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Anatomy of a LAN Party?
malfaetor writes "My colleagues and I are interested in improving on an annual public LAN Party that we first held last year. Before the event, I asked Slashdot, and received some terrific suggestions. The event ended up being quite a bit of fun, and we had very few technical issues. However, there were some non-technical improvements that could be made. We did not break even financially, and ended up having to divide the loss among the seven of us. The biggest financial killer for us was insurance, at nearly $500 for the event. What have other LAN party organizers done about insurance and legal issues? Has insurance (or lack thereof) come back to haunt anyone in the past?"
"We've also had trouble deciding which network games would be the most popular. Our group has tried to focus on games that are the most familiar (or at least the smallest learning curve), and that most individuals already have installed. What games have been the most popular at LAN parties you have attended in the past six months? We know many individuals with consoles, but are unsure if promoting the console gamers would be a large draw. Have consoles been a common sight at the LAN Parties you have attended? If so, have you had any problems related to having to juggle both console and PC players?
Advertising was also an issue. We ran a grassroots advertising campaign because radio and TV advertising were too costly to be considered. However, we were concerned that the flyers we created and the postings we had on certain websites were not reaching enough local gamers. Strangely, local game shops have been very hesitant to allow us to place flyers there. What creative ways have other groups used in the past to get the word out?
Our webmaster has done a great job so far in getting sponsors. Sponsors have been very good to us, but other events that have been around longer seem to have quite a bit more swag to give away to the attendees. Is the real trick to getting sponsors to have longevity, Get Big, or have the organizers donate a whole bunch more money toward the cause to purchase these prizes themselves? Do local sponsors tend to give more than big national sponsors? Does anyone have any tips or tricks for approaching sponsors?
Lastly, has anything changed in the LAN Party scene in the past year? Has anybody seen or been involved in any noticeable trends, or have experiences worth mentioning?"
Advertising was also an issue. We ran a grassroots advertising campaign because radio and TV advertising were too costly to be considered. However, we were concerned that the flyers we created and the postings we had on certain websites were not reaching enough local gamers. Strangely, local game shops have been very hesitant to allow us to place flyers there. What creative ways have other groups used in the past to get the word out?
Our webmaster has done a great job so far in getting sponsors. Sponsors have been very good to us, but other events that have been around longer seem to have quite a bit more swag to give away to the attendees. Is the real trick to getting sponsors to have longevity, Get Big, or have the organizers donate a whole bunch more money toward the cause to purchase these prizes themselves? Do local sponsors tend to give more than big national sponsors? Does anyone have any tips or tricks for approaching sponsors?
Lastly, has anything changed in the LAN Party scene in the past year? Has anybody seen or been involved in any noticeable trends, or have experiences worth mentioning?"
Just give them a EULA to sign saying you aren't responsible for anything that you do to them, works great for Microsoft.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
That way you can cover most of your costs, potentially even insurance.
A blog like any other.
dont try and make a profit :P
I don't know if it would work for all, but
it's worth looking into:
Linux Australia buys a "big ins. policy"
Your branch wants to hold an event
It notifies the LA of type, place, date & times
LA notifies the ins. co. of same
Branch's event is covered by organisation's ins.
Again, I'm not directly involved in details,
but just heard the above scenario described
at its latest conference in January.
It's the kind of thing that could help to both
save small groups $'s -and- strengthen network-
ing among compatible groups... there's incentive
to keep in touch (at least a bit)
You milage may vary...
Things may be different where you are, but in my area, the geek community is pretty tightly knit. Generally, word-of-mouth is the best form of advertisent. Tell the local geeks at high schools, colleges, etc. People who would be willing to attend a LAN would hear about it eventually, from other people who would be attending it.
eclecti.cc
Get down with your bad self!
What do you need insurance for, in case you lose a game? Jam your thumb on a mouse? Get punched in the nose by an irate base camper you sniped from your jeep?
Has insurance (or lack thereof) come back to haunt anyone in the past?
No. Lack of insurance has never been a problem for anyone. Ever.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I recently had a LAN party and it went GREAT! We had 11 people at the height and it lasted about 16 hours (About 7 PM to 11 AM). I charged everyone $10 to cover soda and pizza and broke out fairly even. We played a few games, here's my suggestions:
UT2k4 Onslaught mode - Its an awesome FPS game and Onslaught adds a depth to the game that strategy gamers will find appealing.
Rise of Nations - We played this near the end when we had 8, since that's the max for the game, and it is a great game, simple to learn, hard to master.
Counter-Strike - Simply because it *is* so old-school, even if it's not that great of a game.
My LAN party was, assumingly, smaller than yours, but you just need to scale accordingly.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
/Strangely, local game shops have been very hesitant to allow us to place flyers there./
This is because they fear that the rampant piracy that happens at almost gaming LAN will hurt their business. They're probably right too.
Maybe you would have better results throwing your lan party somewhere other than Iowa.
Don't do what the poor buncha' college kids did in my town a while back. The motel where they booked the room wouldn't let them plug into their AC outlets for some reason. They had a generator, but hadn't planned the load well or gotten it setup before people arrived. I finally asked for my $ back and split after the third time the power to my lan box was cut : (
Mostly we use WiFi laptops and have like two PS2s and 2 Gamecubes set up.
Bear in mind, we usually play Starcraft, Old School style.
If your only parties are "LAN parties" then you ain't gonna know much of human anatomy--especially female anatomy--as I am sure most of fellow Slashdotters already know, myself included. (Posting as AC for obvious reasons.)
Choose Finance as a Tag Skill, and by level 6 (42,500 XP) your insurance costs will be negligible.
Insurance is only expensive if you didn't need it.
i've found wolfenstein:enemy territory to be the absolute best lan first person shooter... and what's better is that it's totally free. you can download it off www.splashdamage.com
You may be able to get sponsors for snacks, drinks, etc. If you convince enough people, you may also be able to get the speed stick folks to supply deodorant to the literally unwashed masses. :)
I've never been to a LAN party so my input will not weigh as much as those who have. However, it may be worth listening to in order to attract the demographic.
Have refreshments and clean bathrooms. Make the machines comfortable to use. If people bring their own kit, be sure to have enough people who have the same games installed to make a decent game or two. If possible, try to moderate the games with some sort of ranking system where the n00bs (like myself) don't get 0wn3d too much by those with m4d 5k177z. I say let them play in their own high-ranking games.
As gaming in general has moved away from the socially unacceptable geek culture and towards mainstream, you'll be gathering an ecclectic group of people with different social skills. Be sure to have enough space for divergent cultures to group themselves. Social retards like myself need to hang out with others like me (I know there are others out there, damn it!) while the more pop-culture trash talking "you are teh suxor" group can have their pissing contest elsewhere.
I enjoy FPS games (ET, UT, TFC), but am not too much into the strategy types (warcraft/starcraft) . I'd go to LAN party events (and would gladly pay theme-park-like admission for a day's worth) but am wary that it's not a social environment I'd be comfortable in.
In any case, good luck to you.
Maybe sell T-shirts - have some onsite, and set up a CafePress store to sell more of them in case you run out?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Simply because it *is* so old-school
<stares at screen>
"old-school"? Counterstrike?!
Belief is the currency of delusion.
So I pretty much only play Xbox Halo these days. Sometimes we have a War/StarCraft party, but more and more often I only play Xbox. I like the fact that you share screens since it means that you can see where your teammates are, and it is more social.
I have also noticed that it is easier to get girls to play on a console than a PC, YMMV, but there is something to be said for having a mixed gender party.
Anatomy of a lan party:
Lots of penises.
Compare the tone of my post with the moderation. I was joking, not trying to be insightful....
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
the best lan experiance i've ever had, would have to be sven coop
online, lag can sometimes be an issue, but when everyones in the same house, shouting profanities, typing profanities, yelling profanities into the mike, its great fun
http://www.svencoop.com/
BølerLAN is held by me and some of my friends two times a year. Around 60-70 people are coming each time.
:P (for the record, codebreaker had 200 people in one game).
The event is being held at the local school. We are also lucky that the district council is sort of sponsoring us with manpower that is used for security and running a nice non-profit stand with various food and candy.
The killer event is the Quake 3 Special Event. It is a concept that i borrowed from CodeBreaker. Two rounds of deathmatch that lasts 20 minutes each. 38 of 60 people joined the game, and we had much more fun than with Ut2k4 1on1
Dvorak on Doomtech
Girls?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Don't post your site to /.
Even if you make all the attendees sign a permission slip saying that you're not responsible for them or their hardware and that they understand that LAN parties, like bungee-jumping, are an inherently dangerous activity, and that they agree to pay for any damage they do, you still need to protect yourself against attendees doing dangerous or stupid things. Because there's some reasonable probability that they will, and either you won't be able to figure out who it was or they won't have the personal assets or insurance to cover it. Maybe they plug their PC into 240VAC and the blue smoke gets out and sets off the sprinklers, or maybe they plug their Ethernet into the building PBX jacks and fry the PBX (yes, I know RJ45 is designed to discourage problems like that), or maybe their extra-high-power 802.11b card triggers the garage door opener and some outsider steals the snowplow, or your PCs use up too much power and a circuit breaker trips, taking out the coffeepot in the lobby, or who know what other stupid things can happen.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I run a LAN party in the UK thats been getting bigger for afew years (www.thebiggame.org) - we've had public liability insurance (protects against people killing themselves) since our event hit ~60 people attending, but what you're paying is covering us for a whole year (in which we run up to 4 events).
:P
:)
As for consoles, we did allow people to solely bring consoles for a while, but found nobody actually bothered. It seems console gamers don't want to sit and just play games for a whole weekend; however, the consoles make a great break from pc gaming, and are good for quick tournaments. We've usually got an xbox and ps2 connected up to a projector as well as ProjectorGames who have a pretty unique product, I'm not sure if they'll travel out to the US though
For advertising, the best is word of mouth, but before we got a bigger following posting at schools/colleges/universities gave us great success - We also got an interview on local radio, as the event can be passed off as a local community type affair.
Sponsors do seem to only look for a proven record and shear numbers of attendees, so make sure you've got a good record of past events on the site. You might want to target local firms to start with, these will benefit from the targeted advertising your LAN will offer, as the small (comparatively) attendance of your LAN could mean a large increase in customers for them.
The main trend with LANs seems to be they're getting more popular, but also, the big ones tend to become really corporate, so maybe the niche is not to sell out?
Of all the lan parties I've hosted most of them take 2-4 hours to setup because not everyone has the same games, or their computer is horribly set up. Where with 4 tv's, 4 xboxs and halo it takes half an hour to set up, and about the same to shut down, and can be a lot more fun than counterstrike.
Matt
Besides that, I would say that, yes, a few console systems would be a great idea. Fighting games like Soul Calibur II get old at home, when your best buddy won't take any more asskickings. But at a gathering, it can become the life of the party.
Console systems provide something other than the FPS/RTS fest PC LANs inevitably become. A Soul Calibur here and a Madden/ESPN there can spark some great side-action. People appreciate the change of pace, and enjoy going back to their PCs and playing the FPS stuff again more after a little time on something else.
Best basic rule of LAN parties: leave as little "stuff" out as possible. With the consoles, have THE game for that console in the system, and don't leave the case around. If you are going to play more than 1 game on any given console, keep the spare games in a back room/area, and switch them at intervals. Don't leave spare controllers sitting by the system - if you want to accomodate 4 players, have all 4 controllers plugged in from the get-go. Rolled-up controllers that are next to the system won't be noticed when they go missing. Same for loose game cases and stuff. They won't necessarily get *stolen*, but very easily kicked around accidentally and possibly thrown in with someone's stuff inadvertantly.
Lock down everything that can be locked down, and minimize the amount of stuff out there that can't. It's not just about security of property, but also people appreciate things being in "order" and not requiring plugging in, fiddling, etc. Make it as close to a game store system kiosk as possible.
Anyone have a wallhack for CS 1.6?
DON'T SKIP INSURANCE.
Insurance is only expensive if you don't need it.
For $500 you avoid being on the hook, potentially for the rest of your LIFE, if something bad happened at your LAN party. You'd be insane not to get insurance!
Unless your business is to pay fortunes in medical/legal/pain and suffering bills, pass that risk to someone else who is used to taking the risk. Do you have the $50,000 to even defend yourself against a (possibly bogus) claim? If you are worried about $500, probably not! Does the insurance company? Probably so. You'd be insane not to take out insurance!
Do bad things ever happen? Yes they do!
Someone hurts themselves. Someone hurts someone else. Somone get's electrocuted by your wiring even though it is their own fault. Somone is on drugs and dies at your party. You'd be insane not to take out insurance.
Now if something bad did happen at your party, and someone needed expensive medical attention, don't you WANT to encourage them to get it? Don't you WANT to know that they will be taken care of by your insurance. This isn't just thinking about yourself, it is also thinking about them. You'd be insane to skip insurance!
Now, the per-event cost for a one event type thing every year is going to be high relative to what it would cost to add on event insurance to an existing type of policy. You might check if a local company would sponsor the event and add the liability coverage to their policy (it will be cheaper). If you have a friend who is an insurance broker you might try asking them as well, though at $500 we are not talking much here at all, so an insurage agent making $10 commission is not going to spend much time with you.
I don't play games online, and don't know insurance, but hope the 2 cents helps. Kudos for taking out insurance the first time around.
No no no. What you do is rent a big old house, buy several kegs of beer, and have parties every weekend. You charge $5 for a Solo cup.
And invest in a stripper pole. Trust me.
My blog can kick your blog's ass
Many multiplayer games aren't backwards compatible after a patch is applied. One word of advice, for whatever games you will host, make sure someone has a hard-copy of all the patches/updates. You don't want your night dependent on a broadband connection to retrieve them; it will always fail once your buddy Moore shows up.
I'm not a big game-player. What do the game developers think of that? Video/DVDs have specific EULA's - something like $20 for a DVD, or $80 for a rental DVD (you'll be making money by renting it). Does the gaming industry have similar practices, or does your friend just buy the games on the high street, install them, and charge Joe Public to play them (with all his infrastructure, etc)? I'm not wanting to question his legal status at all - I'm merely asking a question to which I'd be interested to hear the answer.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Lots of people would like the LAN party idea if they simply only knew what it was. Many of my buddies (long time computer guys) are just now learning what games like Evercrack or Counterstrike are and what a real multiplayer experience is. The best damn way to promote these things is do demos and to get flyers taped to games at the stores that sell the multiplayer games you are offering. Charge a small entry fee and split it down the middle with the store that got you the referral. This doesn't have to be much mind you, just enough to cover some network cabling/power bars and network cable/hubs. You don't care if you break even on this one, but the event will never happen if you don't buddy with someone to make it happen and let someone know about it. If you don't charge anything for it, people will think you are not worth the time because you don't even put a price on it. If rations and equipment are covered all you will be worried about is how many people you frag. As it should be!
In running a few little events myself the "ramp up time" does matter. You will get many more people with a years notice than you would with six months, and if you are talking 3 months or less lead time I wouldn't even bother. It simply takes time for people to tell their buddies about the event and for people to see your web links and ads. For these smaller events you need lots of time for them to really work. It's the difference between your event breaking even/profiting and you losing money. Even if you don't want to profit on it a serious gaming event costs money to put together, and the people coming know it costs you something so don't feel bad about sharing the costs with them.
-Mind
I help out at a regular (every 6-7weeks) 450 person LAN. Getting all the servers (games, web and ftp with latest patches/tools) ready before the event makes it much easier on everyone.
There are also a number of programs/tools that can help you run a LAN such as "LAN-in-a-box" (the LAN I attend uses a similar web-based system but I can't remember its name... they both allow you to run competitions easily) and HLSW (remote console program for a wide variety of games - doubles as a server browser).
A big whiteboard can also come in handy for organising competitions and getting information to the LANners. A PA system is helpful if you can't yell loud enough.
Currently popular games at this LAN:
Call of Duty (and I expect the expansion CoD: United Offensive - but its still new)
UT2K4 (Or any other Unreal Tournament)
Quake/Quake3
Starcraft/Warcraft (+ different warcraft styles TD/dota etc)
Age of Mythology
RTCW: Enemy Territory (Excellent *free* as in beer game)
Counter-Strike (Still OK in the wee hours with nothing else to do)
I'd suggest setting up your servers with as many different games as possible and change between them as requested/needed. When you change the servers around let people know a different server has just started so they can join and get things going.
I fully agree with WebLion. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is an awesome game. And it's free as in beer, but much of the source code has been opened up, so there are a lot of mods being developed. There were MANY disappointed attendees at QuakeCon who wanted official QuakeCon ET competitions.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I was only beaten on that map a handful of times and I played it around 500 games.
God spoke to me:
www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA/love3.html
God spoke to me
As for games you should play.
Quake 3 or Unreal Tourny 2k4
Starcraft or age of empires or warcraft
Xbox: Halo (2 xboxes system linked up to 8 playes maybe a 2v2 tourny)
Rainbow Six: 3 for a little tactics
Burnout: blow stuff up
As for insurance and such:
Just say you are not liable for any damages that may come to you or your computer do to your participation at the LAN Party.
Also, you may want to offer some sort of CoOp membership, so you can share any profits with the CoOp members, again heading off any bitching about fees increases/profiteering. It's all about having fun, right? Not profits, per say...
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
You could look at doing something like affiliating with a local club or university union, and being covered by their insurance. Our Amiga user group ran from a local trades club and the $5 memebrship fee was well worth it for the excellent venue, and the club appreciated the extra memebrships we bought in.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Perhaps if you organise a tournament as opposed to a LAN then you'd be able to use that type of structure. Divisions for leets down to noobs - or maybe some handicap system. Prizes for the winners big screens for the final matches so everyone can watch. If you build up the atmosphere it's bound to make people want to come back and try again next year - and bring their friends. Perhaps you could also have a website with statistics and results, forums or polls for what games people want to play. Or have a survey for the people who come (what can we do better, etc).
If you have home insurance, it may be able to cover an event for a small fee. Ask your insurance company about it.
-Valiss
There are LAN parties, and LAN tourneys. A LAN party should really just be a group of buddies getting together for some good ol' RTS'ing or fragging.
A tourney on the other hand, has an entrance fee, prizes, and is generally a lot bigger with a rented location. Most I've been to included prizes, and were prepared months in advance.
A few of the prizes were in the $200-300 range for the top players, other ones included higher-end CPU fans , a desk lamp, mouse pads, PSU's and various other geeky things. Local companies - mostly computer shops, etc - were named in the brochures as sponsors, and donated most of the prizes.
Now, I'm not suggesting everyone go out and try to hunt down sponsors, since then supply would dry up. But if you're willing to put the effort down for a real party, then it can turn out quite nicely. In fact, the first one I ever went to had big name sponsors (and this in a not-so-big city) from major gaming companies donating games for recognition. Remember, it doesn't take much effort to put a sponsor's name up on a poster, and there is something of automatic recognition involved when the sponsor's games are played.
We would have seperate rooms (or clusters in an open environment) with about a doz games installed on each machine: Some of the games we used at one time or another:
Everyone was *expected* to pitch in $20 per day for expenses. We used McD's for breakfast, Dominos for lunch and Dinner. These days, we have much better food selections available here. I suggest some better variety, but sitck with finger food that does not make a mess. Keyboards can be hard to clean when slobs use them.
Our sessions would go as long as 3 days (Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. We would draw between a dozen and 60 people, mostly based upon the size of the room(s) we had available to us. All spots were reservation (pay in advance, no refund) or walkin at $50 per day if space was available.
For getting the word out, we would use the cheap/free papers in the area, and the computer stores (offered free advertising at our gig if they advertised our gig at their place). We would go to all the Grocery stores and place 8.5x11 flyers up. They would last a few days - use tearoffs on the bottom to let people get the phone number to contact you easily. Local colleges are a great place to spread the word. We have an Ivy Tech and an IUPU here, so we put flyers on their boards as well (the local computer groups did for us to make it proper). If you are not to shy, putting a sign on the car (just like for sale) works wonders, believe it or not.
For insurance, never had it. Maybe a bad idea nd maybe not. I do not know. We never needed it. We had all people sign a waiver to be part of it. No kids under 18 without a guardian or responsible adult - legally adult, not acutally 8-).
Worst thing that happened, one of the players kids (about 10) hurt his ankle while running around (expressly forbidden in the rules the parent signed). A few keyboards were toasted with soda and other things. Lost one computer. Person who toastes it paid for it at least.
Beyond that, everything was always smooth. We learned about the 4th time to provide an area for Significant Others to sit and do something (TV was good).
We always made a profit. We allowed several companies locally to advertise at the bigger ones (the ones that were not private ivitation only). Compnies liked it for exposure, and the players got coupons from the companies, so most of them liked it.
Hope that helps. And good luck. LAN Parties get old fast when your career takes off and you have children.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
I run an 80 player LAN every 6 months and helped form an association for LAN groups. we use this association for buying/sharing equipment, dividing the costs of PLI and for sharing admins and other tips. it only costs us $250 membership for a year which gets us the PLI cover for as many events as we want and access to whatever equipment we need
- Each sponsor will need an umbrella policy -- which is something you add on to an existing homeowners & car insurance policy pair.
- Each sponsor needs to be a homeowner and have homeowners insurance with some company.
- Each sponsor needs to own a car and have car insurance with the same company as that sponsor's homeowners policy.
- Each sponsor must not have had more than one traffic ticket in the past five years.
- Each sponsor must have no criminal record.
- The LAN Party should be a hobby and not-for-profit.
If you can do all that, then you'll be good up to $1 million (typically).It sounds like you're taking this seriously, so organize accordingly and make it a formal dues-paying club based on a legal partnership or corporation. You have a potentially HUGE liability exposure and you want some kind of legal barrier between you and your partners, members and guests. If it is a legitimate private club, many regulatory issues disappear, but you have to be legitimate, don't just say "we're selling memberships, not entry, at the door."
Find a fixed or regular location (that is one you have an annual lease on yourself or one you agree to rent for one day per month, repeatedly). Light industrial space is cheap as hell, costing less for a month than most rented spaces will cost for a night. Everything becomes cheaper if you operate from a fixed location. Even if you just find a hotel and negotiate for monthly meetings, you'll get a better deal than hunting around every time. Also, people will be more likely to show up repeatedly if they don't need to find you each and every time. If you want predictable results, you have to be predictable.
Negotiate annual or multiple event coverage, not per-day. A fixed location will make this much cheaper as there are fewer variables. $500/day is insane if you're going to be doing this on a regular basis.
And have the main door prize be deodorant. Get a sponsorship deal with Mennen and hand out free sticks of it.
:)
Trust me, a LAN party is a perfect place to get people interested in personal hygiene(sp?)
I run a LAN party here in Australia every 6 weeks, I have a permanently setup venue, and charge AUD$20 for entry. We usually have 100-120 people come along, sometimes more, sometimes less, but the $20 entry fee covers costs quite adequately. It has taken a while to build to this level however, and having only one event a year would be like trying to start from scratch every time.
Usually we run a 24 hour event, although last week we had our 5th anniversary, so we did a 43 hour event instead for the same price. I find that if you have a good event, people are more than happy to pay the entry fee. Use some of it to pay for a decent door prize, I find that always encourages extra people to come along, as they have the idea that they might actually come out on top with a $100+ piece of computer hardware.
I also offer prizes for games etc. and have built up a good relationship with a few local businesses who let us put up flyers and posters, as well as donating prizes for us. We have sold t-shirts in the past, but the costs of getting them made up means you can't actually make much money on them, people don't actually want to spend as much for a LAN t-shirt as they would for a designer label.
As for insurance, I've now run 35 LANs without ever needing it, but it's that one time you do need it that it matters.
http://www.blamlan.com/
Pros:
Their property, their insurance. So long as cables are secured and they approve of the layout you should be fine.
Possibly a lower cost on the facilities. Say it's a small hotel with 300 rooms, it's off season, a time they're normally almost empty and you can book 150 rooms. It's quite likely they'll give you the meeting room space for free or a low per person charge. Add in the profit (for the hotel) on overpriced drinks (soda, coffee, booze, etc.) and the money made on what would normally be an empty room.
If the hotel can make a good profit off the whole thing they'll likely comp a few rooms for the organizers. Keep everyone in line (i.e.: not destroying the place) and the hotel might do a better deal the next year.
Cons:
Their property, their rules. If they run a hard ass place then your lan party is going to be like a high school study hall. If they're willing to look the other way on certain minor issues like late night noise (in the gaming area) or someone having a toke outside then things are good. Expect wrist bands for the players and guests.
No outside food or drinks. Hey, they want to make some money of this event too and drinks are quite profitable. They'll most likely be hard on this one. Try to preset the prices of sodas, beers and a few food items. Remember, they can't say no to your own food/drink in a guest room but they can (and will) forbid it in the gaming area.
They might want you to cover any loses. Get a contract and get it approved by a lawyer. If a bunch of people no show on their rooms and the hotel can't charge them for whatever reason you could be left on the hook. Again, get a contract and a lawyer. A few hundreds bucks spent will be well worth it.
Advice on dealing with the hotel:
Check the place out. Does it look like they handle meetings often? How's the access to the proposed gaming area? Enough parking and can some be reserved? Take lots of photos during the walk through for your record, planning and the web site pushing the event. Again, a room no sold is lost revenue. If they're empty (like Cape Cod in February) they're much more likely to give you a better deal if they have a bunch of rooms sold. Forget any holiday weekends. Try to book when no other meetings are taking place. Multiple meetings might mean less access to the gaming area before and after play. Make sure the contract covers clean up. Reasonable is you removing the wiring you laid and the duct tape you use to cover it. Food, drink, table breakdown, chair stacking and general cleanup; the hotel's problem. Budget a few bucks for tips to the staff you deal with. This might really help you in the end.
Be mature. They're running a business with some tight profit margins. If they can make money on the deal they'll talk to you. If not they'll boot you out within 30 seconds. Welcome to the hotel industry. Sign nothing until your lawyer approves it. While there are some very honest hotels out there, there are also some that will screw you as much as they can. Be careful.
A hotel can be a great place to have a lan party or you're worse nightmare. Be careful but check it out.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Have people sign release forms when they get to your event. Simple as that.
Oh, and reasonable cover fees will hopefully let you break even. Anything more and you can give out prizes w/ the extra.
Make sure if it's a joint venture between yourself and a friend, that how the money will be spent, etc... is outlined in paper....
I made this mistake.. and got shafted....
but they preffer to be called models. Its a solid idea though.
Quack, quack.
Seymour Skinner: Parent that waives the right to sue says 'what'?
Parent statemen could't be further from the truth. At all the LAN parties I've run for example, there wasn't one single instance of software piracy.
We were too busy copying Mp3s and movies...
THANKS, FOLKS! I'LL BE HERE ALL WEEK!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
... that should get some more people coming ;)
I'm also involved in running lan parties (<shameless plug> In Adelaide SA </shameless plug>).
I think the biggest draw is word of mouth, but since you're only running them once a year, and not advertising much, you'll have to target your advertising better.
Try targetting groups of geeks, ask to advertise at the IT department of your local schools / colleges.
Perhaps you could have a bring a friend discount.
Maybe you need to lower your price, or improve the perceived value.
For our LAN parties we charge $20, but we chuck in a BBQ, 3 cokes and a pizza. We don't pay insurance as we are covered by the venue, we also don't pay any rent / hall hire.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
A quick glance at a sample of the large amounts of porn being transferred between the computers will show that this comment is untrue.
Bored? Visit my exciting counter page!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 243BVY/qid=1096512783/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl 14/103-8075853-4244637?v=glance&s=books&n=5078 46
I haven't read it, but I read the authors LiveJournal, he's a smart guy who knows his stuff, and if I was even planning a 4 hour lan party for just half a dozen friends I'd go out and buy it on strength of his name alone.
Just get a PS2 and ProEvolutionSoccer or Winning Eleven! That's more fun than anything else in the world (at least, the video game world)
Being a high school student myself, I find that word of mouth can get a message around the whole school in a few days. Also, most schools allow flyers to be posted on the walls, as long as you check your flyers in with whoever deals with it at that school. Walk into the nearest high school, talk to the guys at the office, and post your flyers. It'd take at most 20 minutes, depending on the size of the school, and you'd reach hundreds of kids almost instantaneously.
Er... that has nothing to do with what he said, genius.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It wasn't GW that sentenced them to death, it was the juries. If you have a problem with the death penalty, complain about the elected officials who permit that penalty and the private citizens who assign it, not the public servants who are required to carry it out.
i help run a http://www.ugly.net.au/ lan here in Sydney, AU... we've found that some halls you can hire will include PLI insurance in the hire cost...
It might be different for those in the US, but here this method makes public events possible for small community groups that can't afford PLI.
Pete.
I've helped out a bit with some medium sized lans, and the organization that I participated in eventually merged with the Pittsburgh Lan Coalition, whose most recent lans have been rather large (100+ people).
One occurance of note is that at the first larger lan party they held power became a big issue. They had rented out a large area in a hotel and had gotten detailed specifications on power availability, but it ended up not being accurate. The hotel split the cost of generators in order to allow the event to occur. One guy ended up with a burnt motherboard from the flucations, unfortunately.
Another thing to consider is security. At larger events when people's nerves are shot from way too much CS (combined with sleep deprivation), bad situations can develop. Luckily, that hasn't been too big of a problem. However, there has been one occurance of theft. Pittco managed to secure a number of sponsors who donated video cards, games, and other equipment to be given out as prizes. At the most recent lan one person was moving his prize, a set of speakers, out to his car. He went back in to get his computer and when he came back his speakers were nowhere to be found. So perhaps having somebody not only to act as a bouncer but also as an overseer during the takedown phase would be a good idea.
Another security related concern is that you should really be aware of who all is attending, and to have contact information for all persons involved. This is useful in case something bad should happen (perhaps someone destroys another person's computer and then leaves), and also in other possible situations (during one lan a nearby convenience store was robbed at gunpoint, and the police wanted to get contact info for everybody at the facility just in case).
I'm not sure what happened about insurance -- perhaps the hotel included that with the room rental. I really don't know, but you could probably post on their forums and get a response. I do know that prior to merging into Pittco we had to give up having lans at our established facility because of liability concerns. But that facility wasn't exactly a hotel or convention type area, either.
The biggest draw seems to be the tournaments, especially for CS. It's unfortunate that some people leave the event after their clan loses. And being that HL2 will only have CS:Source for its multiplayer aspect, I don't doubt that CS will continue to be a driving force in lan parties. You'd do well to decently manage a tournament for CS, and people will find ways to distract themselves while waiting. I haven't seen many people play RTS's, and if they do it's usually Starcraft. Setting up a TV or projector with DDR also helps to provide some atmosphere, and makes for a fun tournament, too!
It doesn't hurt to have some creative uses for the prizes, too. At the first large lan party we had there was a video card left over (a Radeon 9700, I believe) and it was decided that it would be given to the person with the worst video card. A poor guy with a Geforce 2 MX ended up leaving with a nice upgrade.
For communication, setting up a Teamspeak server and an IRC server seems to work well. The last two large lans haven't had internet access, which wasn't really a big deal for people. most people use it to download pr0n and warez, anyways. Oh yeah -- secure your servers. You'll always end up with one script kiddie who wants to port scan and cause trouble.
For hardware, be sure to test out servers beforehand and ensure that they can adequately handle the load. Good networking equipment is a must. Keep one server as a file server and load it up with all the latest patches that people may need. Some people like to bring laptops and would like to have wireless, but I don't see the point in having more than one computer at a lan party.
Keep the pizza coming. You'll be surprised how much is consumed (and try to keep it warm with an appropriate device, if possible). Drinks like Bawls and Mt. Dew are often well appre
well.. gw has said that he has _never_ put an innocent man to dead. technically, he had the power to stop them. but he happens to believe in them(as in voices telling him other stuff but..).
and just statistics say that he probably has put some innocent men to death. they don't look too good.
the thing that sucks about the US capital punishment is the inefficiency of the courts. they *provenly* can't say with certainity that only the guys who really did the crime fry, which makes the whole thing a big charade.
furthermore, it's more expensive in total expenses than just life in prison equivalent, so that's out too(as a reasonale). it's also too easy way out for the people that should suffer for some crazy crime. but it gives some people a nice feel of revenge, i suppose, even if it just makes it damn fucking sure you don't allow yourself to get caught no matter what in certain situations(because you got nothing to lose because you think you'll fry anyways.. in 10 years).
(and hell, if usa didn't allow capital punishment in _iraq_, wtf is it allowed for at home )
Have you talked with other IT users groupd( linux, etc) or the meetup.com gatherings?
p ://www.ambushsite.com/upcominglp.php
a spy _cal endar.html
What about other LAN perty folks within driving distance? omaha?
http://www.micsfragfest.com/ (I play with these guys every chance I get, and have hjosted my own server on occasion.)
http://www.nerdclub.net/lan_parties_db.php
htt
Or how about:
http://www.lanpartycoalition.com/members.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/game/lanpart
A little GTFG will get you far.... and let me know when your next one is, I will try to get some gamers from Omahell to join me for your gig.
Look at it from the perspective of the customer - which is what your users are - and appeal to them.
First, get the word out on their level by hitting the places they go (stores that sell games/hardware, schools, other hangouts they show up).
Second, use marketing that gets their attention. Put a pretty girl on your flyer with the headline "Come Get Fragged" or "Wanna Go Camping?"
Third, use methods that work for conference type events. See if you can round up a few pretty girls that are willing to be the center of attention and maybe dress like they work at Hooters. It's not going to bring people there, really, but guys are willing to do anything (like buy T-shirts, food, etc.) that a pretty girl tells them to do.
Offer door prizes that you would like to win. Something worth a lot more than admission... $20 to play might be acceptable to a gamer, but the thought of walking out with a brand new $400 video card will get their attention. Use that in your marketing.
Important: Take detailed records of everything. Financials, attendance, past contacts for sponsors, etc. These will help you more and more each time. Use this info to get new sponsors, plan for next time, and improve upon what you've got.
Lastly, if you don't want to lose money you should work your budget out ahead of time and set a minimum number of attendees in order to break even. Aim to beat that number. Maybe you don't mind taking a small loss..if you're having fun with it, maybe it doesn't matter that much.
It takes the agreement of several juries (conviction, sentencing, multiple automatic appeals) before a death sentence can be carried out. When that number of people agree that the convicted person must die based on the evidence presented to them, the personal preferences of the Governor or President are irrelevant.
Why would/should want to host your signs?
They divert attention from their own signs/advertising.
They take up room.
They usually look like crap.
They don't get anything for doing it.
It's a hassle.
Essentially they are advertising for *you* for free which costs *them* money & time.
If you made it worth the while of the shop (eg recommend players buy games from them), they *might* consider hosting your advertising.
You really can't expect people/businesses to do things for you with no return. I get people in my shop wanting me to host their advertising for free, I have never seen them before, they have never bought anyhing and they won't ever be back but they expect me to advertise for them at my own expense?
This is no flame, this is what a busines will think when you ask them to do something for you for no return.
Posted anon for obvious reasons.
1. LAN
2. lots of pale, socially-awkward guys
3. not enough deodorant
anything else?
Get two XTs and hook them up via null modem and play Fire Power together - old school man!!
Me and 5-6 friends hosted a monthly LAN Party that lasted 2-3 years (1997-1999) and had a peak attendance of 70 people. Over the event's lifetime, it actually broke even! Here's how we did it:
We started very small: just 8 of us in a guy's house. If we met someone that was a gamer, we invited him to the next month's event. After a few months, the host's wife got a little annoyed at the size of the event. So, we had to move...
We rented out a local Lion's Club for a reasonable price & had an 25 people at the first event. We charged everyone $15 to get in & asked everyone to bring some sort of snack or drink. We even taped heavy black plastic trash bags over the windows so nobody suffered from glare). It was a great success.
Next, we started a small website with a FAQ (adults only, no booze, no drugs, games we play, etc...), a map to where we hosted the event, and a message board to see what games people wanted to play. We also made it clear that we were a Quake2 Lan Party so that we attracted people who were all interested in the same game.
We actually planned out 80% of the event (1PM until 2AM) so that there was usually a scheduled activity right around the corner. Events included the following:
-Started with a few deathmatch servers that people could hop in & out of while configuring their computers. We used some mod that kept things "even" - the more frags you had, the less damage your weapon did (and vice versa)...it got the point where you'd have to rail some newbie 4 times to kill him, but a few shots from him with his pistol would kill you - very fun stuff & extremely even scores)
-A silly tournament of sorts (QPong, Chase the chicken, or the like). Always good for a laugh.
-A group tournament such as CTF, Team Rocket Arena, Ball & Chain (Strongest player teamed up with the weakest player - usually decided by parsing the logs of all the previous tourneys & the warmup servers)
-30 v 30 Rocket Arena (the absolute highlight of the evening - there's nothing like running around on a HUGE map with 15 of your teammates trying to kill all who stood before you. It was always fun if you were the last man on one team...the whole place would errupt in cheers if you actually killed one of the mob hunting for you).
-A 1 v 1 tournament. We usually gave out medals or trophies to the top 3 players (very cheap, but such a nice item to have - just for pride; I think I still have one above my computer). We actually attracted the top players in the Houston area to this event & had several top 50 GPL players show up on many occasions.
Most tournaments were double elimination & there were always a few deathmatch servers to retire to after you were bumped out of the tournament.
People had fun playing, but the real fun always happened near the food table: you got to meet the guy who kept fragging your ass & B.S. with him or brag with your friends about some kick-ass kill.
As we grew, we had to install a new sub-panel at the lion's club to handle all the computers (an organizing member was an electrician & just charged us for parts), we frequently borrowed a switch (one of the guys worked for a networking company & didn't mind us borrowing a high powered switch for the weekend) & we started providing food (we raised the admission to $20/person but provided lunch AND dinner plus more snacks than you could eat - I usually shopped the local sales or Sam's Wholesale club).
Towards the end, we were an official GPL (??) qualifing event, had real sponsors (for door prizes & tourney prizes): Bawls, Logitech, & a local porn shop (one of the players managed an adult video store - his door prizes were very interesting), and had the tiny Lion's Club rocking with 70+ people. We even had to turn people away.
Here are the things that I think made us successful:
1. Start small & grow into the event. This did several things: we never lost a lot
"they *provenly* can't say with certainity that only the guys who really did the crime" spend life in prison. Sure, they were able to let Hurricane Carter out of jail when they found out that he was innocent, but they can never recompense him for the years that he was in jail. Yes, dead is worse, but is it enough worse to justify risking the lives of everyone around that person? E.g. prison guards, other inmates, etc.
"it just makes it damn fucking sure you don't allow yourself to get caught no matter what in certain situations(because you got nothing to lose because you think you'll fry anyways.. in 10 years)."
Yes, and the threat of spending the rest of your life in jail is so much less. Particularly when there is no chance that you will get a worse sentence: it's the max. But then, something always will be.
That's the problem with the world. If you get angry at a machine, you just turn it off and sleep for the next day.
You get angry at someone... results are UNPREDICTABLE. That's the problem with people. You can't control them.
So, yes, you should definitely put more emphasis on the legal issues.
Come on, I'm a chick and I usually end up organizing the lan's around here. I do it mostly because the guys are too lazy, and because "well sure tonight sounds good" doesn't exactly work for the out of town people.
We've started small, are we still are small because we live in a rural area. But we still have a hell of a lot of fun with four people in someone's basement. Setting up quick usually isn't a problem as long as everyone is aware in advance what games to have installed and what to bring with them. With just having friends security isn't an issue. Usually everyone just brings something like a bottle of pepsi or some food and together it's enough for all of us. I've been looking at setting up a bigger event but with a small town and limited space it's been a challenge. There isn't very much interest in lan's around here but so far we've managed to have a lot fun organizing our own.
wow, an offtopic, flamebait troll! Your 3/3. And me without my mod points.
ha a thinly veiled ad posing as a lame ask slashdot
nice
nerd nerd / /
\
Computer Computer
\
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| hub |
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add more users, and sometime connect hubs to other hubs.
http://mediagoblin.org/
Well no, this simple isn't true. Not only do they have the power of pardon but courts have upheld the wholesale commutation of murder sentences by various governers. I think the same thing would be true for the president.
If your argument was not about what they can do but what they should do I am even more skeptical. How can it ever be that it is moral to let something immoral occur when you have the consequence free power to stop it. Furthermore, it isn't like you are violating some notion of duty. As governer the people have entrusted you to do the right thing and excercise your power within the law to do this and pardoning is surely within the law. Elected officials don't generally swear to follow the immediate will of the people but something more along the lines of serveing the interests of the people. Clearly if execution is wrong it is not in the interests of the people.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Actually, I have a friend who used to broker insurance policies, a rip on something like this would be closer to %40 of the premium, so long nothing happened within a year.
"Someone hurts themselves. Someone hurts someone else. Somone get's electrocuted by your wiring even though it is their own fault. Somone is on drugs and dies at your party. You'd be insane not to take out insurance.
Sorry, this just does not apply here in New Zealand.
We have a government Act called ACC(Accident Compensation). In short it states, you can't sue for injury.
Example situation: Someone robs you and you get quite injured.
1) The criminal hopefully gets sent to jail through being caught, and facing prosection.
2) The victim will recieve free health care, maybe a lump sum payment for suffering ($10,000 maybe), and 80% of their wages paid for their period off work, all care of the taxpayer.
Where things get a little silly is if the robber gets injured. He has the same rights.
In New Zealand, the only litigation concerns are commercial ones. Though that can overlap to personal. Such as you burn down a building though negligance. If you are uninsured you might be in trouble. But thats only for the building. THe injured get to make claims to the slow moving ACC system.
So a for the bespecled geek that trips over some errant LAN cables, you might give him a lift to the hospital. You certainly have no liabilty for the injury.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
At one of Amiga demoscene demo parties, the 1st prize in one of the compos was a hour with a whore (quite fine too) in the backroom.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
It might be worth your while to check the web site for PDXLAN.
Check out the event pages AND the community pages (forums, etc).
EXTREMELY successful (started out as the creator's CS project, IIRC). Read through the forums, the news items...you'll see what they did differently each year (changed things that didn't work, improved things that worked, etc)
$20 is a great price! :)
Here in the UK, as is the case with most things, we get robbed blind for LAN parties with most events costing in excess of £70 (~$175 AUD)
- Colin McRae2
- Doom 1 (ow yeah)
- Insane
- MotoGP2
- Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2
- Quake 3
- Quake
- Serious Sam & SE
- UT2003 / UT2004
- Painkiller
here's why
- Doom: pretty cool and fast, played coop with 3-4 other players
- MotoGP2: needs lots of riders (8+) to be enjoyable if the participants have different skill levels.
- Quake: best DM game ever, some fine moments
- Serious Sam: game of the LAN, 7-8 player COOP games with Nightmare/Serious difficulty level, about 20-30 bad guys coming at you at the same time, really fun, must have played this game about 6-8 hours none stop
- Painkiller: Pretty cool game; Quake MP quality with nicer graphics and some twists!
I've attended a few Lan parties (small [4 people] to bigger [250]) and have often thought that the profit aim is misdirected.
Whether the rumours are true or not, it's said that some restaurants don't make any money on the food - just the drinks (especially coffee) and desserts.
In the same way, if you can have the entry cost barely covering costs and sell things (food, drinks, sleeping arrangements [fnarr], computer equipment) and hire things (like monitors) at a slight premium, it might work out well.
I realise it's more difficult because some of those things - like food/drinks/sleeping arrangements - the place where the LAN is held tends to sell their own.
I guess it's similar to razors/razor blades but for LANs get people in cheaply and then get them to buy stuff at slightly inflated prices during their time there.
Manta
$10 a pop to cover the soda and pizza, what's the problem?
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
Don't drop the acid until you're sure everything is working correctly.
Ask the http://www.dreamhack.se/ guys. Probably the biggest LAN in the world at 6500 participants..
which brings up another need.
bouncers. you need big burly guys that can eject asshat's.
and be sure that is in the EULA. if unruly you will be physically EJECTED from the premises and your hardware confiscated pending return after assessment of damages you may or may not have caused.
Grab their gear if the asshat is throwing chairs, and either make them pay restitution to get it back or keep it and sell it to pay for the damages they caused.
At hamfests, just like a boot sale, we recover some of the costs from customers and some from traders - it's a lot more expensive to rent stall space than just to attend as a buyer.
Maybe you could rent stall space to local traders - PC parts, games, snacks. Those traders might then be more willing to accept flyers, too.
Normally I just attend public LAN Parties -- like at CyberLAN Atlanta -- but when it comes down to having one at my house or a friend's, it does take an awful long time to set up. Not to say that it's not worth it all though, but sometimes running Cat5 all across the house can be the most obnoxious thing you'll ever do. Once the dust has settled and you have everything set up though, you'll find out that the LAN party is probably one of the most fun things to do. So you just really have to think about if you're in the "give a lot, receive a lot more" mood, because when it comes down to it, LAN Parties are worth every single second it takes to set up. Rather you're blasting through friends in some Quake 3 or just sniping them in Rogue Spear, online computer games are what makes the world happy -- or me at least. So from time to time... I just have to sit back with a case of caffeine (rather that be BAWLs, Jolt, or something else) and frag the world away.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
Just play with your friends.
Friends don't sue Friends.
Simply make every participant sign a release of responsibility form.
Are you writing poetry?
Or do you just have
your resolution set
to something like
320x200?
What if you turned the LAN party into a fundraiser for a certain charity? You open up a lot of free advertising for an event when it's for charity. You can get local businesses to donate free dinner awards, gift certificates, etc... and allow you to post ads in their stores. You could definately get the local paper(s) to do a local-interest story a few days before the event. And you can probably get a local radio station to do a remote from the site on the day of the event. Depending on other news events, you might also get a local TV station to do a local-interest bit.
"Well that's nice, but what if we want to make money?" I re-read the original "ask /." in addition to this follow-up and I didn't get the impression the group had formed a for-profit entity or had a goal of making lots of money. But if you did want to make money, it may require a delayed-gratification approach. Setup your for-profit entity as a sponsor of the non-profit fundraising event. Donate all proceeds from the event as advertised, but use the venue and crowds to get the word out about your LAN-party company.
Add some other distractions to keep gamers' non-gaming [spouses|friends|SOs] occupied. Have a raffle for prizes donated by local businesses, have a giant moonwalk for the kids, invite Joe's Tech Shack to setup a small demo booth of his new whiteboxes. Come up with cool ad slogans...
Blast AIDs with flash-grenades!
Strafe the legs off of breast cancer!
Come frag-ass for charity!
Well, maybe some of this is getting out of hand, but you get the idea.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
Would you be willing to write up such a release and post it here so anyone that needs it could use it? Thanks!
I believe this is known as the Bernhard Goetz maneuver (he was the famous "subway vigilante"): declare yourself bankrupt when you get successfully sued by one of your attackers. At least, that was his status when last I heard... I don't know if anyone's really heard much from that guy in a few years.
Unfortunately for Bernie, bankruptcy doesn't always nullify legal judgements against you... so the admonition about future earnings may still apply.
This is all part of state law, of course, so your situation can be very different from state to state; you'd be well-advised to consult a local attorney for this kind of thing.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
The BoiseFragFest(BFF) is holding a FrightFest Oct 22-24 and we are playing the following games:
# Painkiller: 1v1 - FFA
# Doom 3: 2v2 - TDM
# Battlefield Vietnam: 5v5 Conquest
# Call of Duty: Search and Destroy (PAM Mod)
# UT2004: 5v5 CTF
# Counter Strike: 5v5
# America's Army: TBA
# C & C Generals: Zero Hour: 1v1
# Rise of Nations: EX: 2v2
We also have them sign a waiver, but to my knowledge insurance isn't involved.
This looked like a poem to me the first time I read it :)
The correct collective noun here is slashdot. As in "a slashdot of faggoty dicks."
I've been a primary participant in running Smackdown in london ontario. Last year we had our best tounout and we were able to easily break even.
:)
Suggestions:
1) Spend 3-4months at minimum planning the event, weekly meetings, etc...
2) Ensure your network and power setup is solid. Power is one of the most important things to consider, the last thing you want is 300 gamers bitching and asking when the power is coming back on in the corner, or near the door, or whatever.
3) Your hall costs, power costs and insurance (A great idea, however if you get an appropriate center ie. A large gathering hall at a hotel.. and make everyone sign a "were not responsible for equipment or you're own stupidity" then that would do it... (I would speak to whom ever is allowing you to host it. ie. hotel manager, warehouse owner... etc..) 4) Big companies in the gaming industry usually can provide some large door prizes (ie. amd, intel, radeon, nvidia, etc..)
5) Local computer stores could be charged to have a booth to sell network cards/cables/fans/anything that a gamer my want, or need because of a hardware failure.
6) If you don't want to charge computer companies for attendance, have one of them provide a large prize (ie. computer case built with components for the gaming geek (top of the line everything).
7) Have extra people to help, and try not to run too many tounrments!!! Be specific with times, odds are you will run late.
8) When it comes to games, one thing that worked good for us was the signup form had about 15 checkboxes with games, q3a, ut2k4, wc3, cs, et, etc... and after we had a 'chunk' of gamers signed up we annonced the official game tounrments, and we also provided a few 'public' game servers for some of the games that weren't being run in official tounrments.
9) RUN IT 24hours, I don't care if its a 2 day lan or 12day lan, if you run it 24hours, you never have to worry about a gamer not having a wonderful time.
10) Have it near hotels & downtown (bars for older gamers).
11) Do not allow drugs/alcohol in the gaming room (duh, but I just thought I'd mention it).
12) A very important one... Have gamers under 18 have a signature from their guardian on the signup sheet at the door.
13) If your concerned about stolen equipment, check everyone in, and check everyone out. If someone leaves with equipment, you should have people on 'security' that will stop anyone caring equipment out. Our rules were "If you take your system out, you're done for the weekend" and "We are not responsible for your system, cd's, mouse, keyboard, etc... You don't want people brining equipment in and out all weekend, that makes it easy for people to steal things.
My $0.02...
Fyi. A lot of the guys from WAG (We are gamers ) were not able to participate this year ( aka. life ) and the event did not occur. However the event was started 6years ago, and ran better every year, starting with 114 people, finish last year with 300people++ and turning people away at the door who didn't pre-register because we were over capacity.
Oh ya and advertising, ONLINE, on gaming servers, on irc, around the city, and if you can somehow get it, a radio blurb. Word of mouth is great, especially if you have 20minions spreading the word everyday ( at college/university/work/etc.. )
No, this is
first off, sorry if this is (-1, Reduntant), but I don't have time to read all the comments. as such, i'll leave my karma bonus disabled.
why not charge at the door to help cover costs? If you guys come out at all in the black, take the money and donate it to the EFF (a registered non-profit), thereby giving everyone a warm fuzzy feeling. You won't lose your ass and nobody will think you're a bunch of money-grubbing whores.
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
For a widespread practical case, look at how duels are handled legally, or rather how they're illegal. Despite the fact that both parties are entering into the ring of their own will, it's still illegal for them to duel to the death. The person who survives will be prosecuted for murder assuming the law notices. (Note, in times and places where dueling was technically illegal but socially acceptable, there may be no legal investigation at all. Obviously, the fellow accidentally shot himself in the chest with his friend's gun while they were discussing a matter of honor) In a situation where death is accidental in a duel, such as in a martial arts exhibition or sparring match, their asses are generally covered by statements showing that they knew there were dangers and by the fact that it's generally demonstrable that the killer really didn't mean to kill the other guy. Human beings are just really fragile sometimes...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
^_^ As always, IANAL although I've played one on stage.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
http://www.fwgg.org/how2lan/start.htm
This lan is kinda dead, but the link above has a lot of great info.
I suggest attending some LANs in your area and talk with the person in charge. Offer to help out! They're usually very personable but very busy! Offer to come the night/day before or whenever they do their setup, help run network lines or setup tables and chairs. Stay after and help tear down. While you're doing that you might be able to pick others' brains, or at least earn a bit of respect from the event head and be able to get a good conversation in. LANs don't just sprout out of nowhere, the people running the event will have been what you are going through.
There is no one way to throw a LAN, so get out there and attend! Help out! You will learn.
Another good link:
www.lanwar.com
This is one of the most successful LAN parties in the country. Burden throws a 560 or 1000+ party several times a year in Louisville, KY and has been for years. I think they're on their 24th or so party. If you really want to see it done right, go there.
Consoles will be popular, especially among the young-teen crowd. Keep it to "group" games like DDR, you can play the single player games at home. The console gamers are louder (can't use headphones for the most part, so put them off by themselves somewhere) and MESSY which is the biggest problem for us.
Best thing we've done for advertising was to alert the local media about our "family" event that gives kids and the whole family a thing to do. Might not work for your one-time party, but for a recurring party, getting an article in the paper is great! Another good place is taking out a small ad in the local college newsletter, and in the program book for your local sci-fi con. You can also hand out flyers at other LAN parties (if they're cool with that), trade ads on their web sites, and offer to "sponsor" the tiny gaming room at your local sci-fi con (which works really well for us and is fun to boot)
As for what games, I would suggest having several servers going at once. People will move themselves back and forth to whatever game they want to play and whatever has the most people in it. We usually have UT2K4 (running a map mixer that alternates all styles of game play), one or more flavors of BF1942/BF:V, and sometimes a CS server.
Gamers seem to come in two types: The serious ones who probably play CS and to them winning is everything--they'll probably want a tournament maybe even with cash prizes. We generally stay away from that and try to keep it more light-hearted games with silly themes and prizes. For me that very much keeps the "fun level" up.
I don't think we have liability insurance, just a waiver to sign. But one way to keep prices down is to get more sponsors. We've got a local specialty-soda place that provides us with Jolt, etc. The bakery gives us day-old bagels for breakfast. The pizza company gives us a heck of a discount. Let them have advertising and hang a banner if they want. We also get a lot of hardware donated from various vendors for door and tournament prizes.
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
The church I attend hosts our LAN Party as a "small group" a way for people to come to the church and feel comfortable, but without any "churchy" pressure. We make an annoucemnt about the church at the beginning and then we just play. Pros: 1) Free power/insurance the church covers both. This makes it so we only charge $10 per person for 8hours and they get prizes and pizza/soda. And we still have money left over. 2) facilities are ready for lots of people and power (stage lights and sound systems require alot of circuits) 3) Non-profit organization ID: this means anyone that donates games/hardware can claim a donation to a charity on taxes. Cons 1) no beer/wine/smokin/etc/etc..... but we have kids under 16 as well so that is just s good idea. 2) harsh language is frowned upon, again with lots of younger kids, the parents prefer this. 3) No profit, the church runs it and the money goes to them. but they also buy your supplies so it sort of breaks even. We have been having this LAN party for 3 years now every 5-6weeks, and a regular 20-30 people. Yes I realize the irony of blasting people in UT2004 with the flak cannon, while in a church. :)
However, the law will not allow you to consent to a touching that is likely or certain to cause death.
That's what my grandfather told the Grim Reaper when he came for him. Unfortunately, grandfather is no longer around to file the lawsuit.
Just a heads-up: You mention that Radio advertising is much too expensive (I'd agree). However, you should check out any college radio stations in your area and ask about advertising rates. I just graduated from a Radio Broadcasting program here in Canada, and our station charged $5/play of a 30-second commercial, with hefty volume discounts. Each college station will be different, but chances are they're reaching the right demographic (students/young people) and could be quite affordable. Just a thought.
Have I been out of the loop that long? When did StarCraft and CounterStrike become "old school"? Am I that old, are is there a "new school" I'm unaware of?
FuhQuake
:)
Good looking and still Quake.
Haven't had time to check if it is Quakeworld compatible tho...
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
The courts can play alot with what is and isn't allowed in front of them. Alot depends on how good your lawyer (team) is.
As for GW's claim that he never signed off on a guilty person -- Pure Semantics. The courts declared them guilty, so they were guilty. Whethere or not they actually did the the crime is an entirely different question.
"The legal System has nothing to do with justice." Just ask Microsoft and SCO.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
When that number of people agree that the convicted person must die based on the evidence presented to them,
The courts can play alot with what is and isn't allowed in front of them. Alot depends on how good your lawyer (team) is.
That's fine for people who can afford a good defence team (e.g. OJ), but for the poor and especially poor and uneducated or mentally handicapped, they often don't have the capability to put up (or even recognize) a real defence. I could probably defend myself better than some of the worst (and most overworked) Public Defenders that get assigned to some of those people -- but they don't know any better. They lived their entire lives happy to do what people in power tell them to, and then they're surprised when the jury comes back with a 'guilty' verdict.
As for GW's claim that he never signed off on a guilty person -- Pure Semantics. The courts declared them guilty, so they were guilty. Whethere or not they actually did the the crime is an entirely different question.
"The legal System has nothing to do with justice." Just ask Microsoft and SCO.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
IANAL... but I think that confiscating foreign property might be illegal, I'd refrain from doing that. How is it (legally) different from theft?
Also, don't forget that bouncers (or "security" personnel) have no more rights than the ordinary citizen. I'd advise them to be very careful in their job.
Last but not least, I think that too much security actually creates a rather hostile athmosphere, which can create more problems in itself than it solves. But, as always, YMMV.
Don't whistle while you're pissing.