With the growing popularity of gaming among both endemic and non-endemic brands, esports and gaming organisation Galaxy Racer has joined hands with EDM (electronic dance music) festival Sunburn to bring together the millennial and Gen Z consumer. The music festival has come on board as the official venue partner of the Valorant India Invitational gaming tournament to be held at Hyderabad later this month.
Endemic brands are sponsors with a natural fit with the market / space. For example, a car brand advertising at a racing event. Non-endemic brands are businesses whose products are not directly linked to the market / event, but still benefit from the advertising.
This is Sunburn’s first collaboration with the esports industry. Spacebound Web Labs, which owns Sunburn, will be using the event to build engagement with its fans.
Interestingly, according to the 2021 Deloitte’s Digital Media Trends fall pulse survey, 42 percent of Gen Z gamers listened to music while gaming, and 22 percent shared music recommendations with other online gamers while playing. Eleven percent had attended live music concerts at a gaming venue.
“Collaborating with Galaxy Racer gives us an opportunity to enter the gaming industry, which is on the rise in India. Music is a part of gaming, and e-sports is just the right synergy for us. We are always on the lookout for unique distribution and this is one such opportunity — to engage our fans with this unique blend,” said Karan Singh, CEO, Spacebound.
This is South Asia’s first-ever international Valorant tournament. There are plans to release an exclusive music video of the tournament at Sunburn.
For Siddharth Ravishankar, Chief Gaming Officer, Galaxy Racer, the association is all about encashing the untapped opportunity of esports and music coming together.
“Music and gaming are two elements that have an immense influence on Gen Z, and merging them has yielded huge success globally. This partnership fulfils our aim of blending premiere esports events with music festivals as the goals and the vision of both companies align perfectly. Fans can attend just the finals, or both the finals and the music festival,” said Ravishankar.