KC Pioneers, LevelUp Arena host inaugural Midwest Fest esports convention

The core identity of the Kansas City Pioneers lies in the Midwest, even if their players don’t. 

In the latest effort to drive this point home, the esports organization hosted its inaugural Midwest Fest, where hundreds of attendees were able to mingle with likeminded fans and both participate in and spectate a series of amateur and professional tournaments, plus panels, promotional contests at the LEVELUP Arena content-creation studio within the Hy-Vee Arena, June 16-17.

“Folks that don’t ever get to see each other outside their Discord server—or outside of a screen—they get to be in person together. It’s a different experience,” Sam Kulikov, one of the organization’s co-founders says.

Tournaments for Rocket League, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty, with cash prizes presented by the Army National Guard, and a birthday bash for 24 year-old Chiefs guard and team brand ambassador, Trey Smith, headlined the event. Other partnerships with organizationships like the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and local streetwear brand, MADE MOBB, bolstered the possibilities. 

The concept was inspired by coastal gaming conventions like PAX, TwitchCon, E3 [R.I.P], Blizzcon, and many others, as KCP leadership thought the time was right to plant the seeds of a similar gathering in America’s heartland. 

“This is the first one where we’re like, ‘Why don’t we do something in the Midwest?’ And so we partnered with a bunch of people on that to do a lot of cool stuff,” KCP CEO Mark Josey says.

One highlight came on Saturday, June 17, when Lilfredson1—a 10 year-old Apex Legends phenom—helped his team (Jayberwockee and Vozskii) claim a $1000 prize in a LAN competition in that title against his idol, professional player Verhulst.

Afterwards, the 20-year old Evan Verhulst, a record-setting Apex player for TSM, took photos and exchanged autographs with Lilfredson and explained the importance of remaining humble as the latters mother looked on with pride. 

Much of the gaming itself went on down downstairs, where the Pioneers have established their newest headquarters after moving over from their temporary digs at the Westport Plexpod. Upstairs, the arena concourse was bustling with activity from the 126 teams invited to play in the Midwest Basketball Showcase.

A door to the LEVELUP Arena on the concourse level led into a number of booths, with more gamers at rows of PCs and interview seating areas for content creators. Just outside were tents, a food truck, yard games and booths with gaming-related offerings.

“We didn’t really know what to expect, we just wanted to put on a great event that people that wanted to be a part of, and that’s it. We didn’t really think about how many people were going to show up, we just wanted to make it high impact and high value. And if we did that, we knew that if there was only 100 people, that we’d be able to make a difference and create something really cool,” Kulikov says. 

Stephen Cole, one of the Pioneers’ investors and a native of the area who now resides in the Phoenix area, flew in for the event. 

“I think that what the Pioneers are doing is incredibly exciting. It’s an intersection of things that I think are very promising: the city of KC and esports. I was born and raised in KC, and I grew up playing competitive esports before it was the scene that it is now,” Cole says. 

Cole, 37, went on to code for Silicon Valley companies including eBay, Cloudscaling, Nervana, and Intel. Like many in those spaces, he sees the massive potential in gaming and esports investment but goes further in appreciating the Pioneers’ vision of building the brand in a sustainable, cultivated fashion.

“I think in tech there are all these trends that get hot. Maybe right now it’s A.I., and before that, it was crypto and NFTs. There always seems to be a mania around some of these movements,” Cole says.

“I feel like in something like esports, there is a way to operate that is very short-term oriented and kind of trying to ride the hype, or exaggerate what they’re doing. The Pioneers are taking a pretty long-term approach. They’re building something, and they want to be a part of this community. They want this to last for a very, very long time. I think that is very rare and special and refreshing to find in this tech ecosystem a group that’s not always thinking that way.”

The next outing for the Pioneers will be back onscreen as their Rocket League squad plays in its first international competition this summer at Gamers8’s $45-million global tournament in Saudi Arabia.