KPL 2025 Bird’s Nest Opening Wins Webby for Immersive

The Honor of Kings Pro League (KPL) 2025 Grand Finals opening ceremony won the People’s Voice Award for Best Use of Immersive (Video & Film) at the 2026 Webby Awards. The production was organized by Hero Esports and hosted by Tencent, and it competed against entries from Disney, Activision Blizzard and Samsung.

The ceremony took place on Nov. 8, 2025, at the Beijing National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest. The show mixed live performance with broadcast effects and served as the opening for the KPL Grand Finals that evening.

Hero Esports deployed a 3,663.75 square-meter LED floor screen, 10 movable stage screens and a 128-meter-wide stage footprint for the presentation. The visual program combined high-density digital stagecraft with references to traditional Chinese embroidery and included an augmented-reality golden loong dragon.

The live performance featured 124 dancers and Chinese vocalist Han Hong, with singer Zhou Shen performing at halftime. The event was staged for a large in-person audience and for broadcast viewers using integrated live and digital elements.

The event set a Guinness World Record for the largest live attendance at an esports match, with 62,196 spectators at the Bird’s Nest. Organizers reported that tickets for the grand finals sold out in 12 seconds online and that 85% of attendees traveled from outside Beijing, including fans from Malaysia and Australia.

Nick Borenstein, general manager of The Webby Awards, commented in a press release that nominees like the KPL 2025 Grand Finals Opening Ceremony were raising the bar for creativity and innovation on the internet and that standing out among nearly 13,000 entries was no small feat.

Developer TiMi Studio and publisher Tencent Games supported the event tied to Honor of Kings. The title reported 139 million daily active users in China and more than 260 million monthly active users globally.

Organizers described the production as requiring technical and artistic coordination to integrate live performers, large LED canvases and augmented-reality elements into a broadcast-ready show staged for tens of thousands of fans.