for welcoming us as always.