Being asked to return to desk host the B Stream for Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2024 was a huge honour and a privilege I don’t take lightly. Cologne is arguably one of the biggest annual Counter-Strike events in the world and I love being able to tell the stories of the players, add to the narrative of the tournament and, as a fan, get to be front and centre for all the CS2 action.
IEM Cologne 2024 provided a host of upsets, Cinderella stories and really set the scene for the second half of the competitive Counter-Strike calendar. In 2023 I was asked to desk host at Cologne for the first time and it was a huge honour in my career:
I really pushed myself last year and was encouraged to lean a bit more into my personality by some of the analysts I worked with. Come 2024 I channeled a bit more of that energy and really wanted to make the B Stream desks fun, informative and also an engaging space for people watching the show.
@techgirlza IEM Cologne Day 1 #cs2 #cs2clips #IEM @ESL Counter-Strike ♬ original sound – Sam “Tech Girl” Wright
Doing something new
Photo courtesy of Viola Schuldner / ESLOne of the things we got to do during IEM Cologne 2024 was change up one of our desk segments and the usual flow expected. I came up with an idea whereby I wanted the pre-show leading in to one of the games to work as a cheesy 90s gameshow you’d see on television. Our producer, Simon Bond, leaned right into this one and created a setting where this could play out. I was really proud of this idea and our execution of it. The two analysts were happy to jump in and add insight as well as entertain the weird concept. I think it led to a really fun desk segment which allowed insight and narrative building in a fun new way.
View this post on Instagram
Final thoughts
Photo courtesy of Helena Kristiansson / ESLIEM Cologne 2024 was incredible for me and I can only hope that I’ll be invited back in the future to host again. It’s the most incredible gig and I’m extremely grateful I got to be part of this iconic event.
Some of the photos from the event can be found here.
