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?"

Comments

Why do you need money?

[scythian]

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.

Consider It Carefully

[American AC in Paris]

Well, unless you can get your hands on the necessary hardware and space, you're not going to be able to pull this one off. For a LAN party of any significant size, you're going to need large amounts of cabling, a solid power source, better-than-consumer-grade LAN hardware, folding chairs/tables, food, and a dedicated security team. You might consider contacting your local conference center, as they may have the capacity for such an event, because odds are that your school isn't really equipped to handle such a thing--even the power requirements would be tricky for your typical high school.

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.

Re:Consider It Carefully

[Tr0mBoNe-]

I agree with this statement. Often, the LAN parties need to be run in structures that are designed for it. I know in Halifax, where I live, we have a few buildings designed, and fully stocked for small scale lans. These are rentable for a modest fee, and if you play your cards right, you can mark it up a bit and make a few bucks.

LAN parties have never been known a profit magnas, so I would suggest something different. Mabey some sort of sale/car wash. They tend to produce some modest buckeroos, and are considerably easier to make.

At my university, we have regular LAN parties, but we use classrooms that are wired with gigabit LANs and all the security we need from the university. Since each student gets a decently powered laptop, it's simple to run and the gamers just bring their computers with any prefiera they want. ,mmmmmmm cookie bake sales....

Re:Consider It Carefully

[Otter]

To be a little more optimistic, maybe what you want to do is start small. Instead of trying to make money, try organizing a school LAN party, for free or minimal expenses. If you can make that fly a few times this year, then it's time to start thinking about opening up to a larger audience and maybe trying to make some money.

Think about all the posts from dysfunctional-sounding people here -- do you want do have a learning experience at the expense of your friends' afternoon and three dollars apiece, or at the expense of some rabid nerd with no empathy or patience?

Re:Consider It Carefully

[TopShelf]

Bah - you complicate the issue too much. There's only one thing you truly need to make this a success:

Cheerleaders.

Seriously, an easy way to raise $$$ is by selling t-shirts. Come up with a clever design, and you can easily get people to pay $10 apiece for something that costs less than half that to procure. When I was in high school a group I belonged to did that and we raised well over $2000 in just a couple weekends...

Re:Consider It Carefully

[dougmc]

too, that a LAN party can be a logistical nightmare;

It gets worse. How do you think the school board will react when they learn that people are playing games that involve people shooting guns at each other? (I assume you won't all be playing Mario Kart or the equivilent?)

How will the school feel about people who aren't students (I assume you won't restrict it to students) using the faculties? What if something goes wrong, either inside or out? A fight? Stolen equipment? (happens a lot when it's not just a bunch of friends) People smoking pot outside? (and trying to smoke (hopefully just tobacco) inside?)

Or suppose that the principal decides to come down and make sure everybody has a legitimate copy of each game they're playing?

Seriously, this doesn't sound like something the school would ever permit if they fully understood what they were getting into. And if you get them to approve it without them knowing what they're getting into, you run the risk of big trouble if things go wrong -- and the odds of that are pretty high, unless it's a small informal thing with just your friends, which isn't likely to generate any money whatsoever.

Re:Consider It Carefully

[ReverendRyan]

This is exactally the point I was going to bring up. I once held a LAN at my former school district's central office which had large rooms they will rent to anyone (for a nice fee). They almost didn't rent the room to me (as a paying adult) because of those very same fears (none of it happened, tho, and the party was a great success).

There's no WAY you'll be allowed to play games like CS, Quake, Starcraft, World of Warcraft, etc. at school, especially as a school-related fundraiser.

Your best bet would be to hold the LANs outside of school completely and simply donate the profits (which will be small - LANS are expensive when they get big) to your school.

Detached network.

[Short Circuit]

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.

Sponsors are easy

[Pacifix]

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.

Local Business

[np_bernstein]

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.

Ask the kids.

[MagneticMountain]

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.

One piece of technology.

[GoofyBoy]

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.

Re:One piece of technology.

[Guppy06]

Are we talking about venting off heat from the boxen or the interesting aromas from the users?

Why not sponsership?

[BigZaphod]

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.

First we need to break down your question(s)

[cdrudge]

I'm a high school student and a member of our technology group.

It's easier to just say "I'm a geek." It's more to the point and doesn't make it seem like you are trying to disguise what you really are.

Our school needs extra money for our technology, and I thought that a LAN party would be an effective, and exciting, solution.

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.

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.

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.

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?

(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.

Ask the voice of experience

[saintp]

These guys have held a few very successful LAN parties near me, and have even written a piece of OS software (Automated LAN Party, or ALP) to help smooth things out. I'm sure that if you ask around in your area, you'll find people with similar experience.

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.

Do X-box LAN Party

[Anonymous Coward]

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..

Re:Do X-box LAN Party

[keyshawn632]

I'll second this one. At my high school, one of the clubs was able to have semi-profitable and successful Halo and Madden tournaments [using consoles].

This way, the equipment is 'standardized' so fear of hacks/cheats is less than PC; as well as the kids don't have to haul in a $500+ computer [instead a console no more than $300].
Plus, instead of one huge room of a LAN, there can be multiple classrooms, where one segment or bracket [of 4-8 people @ a time] can be held, as the tourney progresses.

As you should know as well - most geeks are recluse ! This means to have flyers displayed around school and get some exposure on the school announcements. /Linux troll

Or you could just use your Comp. lab, get a bunch of knoppixgames discs and have a bzflag tourney. Any kid capable of reaking havoc on that network should already be your ally :p

Make sure....

[Anonymous Butthead]

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.

Don't forget software!

[latent_biologist]

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?)

From prior experience

[btornado]

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.

Easy

[vasqzr]

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.

Re:Easy

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

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.

What company do you work for? Where is it? Do you lock your dumpster (will I need bolt cutters)?

Thanks!

Dear Slashdot,

[Wwolmack]

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!

Re:Dear Slashdot,

[Bill Walker]

Out of curiosity, what topic for Ask Slashdot would be acceptable to you? It seems that every time we have one of these someone questions the motives of the asker.

It's not like he's asking us to give him a brief history of computing, with bibliography. He needs help from people with direct experience in an esoteric pastime, and I think he's come to the right place.

Christ, please, just once, give something the benefit of the doubt. Not everyone is out to take advantage of you.

it's not that hard

[topgun601]

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.

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

LANs don't make money

[badnova]

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.

Lan Party Suggestions - it's a long list...sorry

[MrMagooAZ]

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

lan suggestions

[DaPh00z]

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

Here's your problem.

[focitrixilous P]

See, in high school, the kinds of people who want to play LAN games have the means to do so with each other over the internet. Why should they pay you for the priveledge to do it inside the school building, a place of learning and other boring stuff? That's right, they won't. It's bulky, inneffcient, easy to break, and not a good way to introduce the staff to videogames.

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.

... a tall order ...

[ninjagin]

You have, one might say, your work cut out for yourself. Many of the posts here allude to the challenges, but I felt like I could add some planning advice. I'm in a LAN group of about 6 people that meets weekly at various locations, and we've been doing this for years.

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