In the heart of Teesside retail park lies Belong Teesside a fully kitted out gaming arena featuring high end gaming PC’s, a PlayStation and Xbox and even VR.
Belong Teesside is a high tech Esports and gaming hub designed to enable people to play games and hang out with friends whilst doing so.
The arena was set up when they were trying to sell PC’s Games Trafford based store.
They set the PC’s up and realised there was a big market for people wanting to come and play on high end gaming PC’s but not being able to afford themselves.
The team found many people watching big streamers and wanting to get into Esport’s but many didn’t have the funds or facilities to do so.
There are over 50 games on offer and it works on a pay by the hour basis.
Belong also offer leagues, tournaments, parties and you can even hire the arena out.
Ash Holland is the arena manager of Belong Teesside and told us a bit more in the video below.
Popular titles include Fortnite and Overwatch but the centre also has a growing Tekken community particularly on Mondays.
Belong also host a nationwide tournament call arena clash with the Teesside team being known as the ‘Teesside Stealers’.
They’ve also been successful with their league of legends community in competitions and arena clashes.
The company that run Belong also runs a game festival called insomnia which last year saw them set up two, hundred seater PUBG arenas.
Ash spoke about this saying: “For every player in that arena had a seat. We basically had a 200-seat arena and it was really cool so I think that’s the vision one day for these arenas.”
It also has links with Teesside University with the heads of the Esports society regularly taking part and being members of arena clash teams alongside the advantages of the competitions and offers that Belong has on.
You can find out more about Belong Teesside and book ahead via their website.
If you are interested in arena clash and the Esports teams you can also tweet them via @BelongTeesside
You can view their upcoming events here.
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