3rd time
Ofc and you should expect that going forward as well. Its clear that they wanted to find template that they can use for every tournament and this is it. Masters 1 and 2 group stage stage for Masters and this for crowd games and Champions games. Its just easier for them because they don't have to always come up with new stages so it makes production easier and saves time and resources because they can just re-use their stuff.
if you have 3 major events a year you can put a little time into making each look at least a little different. also this template sucks for crowd play because they have to play with very loud white noise and many players reported that the sound on these stages is really bad and they sometimes cant even hear players ulting next to them. I feel like for crowd play they should put the players into a box and then have a unique LED layout in the back. In some brasil event a year ago they even had a whole stage designed like a valorant map I believe. similiar to like a tomorrowland stage with valorant theme something like this would be crazy
Booths have been an ongoing debate for years (see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/ecdj4y/an_alternative_solution_to_booths/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) it's not as simple as just "do booths"