It has been revealed that the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2021 tournament for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, StarCraft II and Warcraft III: Reforged will not be played in front of a live audience. The event is still intended to be played as an in-person tournament, however crowds and the public will not be allowed to attend.
Detailed in an update post from ESL, it reads; "All three tournaments are planned to be played without an audience, but as in-person competition hosted on location in Europe. Should COVID-19 remain a major barrier to safety of our talent and staff we will then revert to online play in Europe."
The CS:GO tournament is expected to take place between February 16-28, featuring a $1 million prize pool and 24 competing teams. StarCraft II is set between February 23-28, with 36 players competing for a share of $500,000. Warcraft III is set for March 4-7, seeing 16 players fighting for $130,000. You can read further into each of these events a little further, including a look at how teams are split in the CS:GO event, in the ESL update post linked above.
As a final note, the post also states that ESL is still looking at options for future events in 2021 and that an update regarding this is set to be released in January.
