Esports World Cup to Bring Free Public Festival to Paris’ Champs-Élysées

The Esports Foundation has announced that the Champs-Élysées in Paris will host a free, open-air esports festival on August 2, running from 3:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. CEST.

The event is being billed as the largest public celebration of gaming and esports France has seen to date.

The festival, co-created with the Comité Champs-Élysées, runs alongside the Esports World Cup (EWC), which is being held at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles throughout the summer. While the EWC’s main competition takes place at the convention center, this festival extends the event into the center of the city, aiming to reach a broader audience beyond dedicated esports fans.

According to the Esports Foundation, France is currently home to more than 11.8 million esports participants and over 2 million regular viewers; organizers say the festival is designed to grow by making competitive gaming more accessible to families and newcomers.

The event’s centerpiece will be a mixed-team competition featuring three figures described as pioneers of French esports and founders of the country’s leading esports clubs, alongside a lineup of personalities from music, entertainment, and content creation. These mixed teams will face off in a “Rocket League” mini-tournament, with additional showmatches in “Trackmania” and “EA Sports FC 26.”

Beyond the main stage, organizers are setting up an interactive gaming culture village that will run throughout the afternoon, featuring hands-on activities, educational talks, and panel discussions with professional esports athletes and teams.

The festival is free and open to the public, with the event taking place on the pedestrianized section of the Champs-Élysées between Rue Arsène Houssaye and Rue de Berri. Press access will be available through Porte Galilée, at the intersection of Rue Galilée and Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

Attendees can reach the venue via several Paris Métro lines, including Lines 1 and 12 to Concorde, Lines 1 and 13 to Champs-Élysées Clemenceau, Lines 1 and 9 to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Line 1 to George V, and Lines 1, 2, and 6 to Charles de Gaulle–Étoile. RER Line A also stops at Charles de Gaulle–Étoile, and several bus lines, including 31, 32, 42, 45, 73, 80, and 93, serve the area as well.

The Champs-Élysées festival arrives partway through the broader 2026 Esports World Cup, which runs from July 6 to August 23 and marks the tournament’s first edition held outside Saudi Arabia, following two prior years in Riyadh. Organizers relocated the event to Paris this year, and the seven-week competition now brings together more than 2,000 players and over 200 clubs from more than 100 countries across 25 tournaments spanning 24 game titles, with a total prize pool of $75 million — the largest in esports history.

Central to the event is the EWC Club Championship, which allocates $30 million of the total prize pool to reward clubs for consistent performance across every game they enter, rather than crowning a single-title winner. Team Falcons enters this year’s competition as the two-time defending Club Champion, while organizations including Team Liquid, Team Vitality, and Gen.G are among the challengers looking to unseat them. The Club Championship winner is set to receive $7 million.

The Champs-Élysées festival reflects the Esports Foundation’s broader push to expand esports into new audiences and communities, part of what the organization has described as an effort to grow esports into the world’s largest sport while building a more sustainable future for the industry.