Row after row of orange tables stretched in the large hall, covered with monitors of all shapes and sizes. Box TVs and pink vintage gaming consoles laid a step away from 32-inch screens hooked up to Nintendo Switches, painting a strange picture of past and present brought together in gaming nostalgia fanfare. The room was slowly filling up and the ambience remained relaxed, as volunteers wandered from station to station in saris and kurtas. Only the makeshift paper covers, positioned to protect the screens from the sunlight, gave a hint of the competition ahead.
On Jan. 17 and 18, B.C. esports organization Galint Gaming hosted the second Pataka Esports Festival at Surrey City Hall. Welcoming about 300 attendees from across the Pacific Northwest, the festival allowed participants to compete in six fighting game tournaments and was focused on representing and celebrating South Asian culture.
Kevin Dhir, founder and CEO of Galint, has been organising esports events since high school. In 2015 he created the fighting game department of the UBC Esports Association, a club that, at the time, had over 600 members according to Dhir, who never stopped running fighting game events, even after leaving UBC.
“Galint started during the pandemic,” he said. It grew out of a perceived lack of gaming tournaments at the time, and Dhir wanted to “keep that community going ... and then it just continued to snowball.”
Since 2021, Galint has run several large international events, with its yearly Battle of BC fighting game tournament regularly gathering thousands of attendees. This year’s Pataka Festival — named for a word meaning firework in Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi — marks the second iteration of a more local and community-oriented event.
For Dhir, the idea for Pataka came from a desire to combat rising anti-South Asian racism by celebrating the region’s cultural diversity. For the first iteration of the festival in 2024, which coincided with Diwali, Dhir said he was trying to give people “an Indian wedding experience,” complete with a banquet hall, performances, buffet dinners and fireworks.
While this year’s edition did not include fireworks, the venue offered a different kind of dazzling spectacle. Surrey City Hall features a central four-story block of bay windows, an impressive view which showered the space with sunlight for the duration of the event. Past the doors, the central hall was completely transformed, cluttered by tables covered with monitors and gaming consoles.
The setting, far from the dark, neon-lit space one might expect of an esports event, was a sign of the municipality’s support — Pataka was bolstered by partner organizations such as Sports Surrey, Discover Surrey and the Downtown Surrey BIA. From the central hall to meeting rooms reserved for ‘invitational’ games and a live broadcast from the council chambers, the city hall’s space accommodated multiple stations, with additional areas for merchandise sales and four Vancouver vendors.
A booth by esports coaching company Adamas Esports was also present to speak on the importance of mental health and wellness in the esports world. For Dhir this provided a resource to “encourage our attendees and our serious competitors to use this mental framing of virtual martial arts,” emphasizing the importance of discipline and coaching practices just like in physical martial arts.
The festival featured six fighting game tournaments — Super Smash Bros. Melee and Ultimate, TEKKEN 8, Street Fighter 6, Rivals of Aether 2 and 2XKO — split over two days. The event brought in players from across the Lower Mainland and the Pacific Northwest with some even coming from as far California according to Dhir. On the morning of Jan. 18, the hall was populated by the competitors of the TEKKEN 8 tournament with anticipation rising for that afternoon’s Super Smash Bros. tournament, which is the festival’s most popular game with 95 players entering the Ultimate bracket.
The TEKKEN 8 tournament, like all the fighting games represented at the event, involved a bracketed competition system where players face off in battle on the same screen. From an outsider perspective, understanding the nuances of the 3D game’s battle progressions can be difficult, but some signs were hard to miss: the progressive formation of a crowd around the two players, the palpable concentration of onlookers with eyes fixed on the screen and the increasing combo score as each player ran move after move towards a K.O. in the urban landscape of New York.
From the balcony overlooking the city hall’s ground floor, the energy was even more palpable, with the crowd growing and reacting to every move, each audience member careful to avoid distracting the players. The energy remained friendly, with players who faced off against each other ending with a solemn fist bump.
By the early afternoon, the crowd had grown tenfold, and anticipation was rising for the event’s biggest game — Super Smash Bros. Throughout the previous tournament, consoles had been laid out on rows of tables for players to practice — an athlete’s warm-up of sorts. By the official start of the tournament, every row was filled to the brim.
The brimming excitement was palpable, with players meeting to compete and reconnect with friends and acquaintances across the tight-knit community of esports players in Vancouver. Notable moments included the arrival of esports celebrity Justin Wong — most famous for the viral Evo Moment 37. His arrival generated excited whispers and points throughout the crowd.
As the Super Smash Bros. rounds debuted, the next bracket of TEKKEN 8 – the loser’s quarterfinals — moved on to sit in the council chambers, with the next round’s players taking the stage and live commentators sitting in the councillor’s seats to host Galint Gaming’s live broadcast.
Touches of Dhir’s vision for the event — which he taglined “Culture, Community, Competition” — appeared through Indian catering and cultural clothing, donned by both him and volunteers. Beyond building an event that “celebrates and appeals to the people who live in Surrey,” a city with a 37.8 per cent South Asian population as of a 2021 census, Dhir also stressed the importance of in-person esport events and programming, citing the necessity of tangible spaces for the community.
“The people here clearly know why it's important. It's so much more than just being there to play games,” he said. Dhir hopes that the events he organizes can provide third spaces for young people, which he sees as lacking currently.
Dhir’s vision is focused on the communal aspect of esports. He is proud that the tournament was open level entry, meaning even players with no experience with a given game could participate. Dhir also emphasized the tournament was a “welcoming space for everybody” including neurodivergent and gender diverse players. He hopes that events like this can be a guiding light for Canada as a whole, which he feels “has so much opportunity to grow as a global leader in esports
From its striking venue choice to its community-oriented intent, the Pataka Esports Festival went beyond the physical act of playing Super Smash Bros., serving the need for and popularity of in-person events for Vancouver’s young gamers and esport players.
