The final of the Circuit Crown esports tournament was abandoned after a power shortage cut the feed to the stage and game servers at Harborline Hall in Pasay, south of Manila. About 3,400 spectators were inside when the screens went dark at 20:14 on Friday, 6 November; the two competing teams were one round from the title.
A dispatch bulletin from the city’s power distributor recorded the hall’s supply falling from 3.1 megawatts to 0.7 megawatts over 16 minutes. The promoter said the venue’s backup systems kept exit lights and public-address equipment running, but could not sustain the broadcast rigs, cooling equipment and gaming stations together.
The final goes dark
Players left their stations as staff guided spectators towards the exits. The game feed had already frozen, and the organisers called off the match after 14 minutes without a stable connection; there were no injuries, and the hall was cleared without a rush. Outside, the evening air was 29°C (84°F) after brief rain.
“We had power for safe exits, not enough to keep a world-level final on air,” said Delfina Ibarra, the tournament’s production director. She said the promoter had expected the venue’s backup supply to cover “a short interruption”, but its capacity was not designed to carry the event’s full electrical load.
The tournament’s incident timeline puts the first screen failure 38 seconds after the supply drop. A separate battery unit kept the game servers online for several minutes, but operators shut them down when cooling fans stopped; organisers say data from the deciding round could not be recovered reliably.
We were one point from the title; then the map froze and the room went black.
Ariadna Quiñónez, player
A costly unfinished match
The promoter has put the combined prize pool, production bills and broadcast obligations at ₱38 million (about €600,000). It has promised ticket refunds and said it will reimburse teams’ documented travel costs, but has not said how the prize money will be divided. The champion’s place in next year’s international invitational is also unresolved.
Vedran N. Tomčić, an electrical inspector who visited the hall on Saturday, said there was no sign of a fire or damage inside the venue. “The supply dropped sharply on two incoming lines. We are checking whether the interruption began outside the building or whether a local fault made it worse,” he said.
The power distributor’s bulletin said technicians restored normal service at 20:31 and described the interruption as a supply fault; it gave no further cause. The promoter said the hall’s emergency generators were connected to essential systems, not the high-demand stage and server equipment, and that a full-load test had not been part of the event’s preparations.
Organisers have left the championship trophy unawarded while they review match rules with the teams. Rica Alexandrescu, a player representative, said competitors would meet the promoter on Monday to decide whether the final can be replayed online or whether the season’s standings should determine the international qualifier. “Nobody wants a title decided by a spreadsheet,” she said.
