Valve reveals Copenhagen as location for The International 2024

12 March 2024

The year 2024 is not even three months old yet, at the time of writing this piece, and Valve have already revealed one of the most-anticipated pieces of information of the year when it comes to international esports. On Friday, March 8th, the developer behind incredibly successful titles like Counter-Strike and Dota 2 revealed the location of The International 2024, the latter’s biggest and most-watched event of the year. After a packed 2023 edition in Seattle, in the United States, The International is coming back to Europe for only the third time in its history, as Dota 2’s most prestigious tournament travels to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.

Exact dates not announced yet

This year, the sixteen best Dota 2 teams in the world will roll up to Copenhagen to compete in The International 2024. This has been recently revealed by Valve, the developers behind the successful Dota franchise, in an official post on the official Dota 2 website. The event will be held at the Royal Arena, a multifunctional indoor arena located in the Orestad South area of the Danish capital. It’s a relatively new arena, inaugurated in 2017, that can seat between 13.000 and 16.000 people, depending on the type of event. For The International, Valva is hoping to sell out the entire arena.

While Valve decided to reveal the location for The International 2024 a few days ago, there is still some unclarity in regard to the dates for the event. We already know that The International 2024 will be played in September of this year, but exact dates have not been announced yet. Once the dates have been revealed, the actual schedule for the event is expected to be published as well.

“We'll be announcing ticketing and scheduling information for The International 2024 in the next few months”, writes Valve on the Dota 2 website, “Until then, why not go watch a game of pro Dota to get back in the competitive spirit?”

Qualification details revealed

Besides the location, Valve also took the opportunity to lift a bit of the curtain with regard to the qualification details for The International 2024. A total of sixteen teams will be competing for the title, which is four teams less than in Seattle last year. The eventual sixteen teams will come from a combination of open qualifiers, regional qualifiers and direct invitations. According to Valve, those direct invites will be sent out based on team performance during the year, which is reminiscent of how invitations worked for the first few editions of The International.

How many invites will be extended in the end, and how many regional and open qualifiers will be organized, has not been specified yet by the organization. The same goes for the prize pool, which has yet to be announced. In 2023, the prize money reached $ 3 million, which was considered somewhat underwhelming and a number which Valve will want to exceed for the 2024 edition later this year.