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LAN Party at a High School?
Coolnat2004 asks: "I'm a high school student and a member of our technology group. Our school needs extra money for our technology, and I thought that a LAN party would be an effective, and exciting, solution. How can we make a great LAN party with the supplies at hand and make a profit while doing it? We have a network, but not a large enough room with enough ports. We're most likely going to create a detached network for the party, but don't know how to set it up because we have limited supplies. I guess we could seek a sponsorship from a local company, but that is unlikely to happen. Any suggestions on network layout, power layout, and general party to-do's?"
What exactly do you need to raise money for? Can your group exist without fundraisers, or can you get funding directly from the school?
Groups are a lot more fun when money isn't a big issue. Yes, I know it's tough, but if you try to cut out things like "rewards for officers" or whatnot, clubs are easier to run.
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Consider, too, that a LAN party can be a logistical nightmare; Google around and check out some of the horror stories out there about mid/large-scale LAN parties that have gone horribly awry due to a lack of planning. Consider that the onus of "getting it done right" will fall squarely on your shoulders, and that you'll need to be prepared to handle such things as n00bs with viruses, jerks with aimbots, kleptomaniacs with quick fingers, and chest-beaters who aren't afraid to let the bloodletting spill over into Real Life. Consider, too, that you'll need to coordinate with folks at your school in advance to decide on which games they're willing to let you all play. Finally, understand that you're not likely to have a single second to sit down and actually play if you're the organizer. You'll be busy days in advance and hours after the last person has gone home.
Seriously--you may want to look at candy bars and car washes if your goal is to raise money. LAN parties are neither easy nor lucrative for the small operator.
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Go with the detached network. With enough people at a party, someone's going to have fun digitally spelunking. Better it be on machines owned by attendees than on machines owned by the school.
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Call up the local mom and pop computer hardware store and ask to use their floor model routers and to donate a spool of ethernet cable, then let them plaster the place with fliers. Take personal responsibility for the borrowed hardware. Treat it well and return it. Repeat.
You could always have multiple rooms, if you have several rooms with ports, or get people who are helping with the event to bring some hardware of their own to help out (like routers).
As for games, I think they released the original Tribes, or Tribes 2 for free download. Tribes 1/2 is an old enough game so it will more than likely run smoothly only school computers, but the graphics are outdated. I remember setting Tribes 2 up in one of the school labs and playing it with half the class, It was some good fun.
Seriously man, try local business first. Highschool is hard enough; if you're the kid responsible for organising a lan party to raise money for the technology group.... that's like waiving a flag that says 'kick my ass'. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing actually wrong with the idea, and the people who will give you shit now will be talking about how selling cars is rewarding at the 10-year reunion, but you've got a good shot of getting money by going around and finding companies in your town that work in the technology area who would be willing to cut a check, so why deal with it.
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
Most kids in High School that are into technology should have most of the stuff you need. Try to find a few leaders that are interested and have they ask students to see if they have cables, hubs and other networking gear that they would want to lend. Maybe let the people that allow stuff to be used to play for free or cheaper as well.
Never underestimate the usefullness of a good ventilation system at a LAN party.
No, this is not a troll. I've been to many gaming conventions and LAN parties to notice that this is the difference between a professional and amateur hosting.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I don't see why local sponsorship would be unlikely. Ever try, ya know, asking? When I was in high school we had a few projects that required some money (including racing an all-electric vehicle). It took some doing, but when you start asking around, like, "where does your dad work?" and such, you inevitably find that someone's dad or mom is some executive somewhere local and or close to the executive or close enough that an inquiry from them will land the school a nice chunk of money.
We got a few hundred dollars as well as actual materials donated in exchange for stickers on our car. I'm sure you could do something similar. Make it known via local radio stations and you'll get companies more than willing to sign up. Spin it as something safe and entertaining for area teens to do on a saturday night (or whatever) and you might even get some TV time out of it. It doesn't take much. Just a phone call or two to a TV station and radio station and newspaper. They love local interest student-run things. Makes for great fluff stories. It is easier to get attention for this kind of thing than you might expect.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Could.... this help?
All public schools need extra money for technology. It's part of the requirement for being a public school I believe. That being said, a LAN party is going to raise about 2.98 for technology after you pay for expenses. No food, no drinks, no prizes...no people.
You are going to have to find one or more switches with enough ports. A 24 port unmanaged switch will cost $60+ bucks. You could get by with more switches with fewer ports, but then becomes a hassle with getting everything wired. You'll also need Cat5 cable ($40/1000 feet at Lowes) and RJ-45 connectors (prices vary depending on how many you buy). Also some crimpers...and some time to crimp a bunch of ends.
(Extended) Star topology 100baseT will be more then enough for what you are doing. For power, you will have to see how the room is wired. If the room is normally a computer room, you should be fine. If it's a class room, you could start tripping breakers depending on how many computers you have running.
You also are going to have to get permission from the school system, provide security, as well as likely get a teacher to act as a sponsor. Without this, and with no outside sponsorship, your idea won't go anywhere.
One caveat, though: I don't know anyone who has profited from a LAN party. Usually, it's considered a stellar success if they break even. However, since yours is for an educational institution, you might be able to work the sponsorship angle extra hard and make a few bucks.
Another one bites the dust
Check your game licensing. Most require permission for public display or charging for play.
You don't really to buy extra hardware with xbox LAN party. I am sure your school has a TV in every classroom. Bring in a TV from home (or move a TV from another class), connect 2 xbox to the TV, then have 2 Halo2 multiple players game going.
you would need a teacher to "sponsor" you though.
some high school kids would rather play on xbox than on PC.
that's really cheap set-up for 8 players, considering what it would otherwise cost with PCs..
If you do it w/ a friend, make sure you outline who does what, and who gets what. Make sure it is signed, and you have a witness.
I made this mistake hosting a lan w/ a friend. Bascally, he decided to keep the cash, I had nothing saying otherwise. The only payment I received was 8 copies of call of duty I could not sell(that came after the lan), and 2 eight port switches.
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If you're trying to do this on the cheap, Wolfenstein: Enemey Territory is great. Free to download, & the hardware requirements aren't all that outrageous if your computer is 3yrs old. Over the last couple of years, the personal LANs i've attended always seem to come back to this old standby. If ET's not your flavor of carnage, there's a listing of free games that was mentioned on /. that I can't seem to find the URL for...(anyone?)
I atttended a LAN party at our crosstown rival's high school once, so I feel obliged to share my experience.
LAN parties at schools are risky because they are government buildings and you're basically leaching off their supplies and resources. Take for granted what you are offered. The whole trick to getting our LAN party off the ground was that the person who organized it had a friendly relationship with the head of technology at the school. You state that you're in a technology group, so that's a start. If it's a school sponsored group, that's even better.
If administration gives you the go-ahead, the next step might be sponsorship from a faculty member. School administration will probably be hesitent about a bunch of high school kids in the building after hours, so a faculty member with them to look after them will usually calm their nerves. If your group is sponsored, the leader of your group might be a good choice.
Chances are you'll want to bring your own computers because school computers are generally locked down and don't have the horsepower for games. If you're placed in a room that has Ethernet jacks, you might be tempted to just plug all the computers into that. I thought about doing that at ours, but I just plugged one cable into a wall jack for uplink to the Internet.
For network topology, we just had a hub and everyone plugged into that, and then we had one cable plugged into a wall port providing Ethernet. I don't think we told anyone about the uplink, but it worked fine.
We played WarCraft III the entire night because we were asked not to play violent games (Quake III and the like). Getting people to attend can be a challenge, but post flyers and tell your friends. Depending on who you hang out with, you may or may not draw a croud. In our case, we had about 10 people show up.
I'd suggest using the cafeteria. Plenty of electrical power, and you probably have tables in there already.
Go to Lowes/Home Depot, buy a box or two of CAT5 cable. Have some students make the ends. Get a couple of cheap switches. Small companies like mine throw them out all the time. In the last year I've thrown out 2 100MB hubs, 5 10MB hubs, and 2 100MB switches.
You're just running games so you're not going to saturate them.
We did this at a high school I previously worked at, and it went pretty well. We used all the old networking equipment the school used to run on, and now they just use it in the 'student lab' with old computers and other things for computer class kids to play with.
I recently did a lot of research into LAN centers with the hopes of opening one, but have since then been moving away from that direction due to some serious issues that such a thing presents. There are three main considerations for a successful commercial LAN: 1) The hardware and space. This is probably the easiest issue to overcome because it is the most straight forward. You just need enough desks and open space to set up your systems, and a good switch/router (don't want to use a hub, if you can even find them any more) with enough open ports for your systems. 2) The liscensing issue. This is the second worst part of setting up a LAN where you are asking people to pay money to use games. The creators of the games (well, usually the publishers) demand a cut. Each publisher (and a few large developers like Blizzard and Valve) has its own hoops that you must jump through and expenses that you have to pay. There is an organization of LAN centers that can help out a new-comer (which you may not qualify as, since this is an event instead of a center) at www.igames.org 3) Insurance. This is probably the hardest aspect to deal with, because the odds are the investment will come to nothing. I don't know how it is in other states, but in CA it's pretty much a case of if someone hurts themselves while at your center, your center is responsible for shelling out the cash to heal them, both physically and mentally. Since you plan do it on campus, the insurance might not be an issue since the school already has that taken care of. Well, that's what I know of comercial LANs, I hope my research proves useful to you.
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Dear Slashdot,
I am a 15 year old geek and I need a fundraiser. I thought that a LAN party would be an effective, and exciting, 'solution'.
Then I realized that we don't have the space, equipment, know-how, experience or startup funding. Please figure this out for me.
-Kid "the yellow dart" planner
P.S. Make it profitable! Even though most experienced LAN parties don't.
P.P.S. Oh, its due tomorrow too, so please hurry!
the comp sci department thows one 3 or 4 times a semester at the college i go to. it is not that hard to do.
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i would sugest that you tell every one to bring there own computer. we geranly swipe a few from the school too in case someone has an old one or cant lugg it down to where the partys at.
you need to get a switch form somewhere if the you might even be able to bribe the netadmin of the school to let you barrow one (from my own exparnce doubtful but anything possable) or even do it wireless if every has a wireless card. i do like the idea of going to the local computer store (tell'em they can say they help out in the comumty/schools by doing it)
the swtich and cabel are your biggest prblems. we tell everyone to bring there own cat5 cable. if they dont have one, we grab more from the other computers in the computer lab. something you can do just make shure it gets put back! if you ever want to have another one
we use a little home router. so we can be online and all the game trafic stays local. our lan grew slowly witch was a good thing. it was not that hard but we were able to have a few runthews to get all the kinks out. if this is your fist one i would sugest you do the same with some knoagable friends. goold luck and happy fragging
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Go and get your principal to <b>sign</b> a peice of paper saying you can do this.
This peice of paper should then be treated as your own personal holy grail.
I have tried this, and beleive me, you will get more flac from teachers and other students then you can possibly imagine.
Imagine the nerv if you, attempting to have fun in a high school. Use this peice of paper to ward off the evil spirts and you may have a hope.
It has to be written and signed, if its possible for you to convince your principal (with the hope of a supporting teacher), you need this so she cannot easily go back on her word when she trys.
It turns out it was much less hassle for myself to rent out the local legion hall, but of course that killed any potential profit.
If your school or school district has a full-time IT department, see if you can enlist the help of a person or people from there. They may be able to midnight requisition the cabling and other network equipment for you.
You definitely need to get buy-in from those guys, though, in addition to what others have said about getting a signed letter of permission from the principal. I know that when I worked for the local school district, nothing happened on the network without us knowing about it.
Simply put it's very hard to make money from a lan. I've been involved in several large scale lans (500+ people) and with venue costs, equipment costs, food costs, transportation costs, and a million and one other little costs that you haven't even thought about, it all adds up to a pricey sum, which means you have to set the ticket price to be very high if you want to make anything. I'm not saying it can't be done; I'm just saying it's not as easy as you might imagine. There's a lot more to it than putting up some tables and stringing together some switches.
At my highschool my friends and I run the tech department. We set up the network all around the school and are responsible for maintaining every computer in the school. With that freedom comes the power to do basically whatever we want. Some of the students at lunch have a LAN party set up and charge 1 dollar for 1 hour of CS:S, Unreal, BF1942, Warcraft, etc...
Overall I'd say its pretty successful. One year they raised enough to buy cheap video cards for all the computers.
when i was still in highschool, stories from around the school district were floating about that school choirs and the like, who were wanting to charge a buck or 2 a person for a concert were not going to going to be able to keep any of that money as the football team had the rights to all tickets sold. the concert was to raise money for new bleechers, and its not like they were a club, it was a full blown class in school, and yet sports still got to cash in on it. they ended up just not having the concert.
I taught in High School after Columbine, and folks were pretty tense about anything that resembled violence on the school property--after hours or not. If you have to rule out FPS, I can't imagine you'll get many folks interested--and if things haven't loosened up in the last few years, I think getting FPS approved would be tough. Worse, they'll say "okay", but then shut you down once you start playing and they can see what is meant by FPS.
So before you go much further, I would demo the games that you want to play to the approving authority; if they blanch you'll have to rethink. And the type of game will impact the network needs too, so I think what gets approved will help determine the rest of your needs.
--
$tar -xvf
yeah, the topic really says it all.
it's great for fun, but not really for raising funds. if you have a smallish party(that you would have) chances of breaking profit are pretty small, and chances of breaking enough profit that it would really matter are much smaller.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Some thoughts and suggestions in no particular order...
It sounds like you're a little hazy on some of the technical details. If I were you, I'd check around and find a LAN party in your town and check it out. See how it works. The second thing I'd do is try getting this setup with just your computer club. Try and get some of the kinks worked out BEFORE you charge people for the service you are providing. If you put on a good event people will come back for the next one. If you put on a bad show (can't get the network up, food sucks or is too expensive, etc.) then no one will come to the next one. Make it a good one and you might be able to do this once every couple of months or so.
Door prizes might be fun. Check with some local businesses and see if they'll donate cash or items for door prizes. They don't have to be big or even computer-related. Fun stuff that kids like.
I think the money to be made at a LAN party is in the food. Sure, you can charge everyone who comes $5 to get in the door or whatever, but then have all the eats and drinks you can think of ready to be purchased. Get it from Costco, and have folks lined up to work the food booth (cute chicks would probably work best). Plan a pizza run and charge everyone a fair markup for running for the pizza. See if you can get the pizza for free/cheap.
On the physical setup, you'll need a computer or router to act as the DHCP server. Then just get a mess of switches/hubs and hook all that up. DO NOT worry about cabling from the switches to the player's computers...make the players bring a cable.
Tables and chairs should be no problem at a school. Just make sure you give everyone plenty of space to spread out.
You will also need some extension cords for power. Again, I'd require everyone to bring their own power strip.
In general players should be required to supply: Computer with network card installed, monitor, power cables, power strip, network cable (15-25 feet should be plenty) and the games.
You might also think about setting some minimum requirements. Require Win98/ME/2K/XP, machine speeds, etc. You don't want someone showing up with their parents old Pentium 166 and wondering why they can't play.
Create a game list so people know what to bring and to make sure their systems can handle it. You might also specify patches that should be applied and possibly have a server or some CD's burned with all the relevant patches.
There are a lot of free demos out there for games. I'd make sure at least one of these was on the list. That way, anyone can come and take part even if they don't own any of the games.
Have some folks on-hand to do tech support. They should be familiar with setting up TCP/IP networking on the various Windows systems and configuring the games you will play. Depending on the size of the group, you might also want them well-marked (special hats or shirts).
Security is an issue. I'd make everyone aware that they are responsible for their own data security. If they have their computer open to the world and someone else sniffs into it and copies whatever, then it's the COMPUTER OWNER's fault.
Anti-Virus - REQUIRE everyone to have anti-virus software installed on their computer BEFORE they are allowed to connect to the network. Seems like every time I go to a private LAN party, there is always one idiot who doesn't have it, and of course is INFESTED. If they don't have one of the commercial packages they can get one of the free ones.
Physical security - tell all of your participants to mark their hardware and keep track of it. There are a lot of stories about folks going to some of the big public LAN parties around here where they get up for 5 minutes and come back to find their uber-cool headphones and joystick missing.
Allow a couple of hours for setup. It takes longer than you think.
Plan that you'll have at least one person who will need dedicated help fo
i would say that your only surefire bet is prostitution... its the world's oldest profession for a reason
I'm on staff for a local Lan party and have dealt with a lot of the issues. I recommend that you start with power. Having enough electricity is usually more of a problem than the actual floor space. We tested our systems with an Ammeter and found that an 'average' gaming system will pull around 3-4 amps under gaming load. (less when idle). Obviously it depends on the number of components and lcd vs crt monitor, etc. Most buildings will run with 20 amp circuits but you'll have to get a electrical blueprint for the building to know which wall outlets are connected to which circuits. It's important because it really stinks to be in the middle of a tournament and breakers start flipping. That's a start... feel free to drop me a line and I can give you more details about other lan challenges, advertising, tournaments, food, location, and other logistics. [ daph00z@ h s v g l . com ] remove spaces
What my school got away with is setting up a console game tournament. It is MUCH easier than setting up even an 8 player LAN, it's much easier to bring a GameCube and a box of games and controllers than to set up 4 PCs on a LAN. Charge a buck or two for tournament entry, have a couple freebies for the cheapskates, give a cut of the entry fees to the winner of a tournament, and watch the cash flow in. The anime club at my school (2000 students) did this a month ago and got around a hundred bucks, so don't expect to buy a new alienware box, but you could get a huge hub for the lan party you host later on.
Good luck to you, whatever games you manage to sneak into school.
SAILING MISHAP
If you are doing this just to make money, stop. Try and run all the numbers... plain and simple, you will not make much of a profit, if any.
My first suggestion is to hold your own informal LAN party at home every week for a couple months to get a feel for the logistics. You'll get a feeling for the challenges very very quickly. If you're planning on playing for six hours and you end up spending three on machine setup, network config and game patching, your LAN party idea is doomed. You have to get people set up and ready to play in 15 minutes, so planning is important. You may be able to get five or six people to play regularly, and maybe someone else can get a different group of 5-6 players meeting this way. Share notes on what works and what doesn't, decide on the games you'd like to play and what patch level you want to be at.
You didn't say what your materials are, for one thing, and you didn't say how many people would be interested. These are BIG questions that you need to answer.
It sounds like you might have one network jack in each classroom, at least in a few rooms. Your school's network should already accommodate fast ethernet and should be able to hand out IP addresses via DHCP. Putting one 8-port switch in each room should be sufficient.
Decide what you're going to play! If you have to meet the approval of a teacher or chaperon sponsor, make sure they know what you're going to play. UT2K4 can be a great game for a larger LAN party, because it has a number of different game types. You can rotate from onslaught to CTF to assault, for example. If it's too gory or violent, then you'll have to pick from other options. As with questions others have raised about licensing, each person will have to buy their own copy of the game, unless you can get a game company to donate copies. Remember that everyone will have to have the proper patches applied, and if you plan on using add-on maps/skins, you'll have to make sure that these are also available. Burning five or six setup CDs withe the game patches and add-ons will make setting up each player's environment as easy as possible. Another thing to look at is if you're going to be running servers (such as UT2K4 or Call of Duty or Rise of Nations or whatever), bear in mind that it's often nice to have servers that are set up and named for the skill level of the players that will be playing on them. Having just one UT server with the bots cranked up to godlike abilities is not going to appeal to people that only frag every few months.
If people are going to bring their own machines, decide on what the minimum standards are for the hardware. If you pick a game that requires top-flight hardware, not everyone's parents will be interested in having to pony up 100-500 dollars for the necessary upgrades. You have to pick a game that fits the hardware constraints you have, and pick hardware constraints that will make the game you choose equally playable by everyone. One of the nice things about the XBOX suggestion posted by someone else is that the hardware is pretty standardized and the titles are probably familiar enough to most parents. If you're running servers, make sure they're well-oufitted with RAM and decent processing power to handle the load. A server meltdown can bring the whole show down very quickly.
Power is important. If you're playing with PCs, each person will need a minimum of three power outlets: 1 for monitor 1 for PC and 1 for something else (speakers, mebbe). How many power strips can you get together in one place? Remember that extension cords will become pretty valuable in getting power to each seating area
Decide in advance what people must bring to the event. Is everyone supposed to bring their own power cords/strips/monitor/PC/mouse/keyboard/joystick? One thing to remember is that people will be more likely to abuse hardware they do not own, so if you're using machines from
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
What games could you play at a LAN party that nobody in the local PTA wouldn't be up in arms about?
Great list, I'd suggest adding a projector it's pretty sweet if you can display the images from either in game or the visualizations from your MP3 player on the big screen. Also, let folks play lots of games, seems like at every LAN party I was ever at, there was a big Quake (or the newest release from id) game and several smaller games (Tribes, HoM&M, Diablo etc) for those who hadn't mastered the twitch. You might throw a free lan party and rather than door prizes raise money with by raffling any donated hardware/software.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Damn why attack a kid? I bet some of you were the geeks in High School. How about you lay off and help the kid out? Give him some ideas, I am sure most of you had your own personal lan party or even x-box events. Come on... grow the %$*# up and take the stick out of your arse.
It may be better to hold it on school grounds if it's an event for a school club. But, have you considered renting out a local internet cafe? Depending on the turnout, you may be better off at one of these places. Many of them offer gaming services. Some are set up specifically for gaming. Although it means you have to spend a little, there's a good chance that you can get a deal on the hourly rate if you bring a number of people. Most of these places will usually have the latest games, and the security and networking issues will have already been worked out. There are a number of other pros and cons, but I'm too damned tired to list them for you. Besides from what I remember of highschool, there's some minor research projects. Figuring the logistics of this plan shouldn't be over your head.
Laziness is a virtue, anyone who bothers to tell you otherwise, is clearly lacking it.
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One of the most important things, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Get some big, long, industrial grade orange extension cords and run them from places as far apart as humanly possible. You want to make sure that you don't have 15 computers running on one circuit.
Secondly, I echo the previous comment about good ventilation. Leaving a door open with a box fan in it should be enough. Even if it's 10 degrees out, your room will heat up rather quickly.
Third: Headphones. Beat people that do not have headphones (if you don't, your guests surely will.)
I really wish I had some mod points, so I could mod the XBox post up. If you want a LAN party at a high-school level, going with an X-Box [Halo/Madden] tourney is the best idea, for all the points they already mentioned. I have small (8 person) X-Box LAN parties regularly, and it's always a lot of fun. Just make sure everything is planned out in advance (teams, maps, gamestyles [ctf/deathmatch, etc]), and that you're explicit about it. I would recommend having people sign up in teams of two or four, with each team bringing their own X-Box, controllers, and LAN cable (either regular cross-over cable, or X-Box connector cable [whatever it's called]). You could also rent that stuff to make more money. Also, make sure lots and lots of people know about it. Not just through morning announcements/posters, but word-of-mouth. Things seem to travel through word-of-mouth faster than anything in high school, anyway.
A GameCube LAN party would be just as fun (assuming you could get the equipment... I've personally never seen a GameCube Broadband Adaptor), with Mario Kart: Double Dash, or SSB:M. Also, make sure you have some reason for the losers of the tournament to stick around for... maybe get a few extra X-Boxes/GameCubes, and offer play on them at a reduced rate ($0.50/half hour).
Along a similar vein, you could maybe encourage people to bring other games/Game Boys/DS's. Just make sure you offer The Disclaimer (see the last point).
Don't be afraid to jack up the cost of refreshments (not too high, obviously). It's how the movie theaters make their money, and you could probably make a steal on refreshments alone.
One last thing, and this is probably the most important... make sure you offer The Disclaimer: "[We/The school/etc] are not responsible for any lost or stolen items." Again, along this train of thought, you may want to emulate rules your school has about things like this...
I am my class' president, so I have been through my fair share of fundraisers. I know that most of these won't be suitable (or desirable) for your club, but perhaps they could spark some ideas.
;)
Our largest fundraiser is Homecoming, specifically the dance. I know, not something you probably want to do (I don't like doing it anyway), but dances do have incredible profit margins.... Unless, of course, you have school who doesn't have much spirit, in which case dances are a total flop. We only have one major, non-prom dance at our school, and the only reason that is mildly successful is because it is something of a tradition. While a pain in the ass, dances are great for making money.
Our second biggest fundraiser is Battle of the Bands. Though it has a somewhat smaller profit margin, it still nets us about $1000 a year. Plus, it's a whole lot more fun to put together and hold, mostly because you don't have to put up with football players and cheerleaders.
What else do we do... Oh yes, dues are always good. They make money. T-shirt sales work, if the design is cool. If you make shirts, try to use few colors (cheaper). That way, you can sell them for only a few bucks and still make a good 75%-100% profit.
Most of these things are more for Student Councils, of course, but I'm sure you could modify them to suit your needs. Since you're a tech group, perhaps you could offer to build/fix/update computers at low prices for the community. That could make a profit, especially if you *adjust* prices for parts!
Anyway, good luck with your fundraiser. If all else fails, you can always find some rich old dude to bum off of.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
The majority of the past NukemLANs have been held at Seneca Valley HS in PA, right around Cranberry/Harmony/Zelionople. We've never had any problems. Watch out, though, don't expect to have Internet access. We do, but when we need patches, we have to otherway it a lot.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
It's been said before in this thread, and is worthy of saying again. Start out with a console lan party. The logistics are just so much simpler:
1) less equipment needed. One Xbox + one TV accomodates 4 players. Setup is a snap, so you won't spend hours trying to get everything up and running. The school should have TV's that you can use, so that shouldn't be an issue. Plus, you can probably snag a couple of projectors, which is really cool for console play.
2) Equipment is standardized. You're using consoles, so you don't have to worry if people can run the games well, patch versions, etc. Trust me, this is such a PITA with a PC lan.
3) Accessability. People are more familiar with consoles, therefore more comfortable. Plus, you'll draw a bigger crowd using consoles. I hate to say it, but there are not as many PC gamers as there are console. It'll be easier for you to provide equipment with consoles as well. So more people can show up and just play, instead of lugging their own equipment.
4) Easier to accomodate faculty concern. Most decent PC games are violent as hell. If the faculty is wary of what you're playing, you have better options. Heck, get some GameCubes and play Mario Kart or Super Smash Brothers. FUN games that teachers really can't say no to.
I love PC games as much as the next guy, but for ease of setup, you can't beat consoles.
The FIRST team I work with had the same idea, but the logistics of setting up a LAN (everyone having legit copies of games being the big one, the pain of bringing so many computers to one place, the actual organization and set-up/clean-up of such an event would've taken forever) were too much for them, and so a Halo/DDR party was planned instead.
It is much easier to set-up 10 Xboxes then 10 computers. It was a 2v2 tournament, double elimination, with a $25 or so gift card to EB/Best Buy for the top team. Selling drinks, snacks, pizza, and charging a $5 admission fee, we made around $200-$300, and we'll be doing it again. And this time with actual advertising, instead of word-of-mouth.
Only thing is that we didn't expect so many people, so we the tournament took a little longer then expected, but it was damn fun. And set-up/clean-up was definetly a lot easier then a LAN party.
We just threw one at our school, and charged 10 bucks a pop for a BYOC lan party. It was a decent turnout with around 25 people. We got the tech department at school to lend us some hubs and a tech to set up the seperate network. We also got some pizza places and tech places to donate money. The only thing that didn't work is that alot of kids showed up without the right software. For instance, i was running HL2 while others were on 1.6, while other where on 1.5, so make sure you specify that they have that software preinstalled or they cant play. Maybe its just because Shrewsbury, MA has its head up its ass.
Me and another 20-40 people have a lan party every lunch hour with the game "bzflag". It's an open source tank game thats like battlezone but with flags and good graphics. It runs on pentium 133's and up so it works on everything. We have 1 computer that runs as a server and is hooked up to a projector and does a set pattern around the map.We charge cash for use of our "high quality" machines which are duron 1 ghz's with nvidia tnt2 cards. We have made over 300 dollars in the last 5 months.
If you HS is anything like the HS I went to, people are going to want to walk out with whatever gadgets, cables, etc. that they can find.
I'm not sure how your high school is, but mine had some decently sized projecters in many classrooms. If you have a significant number of classrooms equipped this way, with LAN infrastructure already in place, get as many xboxen as you can find and get a big halo2 tourney going.
No worrying about hacking, patching issues, and everyone gets to play on a big-ass projector.
I can't remember what the max halo2 allows you to play at once, but say you have 5 classrooms to work with, at 4 per room that's 20 people, right? $5 a person and there's $100 for your club with minimal effort.
Sony ha
Use cube from http://cubeengine.com/ as it is a great multiplayer game which is open source (ie free to use). It will run on just about anything as well.
Get people to bring their own gear, loads of geeks like to show off their kit. I've never had any problems just using a few home network hubs linked together.
Most people play games these days, don't make things too geeky.
I (along with a few others) founded a LAN organization that operated out of our school for 4 events; and then we took it to a firehouse shortly after we graduated. We started small (25-30 people) and eventually ended up mid-sized (60-65 people). Our school provided us with the means of handling money (a club account; buying purposes) our first LAN was run with mostly Hubs and house switches.
We were later able to buy switches (after the first LAN) that were more than adequate for a mid-range LAN-party. The wiring is a bitch though; you need to have someone that knows how to wire CAT5, because it does take a *long* (see: long) time if you have absolutely no idea. Also, think about investing in a cable tester - it will save a lot of time.
Our school was pretty leanient about it; we had them on weekends for about 10 hours in the Cafe, they didn't care about who was playing what. All they wanted was signed permission forms (even from people over 18 - we were allowed to have older people there) with the obvious things on them.
My suggestions are: start small, borrow a few projectors and run Xbox Halo games as well (this was fun for when people got tired of Counter-Strike/Quake 3) and make sure you have enough *power* (see: power). Power is *the* hardest thing to get right. Make sure you have access to the breaker box as well. Good luck!
I'm f#$king magic!
Don't organize a LAN party in the school to raise money, you idiot! Organize a kegger in the woods behind your school, and charge $5/cup. Much larger target audience = more money.
Plus, you might actually get laid-- which will never happen at a school-sanctioned LAN party.
Just a little story before you get caught in the same trap as these children with your school.
Once upon a time at a school district I once worked for, one of the technology classes wanted to hold a LAN party as an end-of-semester celebration. They wanted to host it in the high school building since the building was fully wired with switched 100 MB drops and had power and space.
Their teacher agreed to supervise this all-night party and parental agreement slips were signed by all the students parents. The IT department signed off on allowing students to bring in their own equipment as long as they followed a few simple rules that the IT department put in place.
The party turned out to be a disaster. The teacher went to the staff lounge and was asleep for most of the night (don't you just love security cameras) and left 20 teenage boys all alone with their games.
Well a couple of the boys decided that exploring the network and trying to use the 'sploit of the week against the network systems was much more fun than playing games.
The next morning, the IT department browsed thru the logs and found that a few boys have spent the entire night trying to crack into both the Linux and Windows servers without avail. As a result of this sudden lost of trust of the IT department, LAN parties are officially banned on the school district network as declared from the superintendent and the board of education.
Moral of the story, if the HS lets you host the LAN party, make sure your friends are supervised and they don't do anything stupid. That one bit of trust can be lost forever if one of your friends takes the trust they were given and wastes it away in order to "change my grades".
Don't be discouraged by all the naysayers here. I've been to multiple high school sponsored lan parties to raise money, and they all went through fine. For starters, sell passes that get you into the lan and give you a snack or two, some pizza, and some bawls. I suppose there's room for variation there. From there, just sell everything individually, and make sure you're stocked.
As for the gaming, xbox couldn't be much easier. Just couple a few boxen with projectors and a router and you have an instant party. PC is fine if you have all the games planned out and patches hosted on the network, but it would probably be best to test the waters first. Regarding the content of the games played, I've found that most of the adults supervising let you do your own thing as long as you don't do anything stupid with a projector. Good luck
I was in charge of the lan party at our high school. It was a blast. We played the trial version of halo, so we did not have to worry about copyright issues or people not having the game. We simply installed the trial on all the computers in the computer lab (They are relatively new: Horrid graphics, but it works.). We only had one port left on the hub, so I was the only one allowed to bring my computer up so it could act as the server. It was amazing. We bought some food, but a lot of food was donated. We even had enough left over for a $25 gift certificate to GameStop while still getting some nice profit. Just for reference, we charged $5 for entrance, and 30 people entered. -25 for the gift certificate and -25 for food left $100. We also had some donations, bringing it closer to $150.
Apparently you haven't been to a decent high school. At my school, we've got seriously HUNDREDS of computers running EVERY DAY. There's AT LEAST one computer in every room, and we've got two 25-computer labs. Trust me, if his school is like mine, the infrastructure for this kind of thing is there. If only they weren't all IMacs!!!!
I can't belive anyone hasn't pointed you at Lanparty.com
The Guide: http://www.lanparty.com/theguide/
And lanparties by and large are not $$$ makers unless you already have all the gear (or can have it provided on a sponsor basis), advertising materials and such.
My biggest expenditure is for tables & chairs. I already own all my own network equipment and spare servers though.
The biggest way to make your party a success is to limit the number of games, run some contests (with prizes), and advertise the heck out of it.
When we had lan parties at our school, we did it in the cafeteria, and a few people would just bring in some large hubs they had lying around.
You can charge at the door if you are trying to raise money, and you could even rent out games, sell drinks, run tournaments or whatever (a dollar to enter and the winner gets a free 6 pack of bawls).
The problem this is the lack of game options. Unless you have a super lax district, any FPS isnt going to work. Games like warcraft 3 and starcraft are great games to play at lan parties, and who can ever resist the thrill of playing microsoft hearts over the network.