The below statement is from DrHappiness, Event Coordinator for EssentialsTF:
Hello, just wanted to give you a quick piece of information regarding recent news with the Insomnia Gaming Festival. As you may have heard, the organisers behind Insomnia – Player1 Events – have been subject to mass layoffs. Right now the owners of Player1 Events, Supernova Capital, have yet to make a statement on the future of Insomnia. From what it looks like right now, it appears that Insomnia as we understand it will not be continuing.
We at EssentialsTF have been discussing our involvement with Insomnia for a long while now, many years even, and despite this latest news we have been planning on suspending TF2 events at Insomnia for the near future. This is so we could explore options more suitable for the changing attitudes and approaches to LAN we have seen post-COVID and have been making progress on these ideas. In our ‘Future of EssentialsTF’ post we discussed our commitment to a LAN this year, but upon reflection with this latest news and knowledge of other events in the calendar it is likely that we will instead be looking at our next major LAN sometime in 2025. Given that Insomnia was one of the community’s most well-known events and had tremendous longevity, we want to ensure that whatever comes next meets the community’s expectations whilst also being sustainable, an event that we can return to year-on-year.
We are saddened to see the end of what has been an iconic and storied event for TF2, it was an opportunity to not only celebrate the game and the peak of competitive play we have all come to enjoy, but also a place to connect with old friends and make new ones. The memories of such events will be long-held and fondly remembered. Despite all of this, we remain optimistic to what the future holds.