I went to many lan parties between 2003 and 2011. It was hosted by a local computer store where we had maybe from 12-20 people come and game. We did games like Battlfield 1/2, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2 and may more games. We may have had some Starcraft players when we did the bigger 24 hour lans. I remember when we teamed up with another computer store in the area and we rented out the party area at the Bowling Ally. We had about 40 or so people then. There were computers everywhere! Some even brought consoles and we would have Halo Tournaments and play some Rock Band. Man those were the days. I really miss doing them. 2011 was the last year i went to one since no one seemed to wanna do a lan anymore. It was the packing up all your gear that got to some people. Also the location wasn't good for some since most were from out of town. Like you said with the type of internet we have these days it's hard to get the number like we did. Will it even happen in the future? Who knows! I still hang with the guys via STEAM and we actually streamed together on twitch. We also went to a few conventions. That's the things that means the most to me.
Here is a video of when our biggest lan party ever was on the local news! This is when we had our group form up with another group within the triad area and we did it at some church. I know what you are thinking but it was one of those "auditorium" churches so there was a lot of space! This was at our peak. Our major sponsor was BAWLS and we had a company that did custom cases sponsor us as well. You can spot me in the video in the 1 minute 25 second spot where i am in between the dudes in the red and green.
That's wild dude! haha, it made the news! I never went to anything that big for sure. Playing online is great and all but you can't beat the feel and camaraderie of actually being there and talking / physically interacting between matches. It's a lot of laughs. In many ways high-speed internet killed the LAN party but for the sake of convenience that is probably a good thing so that dude's parents don't have to drive him 1.5 hours to Greensboro
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Yeh man we had one kid about age 15 if i remember correctly...He went to at least 4 lans and he was from Charlotte. Both him and his dad would come and they both had their own PC's. It was cool to see them in town when they came. We had people from Tennessee and Virginia come and LAN with us. I think the farthest i remember someone came from was from Georgia and he was related to one of our locals so that is how he knew about us. The most fun events were when we did it in a store that mainly sold cards. I really wish the forums weren't taken down. There was a short video uploaded of us fighting over who wins a case of BAWLS by seeing who can keep their hands in a cooler of ICE water. What made that fun was the last two who were in it the longest we moved the cooler outside where it was actually freezing outside. That was just one of the crazy things we did at the lans. The most memorable one was when we 1st started trying to expand and had our own booth area in a gaming convention. It was called MACE and was mainly cards and board games. Video gaming wasn't even mainstream at the time so we were one of the 1st to host a PC section. The hotel that hosted the event didn't have the proper wireing for all our machines in the convention area. The power kept tripping. We ended up getting a hotel suite with two rooms and a living room/kitchen on the house for all the troubles. We ended up doing the LAN in the hotel room with no power troubles! We had 10 of us in that room! Was great! Sadly that event isn't even in High Point anymore and they do it in Charolette area now. That was the one and only time we attempted to have our own booth in a convention. If we still had the team we did back then we could maybe have a booth at the Playthrough Convention in Raleigh but a more established group already has their grasp on it. At least i know there are groups out there that better adapted to the ever changing gaming world. Not saying ours was a failure. We are slowly getting back together by networking on twitch and mixer. This is where we are now. Are lans a thing of a past? Nope! Just evolved!
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well that's good to hear that people are still doing that. I reckon it is a lot easier now with the power of some laptops that people have, but at our LAN party most of the guys preferred to use an external keyboard with is something I can relate to but did not participate in.
It wouldn't have mattered, those guys were far better at Starcraft than I ever was.
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