As some of you might know, I recently went to SeatStoryCup V in Germany to cover the Hearthstone tournament. I was already travelling on business to Germany and realised I will be there the same weekend as SSC. I approached the MyGaming team and offered to cover the event for them if they would assist me to request a media pass to the event. The media pass was granted and in return I had to write some content.

Now first of all, my plan was as follows. Attend the event, every night go to my hotel afterwards, write up a short piece and publish it. I mean how much work can it really be? I was figuring this could take me an hour max (Journalism looks so easy). I was horribly mistaken.

I arrived at the event on the Friday morning (after not having any sleep the Thursday night). It was Summer time in Germany and it was exceptionally warm. I was travelling at my own costs so I booked the closest hotel so that I can walk to and from the event. The hotel did not have any aircon (the heat was unbearable) and the hotel did not include Wi-Fi. Luckily there was a coffee shop nearby (within 1km) that had free Wi-Fi and I could sit outside. I used this place for most of my interviews as it was just so convenient.

At the event there was couches all over, but working on your laptop from a couch is an absolute nightmare. I spent most of my time in the VIP players area where the couches were mostly used to lie down under the aircon. It was literally easier to get beer than it was to get water at the event (both being free, but you required to return an empty water bottle to get a new one).

So yes this explains the setup of the event. Now to get to the journalism part. Firstly, I am not a trained journalist (so I just winged it mostly). Having never done interviews previously, it was quite daunting. I prepped some questions and used techniques I picked up from being interviewed myself previously. This allowed me to handle the interviews quite well and I was confident interviewing the pro's. I interviewed quite a few players and by Saturday 2pm I had about 2 hours of interview material (But i had yet to write any article).

So at this point, I now have lots of content for MyGaming. Lots of photos to share. Lots of information and great information about the event from the players perspective. Everything I needed to start writing great articles. But this is where I hit a problem. I recorded every interview so that I can play it back later to write down what players said (this allowed me to capture more information). I did not really have an environment where I could sit down (in silence, without being bothered) to sit and write any articles. I needed an area where I could concentrate. At the event itself it was super noisy and you had to follow the games to know what is going on. At the coffee shop there was silence, but listening to the interviews would introduce noise and it would also mean I am not at the event. Afterhours, after the event (5am - 10am), the coffee shop was closed and the hotel room was hot as hell, so no real place to work either.

The Sunday came round and I still had not written a single article, but I was physically fatigued due to the heat and mentally fatigued from the information overload. I also had about 2 - 3 hours of sleep per night due to the event running till about 5am every night. I then realised that there is no hope for me writing an article as I just did not have the facilities to do it, but I will do it when I am back from my trip.

This is where I am now. I have returned from my trip and have returned back to work. I am spending my nights listening to the interviews and taking down the best parts and putting them into articles. A lot of the information is now outdated (due to the results being available now) but I got a ton of personal insights from players. So yes, there is a lot of content to come which is great news for you guys. I am actually very excited to share the insight I gained from the players with the community as I learned so much about the game from the professionals.

But yes, what I learned from this experience. Being a journalist is hard work. You need to book a hotel with air-conditioning (if in summer) and it MUST have a business center where you can sit and do work. Do not try to just wing it, you going to run into the scenario where you can not get anything done. Events run really late and there is not really much time to enjoy the event and cover the event at the same time. Being a journalist is an actual job

However, thinking back to it, I would definitely do it again. I met some amazing people and made great contacts for future events. It really was a great experience.

TLDR: Being a journalist is a much harder job than expected