Hints for Planning a Network Gaming Marathon?

Malfaetor asks: "Some friends and I are tentatively planning a public Network Gaming Marathon (LAN Party, except for an entire weekend) later this year, starting on a Friday night and ending the following Sunday afternoon. We've already acquired a file server and game servers, as well as did some testing on bandwidth usage of various games. We've also queried local hotels for available conference rooms, and thought about power consumption requirements, and so forth. I ask this of my fellow Slashdot readers: If you have ever hosted or attended a LAN party before, even if it was not of this scale, would you have any input (or horror stories!) that could help to ensure we have not overlooked anything? Any information you could provide would be greatly appreciated!"

"We have prior experience with private weekend-long gaming parties (with 20-30 people) a handful of times per year at the homes of attendees, and usually they conclude with few problems. However, we are planning on this session being bigger and more public, hopefully upwards of 120 seats. Although we have experience with smaller gatherings, we generally know all attendees, and have little experience with larger, public gaming marathons.

What did you do for advertising? Is it more effective to reach the intended audience by advertising on the radio, TV, internet, or billboard? What can you do about the rare, unmanageable, lunatic gamer? How have you handled cheaters (aimbots, wall-hackers, etc.)? Have you brought in sponsors to help offset the cost? Has there been technical support for the non-tech savvy? If so, was it free, or included in the admission cost? There are other questions, but I'll stop there.".

Comments

Make sure you have

[shibbydude]

bathrooms...

Re:Make sure you have

[Anonymous Coward]

No, these are hardcore gamers we're talking about here. Catheters.

Re:Make sure you have

[stuartkahler]

bathrooms...

And someone willing and ready to clean them every few hours. Those gamers that are able to place a round into the head of another player within 50 ms from 1000 feet are commonly unable to get their piss into a foot wide hole right in front of them.

If there is even one woman there, make sure there is a bathroom designated 'women only'. There's no need to dunk her into the filth of gamers on a weekend marathon.

Caffeine!!!

[Aneurysm]

One essential thing. Loads of coffee or caffeine laden cola

Don't forget...

[djupedal]

...to ask your parents for permission.

Nice touch

[fobbman]

Complementary mace for any women who show up.

Re:Nice touch

[Dark Lord Seth]

Women? What women?

Name

[qslack]

First, don't name it a Network Gaming Marathon. Some gamers might see the "marathon" and avoid your event.

Call it "extravaLANza." I dunno. I just made that up. Just name it anything that doesn't invoke images of sweat and toil.

Re:its all abouit the...

[spydir31]

Try not to mix those, tho.

128???

[Thinkit3]

Is this a computer thing, or do you just give rough estimates in powers of 2? Like, "There must have been 128 people at the wedding, maybe 256!" Oh by the way, decimal is evil and causes cancer.

Re:128???

[G27 Radio]

Ah, that must be why he chose 16 as the age limit. 8 would be too low, and 32 too high...

Re:128???

[firemoose]

As they say there are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that do not.

Make sure you have

[nother_nix_hacker]

One lad sitting in the corner leaching pr0n from others computers while they are playing games.

Re:Power consumption

[SpoonMeiser]

Candles?? Sure, candles will be helpful if the power goes out, but surely it'll be easier to escape from 200 angery geeks under cover of darkness?

One thing you WON'T need is

[NoData]

Condoms.

Probably, like, not ever.

Re:STOP AIM

[invultor]

It sounds like your problem is having the wrong kind of people at your gatherings.

One kid had his semi-girlfriend dump him on AIM at a lan and he spent the rest of the night being a whining pussy.

I'd set an agelimit next time, above junior high, and you should be fine.

Power power power

[indros]

I can't stress this enough.. make sure not to over do the daisy chaining of the surge protectors. After having just had a lan party at my place with about 8 people in the basement, and all on the same circuit, and two circuit trips because someone went to go pee, we had to start mandating people use the bathroom in the dark, or pause the game and everyone power their monitors off.

Re:Lan Party setup tips

[Melibeus]

WOW! 10kA outlets!
Thats a mighty truckload of copper in them cables.

Re:Here's a hint...

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, you've never participated in one and you're calling it a drag?

I'd like to publicly state that you're terrible in bed.

Re:food

[Andrewkov]

Hookers...

Re:weekend lan party?

[Anonymous Coward]

only on slashdot would a post recommending good personal hygiene be 100% insightful

Re:What?

[TopShelf]

Better yet, get a sponsor to bring in a couple hot-looking nurses to give sponge baths to players who don't want to leave their seat.

Of course, they'd probably have to be blind to take the gig...

hummus

[Hypocritical Guy]

lots and lots of hummus

Deodorant!

[yndrd]

Sweet merciful Christ, get these people some deodorant!

Re:be sure of licensing...

[orius_khan]

It's a good idea in theory, but we didn't have quite the turnout we were hoping for the last time we announced a Free-Civ and MS Hearts LAN party....

Sometimes it's worth paying 40 bucks for a game that has awesome 3D visuals and good game play... I'm hooked on BF1942 right now...