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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
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        <p align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+3" color="#0022A8">LAN 
          Parties: It's a Scene, Baby!</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+1" color="#0022A8">4. 
          LAN Party HOWTO</font></p>
        <p>&nbsp;</p>
        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>4.1. Promotion </b></font> 
        <blockquote> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The most important issue 
            when having a LAN party is getting the word out. Using a web page 
            is a popular way of doing this. Popular web sites like <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's 
            News </a>and <a href="http://wwww.lanparty.com">LANParty.com</a> publish 
            information about LAN parties. It is good to get a party listed here 
            for more visibility. Other web resources are some of the banner ad 
            organizations. </font></p>
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Local newspapers and the 
            news media are also used as publicity draws. There are costs associated 
            with advertising, so it is not something that a lot of LAN parties 
            use. Getting news coverage on TV or local radio or newspaper, however, 
            is not very difficult. Just call the organizations and talk to a reporter 
            about your event. That might produce an article about the LAN party, 
            which would help in the promotion effort. </font></p>
        </blockquote>
        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>4.2. </b></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sponsors</font> 
        </b> 
        <blockquote> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sponsors are necessary 
            for large-scale events. The more prizes that sponsors give to the 
            games, the more interest you have for people to come to the event. 
            It is a win-win situation for them too, because they get publicity 

            and visibility in the community that is going to use their product. 
            It's a very tightly targeted market. </font></p>
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The trick to getting sponsors 
            is making phone calls. Lots and lots of phone calls. Email is also 
            helpful, but typically not as successful as phone conversations. If 
            you can get in front of a potential sponsor in person, that is even 
            better. Some places to work for sponsorship are your local computer 
            companies, but call the big names too. They love to see their name 
            in lights. </font></p>
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The sponsors will come 
            to events that are well publicized. To attract good sponsors, a good 
            publicity campaign is necessary. That is one of the things that will 
            help land large sponsorship deals too. If it can be shown that the 
            website used for publicizing is getting loads of hits from professional 
            organizations, and such - that's a good selling point for their marketing 
            folks. </font></p>
        </blockquote>
        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>4.3. </b></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Location</font> 
        </b> 
        <blockquote> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Finding a location is an 
            extremely important step in getting a LAN party set up and running. 
            The first place that most people have a LAN party is in their house. 
            That's fine for small, less than 20 player events, but when there 
            are going to be over 50, it's usually too small - with inadequate 
            power, and seating. </font></p>
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">When the party is larger 
            than about 20 people, then power is important, but with extremely 
            large parties, it is a <b>big problem</b>. At the first QuakeCon in 
            Dallas, there was a real power problem. They had to bring in 2 huge 
            diesel generator trucks to supply power to the event. Plan for about 
            2 to 2.5 amps of power for each PC in attendance. So if a conference 
            room in a hotel is needed, make sure the booking has been made in 
            advance, and the partygoers understand that there will be a charge 
            to cover costs. Other venues can be places like a business, or a warehouse. 
            There have even been events that were held in airplane hangars. </font></p>
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Tables and chairs are usually 
            a problem. Nobody owns enough tables and chairs to fill their house 
            full of spaces for people to come over and set up their computer. 
            Renting or asking the attendees to bring extra stuff is the typical 
            solution. Make sure that the partygoers know about any costs that 
            are going to be passed down to them to attend the event. </font></p>
        </blockquote>
        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>4.4. </b></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Networking</font> 
        </b> 
        <blockquote> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The network is a primary 
            concern. Give all the guests IP addresses as they walk in the door, 
            unless you have a DHCP server on your network (in which case - tell 
            everyone to set for DHCP). </font></p>
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Most of the LAN party goers 
            have a hub, or know someone who does, so they are not usually in as 
            much constraint as tables and chairs, but most people don't have enough 
            ports on their personal hub to support a medium to large LAN party. 
            Again - ask the partygoers to supply extra hubs and cables. </font></p>
        </blockquote>
        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>4.5. </b></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Organization 
        </font></b> 
        <blockquote> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The key to having a good 
            LAN party is organization. If all the ducks are lined up in a row, 
            then everything will go much smoother. This is a major downfall of 
            most medium to large LAN parties. </font></p>
        </blockquote>
        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>4.5.1. </b></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Servers</font> 
        </b> 
        <blockquote> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Publicize what servers 
            will be officially supported. Try to organize which servers will be 
            running what patches, or types of games. If possible, have the person 
            who is responsible for each server test each configuration planned 
            for the LAN beforehand. There is a lot of tweaking that can be done 
            in the quake and quake II server setups, and some of it can be time 
            consuming. Having server scripts and configurations set before the 
            party will help the organization team to be able to help more people 
            faster. </font></p>
        </blockquote>
        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>4.5.2. </b></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Games</font> 
        </b> 
        <blockquote> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">As mentioned in the prior 
            section, make sure each of the games that require setup is ready to 
            go. <b>Quake</b> servers need to have their .cfg files set and ready 
            for each of the patches planned at the LAN. <b>Quake 2 </b>is the 
            same. <b>Unreal</b> can also take some time to configure the server 
            properly. The more testing that is done on each of the dedicated servers, 
            the better. </font></p>
        </blockquote>
        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>4.5.3. </b></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Tournaments</font> 
        </b> 
        <blockquote> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Tournaments are not for 
            the weak hearted. If the LAN party is small, then tournaments are 
            usually not very fun, because everyone knows before it starts who 
            is going to take home the prize. As the LAN parties get larger, and 
            the sponsorship increases, the prizes get better. The more people 
            are drawn to the possibility of taking home some of the prizes. The 
            thing to stress about tournaments is that they <b>NEED</b> to have 
            someone take charge of them that isn't supposed to be playing in it. 
            Expect this person to be very busy too. Tournaments require a great 
            deal of organization. Not to mention, getting people to their matches 
            on time is a serious challenge. </font></p>
        </blockquote>
        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>4.5.4. </b></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Duties 
        </font></b> 
        <blockquote> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Each part of a LAN party 
            needs to be organized. If there is a superman who is organizing the 
            party, then they will accomplish all of it by themselves. This is 
            not always the case, and other helpers are called for. At the CPL 
            event in Dallas, there were over 50 volunteers to help out with the 
            issues that surrounded the LAN party. Ask the partygoers for help, 
            and chances are it will be received. </font></p>
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The primary duties at a 
            LAN party are: · check in people at the door, and optionally take 
            registration money · keep servers up and running smoothly · organize 
            tournaments, and keep matches underway · referee tournaments · troubleshoot 
            PC problems · troubleshoot Network problems</font></p>
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Keep all of this in mind 
            when there's a LAN party in your neck of the woods. </font></p>
        </blockquote>
        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>4.6. </b></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">FUN</font> 
        </b> 
        <blockquote> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Remember that LAN parties 
            are to have fun. Make sure that everyone does, and they will keep 
            coming back for more next time. </font></p>
        </blockquote>
        <p>&nbsp;</p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">- 
          Charles &quot;Bedman&quot; Bedford runs BedlamGaming.net, a Colorado 
          local LAN Party resource.</font></i></p>
        <p align="LEFT">&nbsp;</p>
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    <td><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><i><font size="-2">Credits:</font></i></font></b><font size="-2"><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 
      Illustration &copy; 1998 Mike Sanzone. LAN Parties: It's a Scene, Baby! 
      is &copy; 1998 Charles Bedford. All other content is &copy; 1998 <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi 
      productions</a>. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited, so don't 
      do it...we'll find you at a LAN party and woop yer sorry butt.</font></i></font><i></i></td>
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