From 9 to 12 July, the Instituto Superior Técnico’s Campus Oeiras hosted the first edition of Jogália, a marathon dedicated to Esports, gaming and Trading Card Games (TCG), which brought together students, players, organisations and enthusiasts from all over the country in an atmosphere marked by competition, learning and conviviality.

Organised by LAGE2 – the Lab for Supporting the Management of Students’ Extracurricular Activities, in partnership with NexEra, the initiative was born out of a desire to bring back the spirit of the traditional LAN parties, creating a space where in-person competition goes hand in hand with knowledge-sharing and the strengthening of the gaming community.

Over four days, Campus Oeiras hosted tournaments in Rocket League, EA Sports FC, Valorant, Counter-Strike 2 and League of Legends, as well as around ten stands dedicated to Trading Card Games, Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer sessions run by Templars Arena, along with demonstrations, workshops and talks aimed at participants.

The first edition had around 200 to 250 registered participants, more than ten TCG stands, support from partners such as HP (through the HyperX brand) and Exad — who helped equip the event’s two computer arenas — and an average of 100 visitors a day, figures that exceeded the organisers’ expectations for a first-time event.

For Nuno Antunes, Jogália’s general coordinator and a 2nd-year student of the Bachelor’s in Telecommunications and Informatics Engineering, the main goal was to offer an experience different from what characterises most competitions today. “We wanted to bring back the concept of LAN parties, where people play side by side, socialise and experience the event in person. More than competing, we wanted to create a space where the community could be together.”

The scale of the initiative was reinforced by the partnership established with RTP Arena, which broadcast the tournaments’ semi-finals and finals, reaching as many as 8,800 views in a single day — figures the organisers themselves consider one of the biggest achievements of this edition.

According to João Lobato, Jogália’s marketing coordinator and a 2nd-year Master’s student in Computer and Informatics Engineering, the event grew as the team realised the potential of the initial idea. “We started out thinking about an Esports tournament, but we quickly realised there was potential to create something much bigger. Just the fact that we reached RTP Arena and hit these numbers was already more than we expected — it was, without a doubt, the biggest achievement of this first edition.”

Beyond the competitions, the organisers sought to create an event capable of bringing together different communities connected to gaming. The inclusion of Trading Card Games, demonstrations and other activities helped broaden the audience and offer experiences for participants with different interests, even though the team itself acknowledges that this side of the event still has room to grow in a future edition.

For Pedro Jesus, founder of Nexera, this focus responds to a need felt by the national Esports community: “Nowadays many competitions happen almost exclusively online. We want to bring back experiences where people are together, socialise and experience the event in person.”

After several years organising events in the field — including producing the main stage at DreamHack Valencia, in Spain — Pedro believes the partnership with Instituto Superior Técnico allowed the project to take a qualitative leap forward. “This was the biggest edition we’ve organised. Now we want to grow, bring in more partners and more activities.”

Preparing Jogália was also a learning opportunity for dozens of students and staff, who were involved in areas such as marketing, communication, logistics, production and partner relations.

That was the case for Sara Luz, a Marketing student at Universidade Católica Portuguesa and a member of the event’s marketing team, who highlights the work carried out over the past few months. “We built everything practically from scratch, and now seeing the event actually happen is very rewarding.”

Although she isn’t connected to the world of video games, Sara says the experience allowed her to discover a different reality and get to know the Campus Oeiras community up close. “I was pleasantly surprised. I found a very close-knit community and a very welcoming atmosphere. People are very easy to talk to, and you can really feel a genuine spirit of mutual support.”

On the participants’ side, many came for the first time with no great competitive ambitions. That’s the case of Miguel Rodrigues, from the Rising Sun team, who heard about the event through friends connected to the organisation. “It was really just for fun. We’d never even played together before — our first game as a team was at 9 in the morning,” he says, making no secret that the goal was simply to compete and socialise, with no expectations of winning a trophy. A League of Legends player for over a decade, Miguel says he enjoys following the level of the professionals and having the chance to experience that more closely himself, even if only at national level. Living near Campus Oeiras, where he usually studies, he also has a note for students interested in the field: Técnico’s Master’s in Informatics Engineering offers a specialisation dedicated to games.

Looking back on the first edition, the organisers have already identified specific points for improvement. One of the adjustments under consideration is changing the tournament schedule: League of Legends, which saw lower in-person turnout on the Sunday, could swap days with Valorant, and the team is also considering dropping FIFA from the line-up, replacing it with other titles more in demand among Técnico students. The TCG area is also expected to gain more independence from Esports, moving away from being a complementary feature to attracting its own dedicated audience.

Another challenge identified relates to visitor turnout on campus; for the next edition, the organisers want to create more incentives for physical attendance — from consoles to try out to partnerships with interactive activity companies — in order to set the experience of attending in person apart from simply watching the online broadcasts.

With the partnership with RTP Arena already in place and several participants having expressed interest in returning next year, this first edition of Jogália lays the groundwork for an event the organisers hope to see grow in scale and programming in the years ahead.