ZLAN, an event organized annually by ZeratoR for French content creators, saw its 2024 edition held from May 10 to 12 at the Le Zénith Sud indoor arena in Montpellier, France. It witnessed participants compete against each other in numerous casual/competitive games to decide who was the best.
The entire exercise was held in the same solos format introduced last year. Although the viewership figures were not as impressive as the previous years, it showed that such events led by popular influencers will always attract thousands of viewers, adding to the school of thought that such inter-creator tournaments will form a big part of the future of streaming and competitive esports.
As per the official website, this multi-gaming competition was held across 11 games and saw 198 players (including content creators and gamers) battle it out over three days. The total prize pool was €52,024, with the entire competition broadcast on Twitch and commented on by ZeratoR and its co-casters. Moreover, the final stages were open to the public at the performing arts theater in one of France's most popular centers for wine.
ZLAN 2024 saw streamers duke it out in games like PUBG, Wreckfest, Starcraft: Remastered, and Slopecrashers. Lockness06, who won the competition last year as an amateur, made it back-to-back victories — the first to ever do so in the series — beating Leaf 4:0 in the final.
This tournament saw 196.5K Peak Viewers, 4.5M Hours Watched, and 131.3K Average Viewers over an airtime of 35 hours. More than 100 channels live broadcast the action, with ZeratoR himself leading the charge in terms of most viewership metrics.
The platform superstar hit 181.1K PV and 3.2M HW across the three days of games, showing just how much his videos are in demand in France. In fact, such was his dominance of the live streams that the next best streamer in terms of peak concurrent viewership was moman with 22.3K PV, a whopping 8.1 times less.
What also made the news was the return of Ascension, another competition ZeratoR organizes. Towards the end of this ZLAN, he revealed some information about its second edition, saying that it would be held in Fortnite between this summer and autumn, ending in Marseille towards the end of October.
For those not in the know, the event was held for TrackMania last year in a format that was open internationally. The second iteration will feature the game that may have already seen its biggest highs but continues to enjoy remarkable fame on platforms like Twitch and YouTube Live.
Compared to previous editions, this one was one of the least-performing ones in terms of audience reach (least by PV and second-lowest by HW). The series leader in terms of concurrent viewership remains the ZLAN 2022 (315K PV and 185K AV), while the 2021 iteration comes in first when counting viewing time (more than 5.5M HW).
One of the reasons for a lower online spectator turnout was the fewer number of channels co-casting the proceedings. Compared to the 151 live broadcasters in 2023, this year saw 129 creators catch up on the action with their followers, with many in-demand names from 2022 who had missed last year’s show also continuing to be absent, like Gotaga and Ponce.
Moreover, the 2024 edition saw names like sardoche, domingo, and jltomy, who were all crucial to the great numbers seen last year, stay away from co-streaming duties. Another huge name missing from this list was Kamet0, the owner of Karmine Corp, as he was busy covering its matches in Valorant and Rocket League.
Moreover, the fact that ZLAN 2024 had to compete with highly-followed events from highly-followed esports games also played a part in audiences being split across tournaments and games. This included competition in Counter-Strike 2, apart from the two disciplines mentioned above.
Interestingly, ZeratoR’s audience reach went up year-on-year despite the series seeing falling viewership. While his watch time went up by a bit over 4%, his peak concurrent viewership rose by more than 14%, helping consolidate his position as arguably the foremost Twitch star today from his country.
His commitment to the event, willingness to add games, and change the format despite it already being successful have paid off, with fans showing their loyalty by heading to his channel in droves to catch the live action. All this meant another solid run for the series, continuing to showcase France as one of the global leaders when it comes to streamers, entertainment, and esports activities.
