Dorian Gorr: Berlin is the European capital for gaming and esports

Interview with Dorian Gorr, CEO of LVL

Even in the virtual-centered gaming and esports industry, events and get-togethers are always a highlight for the community, creating exciting experiences and great memories. Dorian Gorr, CEO of LVL, made providing the perfect locations for these experiences and memories his business model. With LVL Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie, he and his company have built a top-tier venue for events related to gaming and esports, company events as well as a space for gamers to meet like-minded people, play with or against them and have a good time. We talked to him about his company, his vision and goals and the experience he gained while establishing one of the most exciting event spaces in the German capital.

Dorian Gorr: Our original idea was: Gaming is mainstream, but it’s not adequately represented in the physical world. There are little to no spaces where the community can experience gaming and esports in a social setting and where brands and publishers can engage with this hard-to-reach target audience through unique event experiences in a premium environment that are transformed into digital content thanks to our sophisticated infrastructure.

Long-term we will turn LVL into a franchise with more venues – first across the DACH region, then the rest of the world. Not all of those venues need to be as large as our Berlin venue, but we’ve now established a blueprint and proof of concept that can be scaled down and still transport the same premium gaming experience as our flagship space.

We’ve been operating LVL for more than 4 years by now and have hosted hundreds of events for brands such as BMW, Ralph Lauren, Red Bull as well as many of the best games publishers in the world such as Riot Games and Activision Blizzard, so it’s tough to pick just one. But I’d highlight our production of LogiPLAY, Logitech’s now annual flagship event where they present their new products. We launched the inaugural LogiPLAY in 2022 and brought Logitech’s entire leadership board including their then CEO Bracken Darrell as well as 300 invited partners, members of the press and influencers to Berlin for a 2-day-showcase event where Logitech showed their entire new product line for the very first time – all hosted and produced in our flagship venue at Checkpoint Charlie.

The original opening of LVL was scheduled for March 2020, so COVID had quite the impact on us and our company. Launching a business is tough in any circumstances, but doing it while the entire world is in so much uncertainty definitely took its toll and made it challenging to project the trajectory accurately at times. Many events first got confirmed, then cancelled again, making it tough to build something sustainable.

I think our track record proves that for us. There are no other gaming venues that host global launch events or that are booked by the largest brands in the world across various industries for their annual team building events. Our client list includes top-tier companies such as BMW, Red Bull, Ralph Lauren, SAP – many of whom are returning clients. In contrast to other locations we put an emphasis on a premium environment: We chose a top-tier location within the city of Berlin, definitely spent more money than others on buildout and equipment and thanks to a highly specialized team of experts we’re able to deliver outstanding event quality, which is what these brands and publishers demand in order to produce something that they can show off on a global scale.

That’s a long story and tough to summarize. It boils down to: After the untimely death of our co-founder and previously largest shareholder, we faced turbulent times that we were able to solve by setting up a new company, raising new capital from investors and using it to buy the LVL assets out of the former company which had to file for insolvency.

Based on my experience, too many people who are fundraising treat their product and their business case as some sort of state secret when they should be talking to everyone about it in as much detail as possible. You will be able to find money in places where you never expected it if you’re open-minded, transparent and actually have something that’s worth investing into.

We chose Berlin as a headquarter because it is without a doubt the European capital for gaming and esports, which for us as a physical platform almost guarantees business opportunities with many of the teams and publishers that are located in Berlin. As we roll out our expansion we will of course go to other cities, and a great gaming location concept such as LVL will work there too, but Berlin was the ideal starting point due to the industry environment and opportunity the city provides.

Being centrally located definitely helps. It’s not like we’re specifically a tourist destination, but all our partners and clients appreciate the fact that it’s not somewhere far out, but right in the heart of the city. I think choosing a mainstream location such as Checkpoint Charlie, that is known across the entire world, helped us to transport our message that gaming has become mainstream.

Community building is crucial for anyone in gaming and it’s something that many people unfortunately take for granted. We run three community tournaments per week at LVL. Most of these tournaments are monthly happenings in games such as League of Legends, VALORANT or Counter-Strike. Due to us hosting these tournaments every month, they have their own sub-communities within our overall LVL community, which is great to see. We also use our own Discord server to be in touch with our community and give them a platform to exchange with other community members as well as a direct channel to the people behind LVL. Making sure the community always feels welcomed and taken seriously, providing them with an unparalleled experience, has the highest priority for everyone who works here at LVL.