North America's Largest LAN Party

An anonymous reader sends this early announcement (registration will open later in the month) for Fragapalooza, writing "North America's largest LAN party is coming again this year. Scheduled for July 17th - 20th, 4 Days of non-stop gaming. If the numbers are the same as last year we should see roughly 1100 people packing the Mayfield Trade Center in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Sponsors for past events included some of the biggest names in technology including Intel, Microsoft, ATI, Sympatico and Cisco just to name a few."

Comments

Lots of machines..

[grub]

If they haven't patched their machines it may also be the Largest DDoS Party in North America..

Re:Lots of machines..

[harmgsn]

What about QuakeCon? They've had well over 1100 people for the last couple of years. Here is their site. Last year, they filled up the Mesquite Convention Center (Mesquite, Texas) and were turning people away. Total count for last year was somewhere around 1,200 people in the BYOC alone. This does not include all the spectators or people that diddn't bring a comp but played on someone else's... Their sponsors include: ATI (last year), Nvidia (year before), Bawls, AMD, Linksys, Speakeasy, id Software (id software auctually pays for most of it). I would have to say that QuakeCon is FAR larger that the one you're referring to. For those interested in going: the BYOC is completely FREE. Yes, you pay nothing at all to get to participate in QuakeCon. They have $30,000+ tournaments (that's grand prize). Normally, they're held in August here in Texas (Mesquite, Texas... east of downtown Dallas) and registration normally fills up within a day of it being opened. =\

How many women usually go to these things?

[$$$$$exyGal]

Does anyone have any idea how many women go to events like this? What's the ratio?

Error

[Anonymous Coward]

Can not divide by 0

The origin of geeks

[stefanlasiewski]

[The villagers or Rohlan are heading towards H31m'z d33p.]

Geekmli: It's true you don't see many geek women. And in fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance, they are often mistaken for dwarf men.

Arageek: It's the beards.

Geekmli: And this in turn has given rise to the belief that there are no geek women. And the geeks just, spring out of holes in the ground! Which is of course ridiculous.

Too small for me..

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Sweden we have DreamHack, which is about six times larger than what's mentioned in the article. It also happens to be the largest party of this kind in the world :-).

French's biggest lan party

[jeriqo]

The French's biggest lan party is called "lan-arena",
the last one (7th) had 1500 players and 8000 visitors..

More info here

Recognize anyone?

[sql*kitten]

You can bet that most of these people will be there...

Bigger

[dethkultur]

Quakecon, gets more, has for a couple of years now.

And as for grrl gamers showing up, yes there will be plenty I assure you. Some hot ones too. Only maybe 1 out of 50 of participants will be female based on the big lans I've been to, but they do show up (usually as a gf, or MOM even, but there are some female clans out there.)

That's not the largest.

[revmoo]

What about million man lan? 2500 people in Louisville, KY, and another 2500 in Los Angeles, CA.

Also the worst run LAN ever

[strAtEdgE]

I've been to all but one of the FP events since it's inception in 1997, I even won the tournament that year back when everyone played nothing but quake. I've got to warn people though that with size comes a distinct lack of quality... last years FP was a complete disaster, the words anarchy and chaos come to mind.

I definately won't be going back and if you're more interterested in a good time than simply being around lots of computers, I suggest you go to a LAN that hasn't completely outgrown itself.