The International Esports Federation (IESF) announced Thursday that its annual event, the IESF World Esports Summit is on track and will take place in December in Busan, South Korea. The annual conference will be hosted at the Busan Esports Arena (BRENA) from Dec. 5-6, with the goal of bringing together “prominent figures from esports, global brands, government officials, and sports executives,” for a series of talks and panels on the state of the industry.
The event will feature a number of themed panels and talks including “(R)Evolution in Esports,” “East Meets West,” “Esports Integrity: The Role of Referees,” “The Rise of International Esports Competitions,” and “(In Korean) Korea’s Secret Sauce,” among others. The Summit will also feature the IESF World Esports Training Camp and the World Esports Referee Academy—programs aimed at “advancing the skills and professional standards of the next generation of Esports leaders.”
This year’s theme will be “Building Bridges, Not Barriers, Through the Power of Esports,” which the organization claims will highlight the role of esports in uniting cultures, ideas, and industries. It will also feature the slogan, “We Empower Success,” where the IESF hopes to deliver a message that esports is for everyone.
The challenge it faces, alongside a lot of other stakeholders in the industry—from publishers and tournament organizers to teams, players, and fans—is reconciling freedom of competition with the alignment to governments (mostly for financial support) that have long-standing and ongoing human rights issues. The IESF, and its counterpart the Global Esports Federation have been widely criticized for deepening their ties with regimes such as Saudi Arabia and China, which have been widely criticized for their human rights records and totalitarian government systems.
Registration for the event can be found here.