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The M4 World Championship, the final event of the seasonal esports circuit for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, has announced a change of venue less than one month prior to the LAN event.
The organizers of the event, Moonton, made a statement to that effect, explaining its reason for the change of venue.
“To our fans and players,
The M4 World Championship is now less than a month away, with preparations for the international tournament moving along. However, a recent unfortunate incident came to our attention concerning the XO Hall, a well-loved venue by many MPL ID fans,” the statement read.
In the statement, the organizers announce that the original venue for the group stage, which is scheduled to run from January 1-4, XO Hall, has been moved to Bali United Studio. The knockout stage which was to be held at the Istora Senayan GBK, will now take place at the Tennis Indoor Stadium Senayan and run through January 7-15.
“Due to these unforeseen circumstances and in order to provide the best possible experience for fans, we have decided to move the Group Stage venue to the Bali United Studio and the Knockout Stage venue to the Tennis Indoor Stadium Senayan,” the organizers said.
“This is done to ensure that we can provide a safe and conducive experience for our teams, fans, and gaming community.”
MOONTON has cited “a recent unfortunate incident” as the reason behind the change of venue for the Group Stage of its event. The XO Hall, which was originally scheduled to host the Group Stage, experienced a fire on December 5th. Despite being successfully contained, it is deemed inappropriate to hold the M4 event at the venue in such a short time following the incident.
The organizers also informed ticket holders that the new venues for the event will have less seating space than the original venue, and as a result, some ticket holders will be issued refunds. In addition to the refund, MOONTON announced that those impacted ticket holders for the knockout stage will also receive 250 MLBB in-game diamonds as compensation.
This is the case because the Istora Senayan GBK holds an estimated capacity of over 7000, while the Tennis Indoor Stadium Senayan has a seating capacity of about 3300.
“Due to the venue change, there will be reduced seating capacity for the Knockout Stage, and we will be refunding tickets accordingly for those affected,” the statement added.
“Impacted Knockout Stage ticketholders will be issued 250 Mobile Legends: Bang Bang in-game diamonds as compensation. For more details on in-game compensation, please look out for an announcement email from our ticket provider, blibli. The M4 team seeks your kind consideration and understanding of this matter.”
The M4 is scheduled to commence on January 1, 2023, in Indonesia and will have a prize pool of $800,000. As the largest Mobile Legends: Bang Bang event in the calendar, its previous edition in late 2021 garnered almost 3.2 million peak viewers, as reported by Esports Charts. The M3 event had more peak viewers than PGL Major Stockholm 2021 and held the record as the fourth most-watched esports event of 2021.
