Riot Games Dives Into Music for VALORANT Champions Tour Los Angeles
Riot Games is celebrating the 2023 VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) with innovative music activations including the VCT anthem “Ticking Away” by acclaimed artists Grabbitz and bbno$, a robust lineup of Finals Opening Ceremony performances, and various pop-up activations around Los Angeles.
Music has always been a huge part of the VALORANT experience, and this year’s VCT anthem is no exception. The Grabbitz and bbno$ track “Ticking Away” and its music video will be released on DSPs on Monday, July 31, 2023. A fusion of rock and pulsating electronic beats,“Ticking Away” is Grabbitz’s third VCT anthem collaboration with Riot. His hit 2021 single “Die For You” amassed approximately 61 million YouTube views and 80 million Spotify plays. He also wrote and produced the 2022 VCT anthem “Fire Again,” which was performed by Ashnikko.
Grabbitz and bbno$ will perform the anthem live for the first time during the Opening Ceremony at the VALORANT Champions Finals on Saturday, August 26 at the Forum. ericdoa will also perform his 2023 blockbuster VALORANT single “GREATER THAN ONE.” Vocalists Emei and Jazz Alonso will debut a surprise track produced by ARB4, who previously collaborated with VALORANT on the 2022 single “Raja” with Tienas and Mangal Suvernan. The performances will kick off an evening of intense gameplay in front of over 10,000 spectators, with more than 2 million viewers expected to watch the Finals and Opening Ceremony online.
Leading up to the Finals, Riot Games is creating other immersive musical experiences around Los Angeles. VALORANT and well-known event producers Brownies & Lemonade are coming together to host a one-night music event on Wednesday, August 23 in downtown LA. Further details for the event will be revealed shortly on Riot and Brownies & Lemonade’s social channels. VALORANT will also be bringing its music and lifestyle into various LA neighborhoods with a branded DJ truck that will be at the center of multiple pop-ups between August 13 - 23.
“Reflecting and amplifying music culture is in VALORANT’s DNA, and we have an innovative slate of activations for VAL players and esports fans throughout the Champions Tour,” said Maria Egan, Global Head of Music and Events for Riot Games. “Between the anthem, Opening Ceremony performances and local pop-ups, the VCT will introduce the thousands in attendance in Los Angeles and the millions watching from around the world to some of the most exciting new artists around the VALORANT community.”
"It’s been an honor to work with VALORANT for three years in a row now,” said Grabbitz. “To see the impact the songs have had on the community and the players has been astonishing."
“Making ‘GREATER THAN ONE’ was a more than surreal experience and to be able to perform it at Champs is just as exciting,” said ericdoa. “Years ago I fell in love with VAL and being able to work/collaborate with Riot so closely on music still feels like a dream.”
Upon its launch in June 2020, VALORANT became an immediate hit with gamers and racked up more than 500 million individual games played in its first year alone. The game has more than 17 million followers on Twitch across its collective channels, with more than 2.1 million YouTube subscribers and 1.4 million TikTok followers. Its success is reflected in the VALORANT Champions Tour, which reached over 1.5 million concurrent viewers in its second year as a sport.
About Riot Games
Riot Games was founded in 2006 to develop, publish, and support the most player-focused games in the world. In 2009, Riot released its debut title, League of Legends, to worldwide acclaim. League has gone on to be the most-played PC game in the world and a key driver of the explosive growth of esports. With League in its second decade, Riot is continuing to evolve the game while delivering new experiences to players with Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra, VALORANT, League of Legends: Wild Rift, Riot Forge, and multiple work-in-progress titles. Riot is also expanding the world of Runeterra through multimedia projects across music, comic books, board games, and Arcane, its Emmy-winning animated series.
Founded by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, Riot is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and has 4,500+ Rioters in 20+ offices worldwide.
About VALORANT
VALORANT is a competitive 5v5 character-based tactical shooter developed by Riot Games. VALORANT is a precise and lethal multiplayer game with high-fidelity gunplay, a diverse arsenal of guns, agents with unique abilities, and competitively tuned maps for thousands of hours of play. VALORANT is a free-to-play game and optimized to perform on a wide variety of PC hardware, allowing for a global audience to compete. Demonstrated by the game’s best-in-class game server quality, global infrastructure, and proprietary anti-cheat technology, Riot Games is committed to preserving the core tenets of the tactical shooter genre and upholding the competitive integrity of the gameplay experience.
ABOUT VALORANT Champions Tour
VALORANT is the highly competitive, 5v5 character-based tactical shooter attracting millions of players around the world. To foster and support global competition, Riot Games operates the VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT), a year-long, global circuit composed of leagues and global events spanning EMEA, Asia, and the Americas. Teams compete through three international leagues and global Masters events with the goal to qualify for Champions, a two-week long tournament where a single team is crowned the VALORANT Global Champion.