DreamHack bans Kick streamers for harassing guests at Melbourne event

DreamHack has responded after its Melbourne event in April 2024 was disrupted by several Kick streamers, saying those responsible for the ordeal are now permanently banned.

DreamHack is a worldwide gaming and esports brand with events around the globe, bringing together cosplayers, esports pros, and gaming enthusiasts for a weekend of community and competition.

Currently, Kick is linking up with DreamHack for a four-city tour with the brand in Melbourne, AUS, Dallas, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, and Stockholm, Sweden… but it looks like this globetrotting venture has gotten off to a rocky start.

In April 2024, attendees at DreamHack Melbourne, the first city on Kick’s tour, complained that a number of Kick streamers had disrupted the event, allegedly harassing guests and other broadcasters.

On April 29, DreamHack published a statement on Twitter/X addressing the issue, claiming that those who were responsible for such behavior had been permanently banned from attending any future events under their brand.

“People who come to our festival with the intent to disrupt, harass, or create negative experiences, are not welcome,” they wrote. “Incidents that we are/were aware of from the weekend have been dealt with, and those individuals will never be welcome at any of our events now or in the future.”

Attendees shared their negative experiences with Kick streamers at the event underneath DreamHack’s post. As told by Twitch partner Maddy Milkberry in a tweet reply,  two creators were “acting inappropriately” in her meet and greet line.

“These were grown men getting up in my friends’ faces while we were just trying to meet viewers, we did not know these men,” she claimed.

Another streamer by the name ‘BabyMaddy’ shared a clip from her own broadcast at DreamHack Melbourne, where she was approached by a fellow content creator who appeared to proposition her, making her so uncomfortable that she decided to leave the area.

“I don’t feel comfortable,” Maddy said as she got up to leave, while the other streamer’s text-to-speech blurted out a message from a viewer saying, “I’d do it.”

In response, DreamHack assured Maddy that the streamer had been banned from their events and claimed that he had even been suspended from his broadcasting platform due to his antics.

Kick employee responds after DreamHack Melbourne bans streamers

Kick employee Andrew Santamaria went live on Kick later that evening to discuss the ordeal, arguing that critics paint Kick with a “very broad brush” due to incidents such as this, saying that IRL streaming is “here to stay.”

“There were a few people who did not know how to act while IRL streaming, and they were removed from the premises,” he explained. “They were not exclusively invited by Kick or anything like that. They buy tickets and they come to IRL stream.

“A couple people acted like a bonehead. But the long-short story was, they were removed, and they were later banned by us, by our platform. Apart from that, we want to apologize to anyone who may have felt uncomfortable, but we also want to address [that] IRL streaming’s not going anywhere.”

Santamaria went on to state that their next steps are to work with DreamHack in creating an “IRL streaming policy,” fielding the idea of specific zones for IRL streaming at the event or  implementing certain etiquette for IRL streamers.

“We don’t want one bad actor to completely speak for the IRL genre,” he continued. “Just like IRL streaming, Kick isn’t going anywhere.”