The best recent events and tournaments at Localhost

Nerd Street’s owned and operated gaming venues, known as Localhosts, are not only places where you can stop by to play your favorite games on high-quality gaming PCs and consoles. Localhosts also are the site of LAN tournaments, gaming community gatherings, private events, youth camps, brand activations and more. Every month, we’ll be spotlighting some of the best events that have happened at Localhost in Philadelphia, Rowan and Denver. Here’s a look back at some of the fun things that happened at Localhost over the past month.

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Philly engages with the local community

Villeage Esports and Entertainment held a special event called LevelUp Networking Game Night at Localhost, as part of the off-site entertainment for the 2025 Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. National Conference, held in Philadelphia last month. Invited guests, members of the APA Fraternity, and community leaders both in and outside of the greater Black Greek community enjoyed food and beverages, card and board games, and a special Street Fighter 6 tournament.

This event took place alongside the summer meeting for the PHL Gaming Task Force, a board of community leaders, game developers, and representatives from Philadelphia City Council who are in charge of the planning and execution of Councilman Isaiah Thomas’ “PHL Gaming,” an annual event at Localhost Philly in collaboration with the office of Councilman Thomas, the Philadelphia Tech Council, and various independent game developers, STEM/STEAM education initiatives, and industry leaders and nonprofits from the Greater Philadelphia area. The event was focused on how Localhost can continue to be a leader in community engagement for gaming, esports, and development.

Later in the month, Localhost collaborated with the Philadelphia Police Department’s 9th District for the first Gamers vs. Cops community gaming event. Sgt. Krystal Melendez and her squad of officers joined the Philadelphia Parks & Rec. campers for a day of gaming challenges and free play in titles like Madden 25, NBA 2K25, Roblox, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Winners of the gaming challenges were entered in a prize draw to win a $25 Localhost gift card on their next visit to the venue!

Summer camps continue

Photo credit: Nerd Street

Camp Nerd Street continued last month across our Localhost venues in Philly, Denver and New Jersey (at Rowan University) as well as at Maryville University in St. Louis. The 2025 summer camp season has consisted of soldout or nearly soldout sessions and a mix of new and returning campers across all of our locations.

Campers have enjoyed playing games together like Fortnite, Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as well as taking part in group activities like Memory Madness, Create Your Own Game and Speed Trivia. Campers in Philly and Rowan are also gaining some coding skills through our partnership with CoderOgres which is running a new game dev workshop featuring Roblox Studio.

Localhost Philly also welcomed several groups from Philadelphia Parks & Recreation as well as the BBYO Summer Camp. BBYO is one of the largest organizations dedicated to providing Jewish teens around the world the opportunity to connect with their faith and the global Jewish community. As part of the summer camps they host around the country, BBYO included Localhost Philadelphia as one of their stops during an immersive experience that not only included cooperative gaming activities but an insightful presentation from Devin Lashbrook of Netrality about the ins/outs of data center operations and strategy.

Fight, fight, fight!

The July edition of Iron Phist Philly’s Phurnace tournament series took place on July 13. With 27 competitors joining the bracket to take a shot at being one of Philly’s best Tekken 8 players, Tyler “Ty” Beecroft added another first-place finish to his impressive resume. Plenty of IPP mainstays rounded out the top eight, including Dameian “BigDam21” Winns, JJ “DivinexClarity” Stewart and Randy “MachoMan” Hernandez.

On July 27, Localhost held another Go For Broke FGC monthly, featuring over 100 attendees with 90 competitors across six games. As part of the last round of events before EVO 2025, the biggest annual FGC tournament of the year. The local community converged at 401 to engage in some final practice and preparation before making the journey to Las Vegas for the latest installment of the Evolution Championship Series. Also part of the day’s action, the July qualifier for the Philly Beyblade “Road to Domination Tour” took place in the Retro Lounge where players from around the tri-state area let it rip. These were the winners:

• Street Fighter 6 - Stephen “Spaceboy” Agyemang
• Tekken 8 - Tyler “ty” Beecroft
• Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves - Nycholas “Tao” Langston
• Under Night In-Birth Sys:Celes - Tim “Tido” Lu
• Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. - Wesley “Crazymasterhand” Payton
• Guilty Gear: Strive - Joseph “JoeBrownie” Courtney

On July 30th Brotherly Love Esports held their biweekly Smash tournament, Fly Melee Fly, for the 34th time at Localhost Philly. Kevin “Kevbot” Leutzinger took first place out of 18 competitors.

Getting in the zone

Esports Zone Media was back at Localhost Philly for another LAN tournament. Twelve teams competed in Call of Duty Black Ops 6 to earn a share of the $4,000 prize pool. 2 Elation Esports came out on top in the double elimination tournament, beating Nobility Rising in the grand final. Not only did they win $3,000, Elation also took home the EZone COD Championship Belt.

Dropping into Denver

Photo credit: Nerd Street

Localhost Denver also held a Call of Duty tournament last month - an eight-team event called Drop Zone. The event began with the teams being split into two groups of four and round robin play to determine seeding for a double elimination bracket. A team called Colorado Clutch came out on top with a 4-0 in the grand final. Colorado Clutch got bounced to the lower bracket by TECNO Gaming in the upper final but then got their revenge over T3CNO in the final.

RGL runs it back

Localhost has been a popular location for Team Fortress 2 LANs of late. A couple months ago, Localhost Denver hosted a TF2 LAN, and last month, Philly welcomed Recharge Galing League for the second time for a TF2 LAN. The RGL Season Invitational Finals saw three teams win their respective brackets and earn the title of 2025 LAN Champions:

• Division 1 Champs - FJORD Gaming
• Open 6s Champs - Type Sosa
• Invite Champs: Legacy

The event featured four invited teams and 12 Open Cup teams across two days of competition, with some of North American TF2’s best teams competing, including GlobalClan and FroyoTech.

Rowan Rewind

Photo credit: Joseph Lima / Fragadelphia

Frag Jersey was back at Rowan for the ninth time last month for a seven-team Counter-Strike 2 tournament. Localhost Rowan also hosted an Apex Legends watch party for the Apex tournament at the Esports World Cup. Additionally, educational esports leaders from various New Jersey colleges came to Localhost last month to discuss ideas on how to push the space forward in the Garden State.

Lead photo credit: Joseph Lima / Fragadelphia