Last Sunday was the first ever LAN I have hosted, and I must say it was great fun. There were some hiccups along the way, but ultimately it ran rather smoothly (or smoother then I expected at least). In this blog I’m just going to talk about the process we went through in organising and running the event.
Adelaide LAN events virtually non-exsistent
Adelaide LAN events were a thing of the past. It all started back in May 2011, in particular with one man; Marc “Frequency” Onofrio. Marc has been the sole saviour for esports events in Adelaide, running/hosting nearly ever LAN event in Adelaide in 2011-2012. However, with Heart of the Swarms release, and the decline of Starcraft 2’s popularity within the esports scene, LAN events became less frequently hosted, until it had virtually stopped altogether.
The last LAN event was the Adelaide ARENA AVCon Tournament, which saw an unbelievable prize pool of $5000! In case you were wondering, that is a lot of dosh! This event saw the best of the SC2SEA scene qualify and attend the event in hopes of taking home the large amounts of money up for grabs.
With such a huge prize pool, top-class players flying down to attend, and the Avant Gaming Series paying issues, this LAN may very well have been the last Starcraft 2 LAN in Adelaide.
Times have changed
It had almost been a year since the AVCon Tournament, and there has not been another LAN event since. Back in February of this year, I attended the SYF Summer LAN 2014. This was an amazing tournament, where I got to meet so many players in the scene. I remember feeling after that day that I wish there were more LAN’s run as the atmosphere was amazing. So in May I decided to take some action on that.
In April, I reached out to Marc about how he ran ARENA LAN’s in the past, and discussed how many participants we were hoping for, prize pool, dates, etc. Marc had given us his full support and gave great insight in to running the events.
In May, I reached out to the SC2SEA community to see how many people would be interested in attending the LAN event, and what days would best suit people. The response was overwhelming. Majority of the Adelaide SC2 players backed the idea from the get go, eager to revamp the Adelaide SC2 scene.
The next 2 months was based on planning the event, including prize pool, hosting at ARENA, giveaways, stream production, etc. Surprisingly enough, it was not as hard as i expected it to be. Almost everything was finished and ready to go with two weeks to go before the LAN, with only Stream Production and purchasing a trophy left to do.
- Note to aspiring LAN hosters: If you wish to have a Trophy for the LAN event, DO NOT LEAVE IT TO LAST MINUTE!
On the Wednesday before the LAN, I figured I should probably go get a trophy. Me and my mate Jaysen went to Brighton Trophies (huge props to these guys) were they informed us it normally takes TWO WEEKS to get a trophy ordered and delivered. Our LAN was in 4 days, things were not looking good. Luckily for us, the guy running the shop showed us all the trophies he had in stock, and managed to get it engraved and prepared for us 3 hours after purchasing. Crisis averted.
Day of the LAN
Sunday 9:30am
Kris and myself arrived at ARENA Internet Cafe, to begin setting up and organizing everything for the day. Jamie “Ice” Beresford and Balimaar were also there and helped carry the stuff upstairs. The next hour or so, Kris and I were busy and very anti-social, trying to get everything set up; making sure the stream was working, getting the cameras set up, setting out the giveaways and trophy, etc.
Sunday 11:00am
The LAN was about to begin. The brackets were made, everything was ready to go, except we didn’t have a caster. Luckily for us, Sean “Flamga” Krauter was walking up the stairs into the Internet Cafe. I’m not sure if I introduced myself, I just remember going up to him and saying “Hi, do you wanna cast today?” Luckily for us, Flamga is a legend and didn’t even hesitate to jump on and cast for us.
Games went through rather quickly for the first hour and a half, with us already being up to the Quarterfinals of the Winners Bracket, and up to Losers Round 2. As we had ARENA booked out until 7pm, we decided it was best to change the format of the Losers Bracket to Best of 3’s from Losers Round 3 onwards.
The stream was a major issue throughout the day, with random drops of frame rate interrupting some great game play and casting. If it wasn’t for this fact alone, I would have deemed the stream a success, with very little downtime between games (from my point of view anyway), and many games casted (somewhere around 10-12 series casted throughout the day).
There was some amazing series, and the LAN ran rather smoothly, finishing before the deadline time. I also got to meet some amazing people for the first time, including Stormz, Spook, Satu, SouL, zeNo, coolbeans, Flamga and many more, as well as Pokemon and FeDe who both flew down for the event!
Financial breakdown
For those interested, I decided to do a little breakdown on how much was invested into the LAN event etc
Cost to host LAN event: $250
Cost of Trophy: $70
Entry fee per player: $20
Total # of Participants: #19
Total entry fees: $380
Prizepool: $400 (1st = $250 + Trohpy, 2nd = $100 + Razer Abyssus, 3rd = $50 + Mousepad)
I thoroughly enjoyed running this LAN event, and the turn out of not just the players, but spectators, was amazing and I would really like to run another event sometime in the future. Major thank you to everyone who came to play, cast, and support, this event would not have been as successful if it wasn’t for you guys! Another major thank you to our sponsors Katana Gaming Systems for the giveaways they provided, including 2 Razer Abyssus Mice, Mousepad, 6 Katana Gaming Systems tops, and 8 Razer Bandanna things.
Giveaways + Prizes
Thanks for reading guys, much love.
– Jordan “Zenabi” Fighera
My Alter Ego Zenabi 