After months of excitement, Saturday will finally see Twitch’s biggest annual event in any language, Ibai’s Night of the Year IV. While the eyes of (presumably) millions of viewers will be on the amateur boxers-turned-streamers, there will also be a major focus on whether Twitch can pull off what it failed to do last year: keep live streaming from crashing.

In addition to fulfilling its duty to the public, Twitch also needs to prove to one of its biggest talents, Ibai, that it can trust the platform to produce its events, some of which cost millions of dollars to produce.

Event of the year. Those who don’t follow the streaming world still can’t understand all the fuss about Ibai’s Night of the Year; it’s undoubtedly the internet event of the year in the Spanish-speaking world. According to Streams Charts, 3.4 million people watched the event live last year, breaking the world record for live viewership on Twitch for the second year in a row, with a total of 22.6 million hours watched on the day.

To put it in context, the first season Clans On Netflix, it was watched for 15.4 million hours in its opening weekend on the platform.

Fall 2023. Although the third edition of the Ibai event managed to make history, not everything went as planned. During one of the most anticipated fights, the fight between Mexican streamer Samy Rivera and Spanish phenomenon Marina Rivers, many users experienced problems with Twitch. Some were unable to access the platform to watch the live video, while others commented that the image was of poor quality.

The issues quickly reached the ears of Ibai, who publicly apologized and lashed out on Twitch during the live event.

“It’s a shame because I think Twitch is down. I think Twitch is acting weird. A lot of people are telling us this in chat. “We’re in touch with Twitch because the truth is, it’s a shame to put on this event and then see that a $300 million platform can’t provide a good server, but we’re trying and let’s see if we can fix it with a little luck,” Ibai commented.

Surprising record. But the issues with the livestream on Twitch didn’t just cause problems for the event itself, with Ibai and other content creators expressing surprise that the peak audience for the event was only 3.4 million, a slight increase from last year. For many, these numbers didn’t make sense given the event’s evolution from a pavilion in Barcelona that held 13,000 spectators to the Atlético de Madrid stadium that held around 70,000 people.

“The number of platform engineers, audience engineers, and things like that, including my editor, who have told me about the audience, is frightening,” Ibai commented after the 2023 event. “They’ve been robbed.”

Twitch CEO takes action on the issueMonths later, Twitch’s own CEO Dan Clancy confirmed to Ibai in a live chat that hundreds of thousands of people were indeed unable to watch Night of the Third Year due to the platform’s technical issues.

“A lot of users experienced buffering issues, making it nearly impossible to follow” [viendo el evento] “That’s because of the buffering. That happened because the audience grew and a lot of them left. That was the real problem,” Clancy explained. “About 15% of the people who attended the live experience had that problem.”

Considering Clancy’s comment, it can be concluded that if there were no problems with Twitch, the actual viewership of Year’s Eve III would be closer to 4 million viewers.

YouTube’s shadowSince the events of the third edition of Akşam in 2023, Ibai has commented on several livestreams about the possibility of the event moving to YouTube, something his current contract with Twitch does not allow. However, Ibai’s exclusivity agreement with Twitch, which requires him to only do live shows on Twitch, although he can upload videos to other platforms, expires this year.

“Twitch, don’t mess it up.” Streamer Shadoune, real name Gabriel Guero, closely followed the decline of the event’s livestream last year. Shadoune said that this year’s Evening had promised a lot: “The only thing that could fail is if Twitch doesn’t support the livestream.”

“Twitch is not in the best shape. There’s a lot of people going to Kick, a lot of streamers wondering if they should go to YouTube, so this is not the time to fail,” Shadoune told Xataka. She added that she thinks Ibai will likely take the event to another platform if Twitch participates in the Night of the Year IV. “So Twitch, don’t screw it up.”

A sensitive moment for Twitch. Ibai’s big event comes at a sensitive time for Twitch. Among the problems in the panorama are factors such as the audience that is no longer what it used to be. There is also the flight of talent to Kick, the layoff of a third of its staff or the increase in subscription prices.

“Given Kick’s growth in Latin America, where the platform has signed more Hispanic streamers, it’s especially critical for Twitch to strengthen its presence in this market,” Streams Charts streaming analytics expert Nazar Babenko told Xataka. “Ensuring the platform doesn’t experience any issues during the biggest event for the Spanish-speaking community is imperative to achieving this.”

“It won’t fall.” Ibai, on the other hand, says that he will trust Twitch and have a good time, but that he was unable to do so last year because of technical issues.

“[Dice Twitch] “They’ve literally put all their engineers to work. In fact, the CEO of Twitch will be here,” he said. “It’s not going to fall.”

When and how to watch the Evening of the IVth Year of Ibai?: Ibai’s IV Year Night will take place on Saturday at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid. It has 22 participants, including creators such as Plex, El Mariana, Amablitz or Agustín51. The event will also feature various musical performances by famous artists such as David Bisbal, Julieta Venegas and Nicky Jam.

The event will be available to watch for free on Ibai’s Twitch channel starting at 16:30.

Pictures | Evening of the Year

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