Extra Information:
For years now, UWE Esports has competed at the highest level of university competition. Our teams have gained huge success in recent years, winning 7 national university championships and consistently finishing within the top 10 teams in various tournaments. Competing within the national BUCS table, UWE Esports is considered one of the university giants.
We are seeing other universities investing heavily into Esports: https://www.nse.gg/news/university-of-warwick-invests-275-000-in-new-esports-centre/
In order to continue to compete with universities such as Warwick, we need to be doing the same.
The new practice room will take our teams to the next level by providing them with a professional environment and allowing members to practice at dedicated time slots, increasing competitiveness. Furthermore, It increases accessibility to all students, allowing for an even playing field for those without the funds to afford high quality equipment.
This new room will also provide us with the equipment to host LAN events at our university. We had planned our first LAN for March 2020 but due to COVID-19 it had to be moved to an online event instead. The "SWOLE" or the South-West's Outstanding LAN Event was still a huge success and we had over 200 players over 2 weekends and managed to get a huge viewership on twitch thanks to our promotion on social media. Having a professional setup to host this event would encourage university teams from all over the South West of the UK to come and compete at UWE.
The arena would be used 7 days a week because UWE Esports competes in a different discipline every day. As well as Esports, The Video Gaming Society would very much benefit from an arena to host events and casual gaming nights for the public.
The arena has a great opportunity to be setup as very charitable, many people would offer to volunteer and help run the place. Charity events and private rental could be made available to all students with profits going back into the community.
UWE Esports have already obtained 14 high-end Keyboards, Mice, Mouse mats and Headsets. All that is needed to setup is a room (Student Venture's room or 1 of the many unused computer rooms on campus). If the equivalent number of High-Spec Computers and Monitors could be obtained, we would happily donate the equipment we have already obtained to achieve this goal.
With the combined numbers within Esports and the Video Game Societies, there would be easily enough interest from 500 students, but I imagine with good promotion that the number would increase a lot.
Thank you for taking the time to read through my idea.