PlayEX Esports brings record-setting esports events to PeoriaCon 2025
- David Morse
- May 7
- 2 min read
May 7, 2025
On March 29 and 30th of 2025, PlayEX Esports returned to Peoria, IL for PeoriaCon 2025. This was the second year that PlayEX made an appearance at the convention. In 2024, PlayEX had a booth of 400 square feet - in 2025, the space nearly quadrupled to 1,500 square feet.
Featuring 12 gaming stations, live commentator station, and full scale production space, the booth was the largest at the convention. The PlayEX team arrived the day before the convention on Friday to load in to the Civic Center. This year, we provided a full audio, video, and lighting experience, in addition to gaming space for the tournament competitors and seating for audience. This was the largest esports event ever at PeoriaCon, and in the greater Peoria, Illinois region.
This year, we offered two tournaments in popular gaming titles - Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. This event also served as a USMK Racing official regional tournament for the Great Lakes Region. We are proud to announce that our MK8DX tournament featured 50 competitors from both the United States and Canada - a record for PlayEX. Across 5 qualifier rounds, a second-chance round, semifinals, and grand finals, we went from 50 competitors, to a champion, second, and third place. This year's champion goes by the username "Lemons Fox", a player who told us it was their first ever Mario Kart LAN tournament. In second place, there was a tie between Mankalor, a member of our events team and Mario Kart Youtuber, and KingOfLies - a returning competitior from PeoriaCon 2024. All three players earned prizes provided by both PeoriaCon and PlayEX. In the USMK Racing tournament rankings, this event earned a "B" rating - a great improvement from last year's "C" rating. This event also served as our final in-person Mario Kart 8 Deluxe tournament - as Mario Kart World will be released to the public on June 5.
The tournament also featured live commentary from our Stream Team, featuring:
HBBowsy64 (Massachusetts)
Mankalor (Ohio)
Danny Fathom (Wisconsin)
NERD (Illinois)
Our second tournament, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, featured 32 competitors. Across 4 hours, we narrowed the player pool down to our top 4.
1st: JRavioli
2nd: Jovi
3rd: EHC
4th: Fool :)
*Note: full event results can be viewed and downloaded at https://playex.gg/results
VODs for the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe tournament can be viewed on demand at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh8PI9U7laVNYzI0bQWVaHA
PlayEX is already confirmed to be returning to PeoriaCon in 2026. Dates have not been announced yet, but as that information comes, we will update our community. Details will be shared at https://playex.gg/peoriacon
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