i34 is here!
Well it’s that time of the year – Multiplay‘s summer gaming festival, i34, is here. It’s a new venue and a new style of event for MPUK and UK LAN Parties. In the past few years, the i-Series events have become more and more commercial and more of an expo/event tournament LAN with less for the traditional casual LAN gamer. Recognising this, Multiplay have upped their game and have now turned their typical large UK LAN Party into a gaming festival.
I’m here with Box ‘o’ Win and will be taking photos and putting them in the gallery. We’re on rows U and V on the far side of the hall so come and say hi! I arrived about 4PM and with the rest of the box, we set up the Tent ‘o’ Win – a 30ft x 10ft gazebo for drinking and general socialising. After that, Shazz and I went to Leamington and found our Travelodge with the largest room I’ve ever seen in a Travelodge, with room not just to swing a cat, but an entire zoo! We then went and joined the epic queue for checkin. It was only 30mins or so waiting when we queued, but there were people queuing for almost 2 hours to get checked in.
First thoughts on the event? It’s OK. Having everyone in one room is interesting and with the lights off there is a bit of atmosphere, but it’s not a patch on DreamHack. The trouble I think MPUK will have is that the tournament gamers will not want the lights off during their tournaments, and they definitely won’t want loud pounding music. Both of which are important in bringing the atmosphere to DreamHack.
The MFestival exhibition isn’t open yet, it’s scheduled to open at 9AM with all manner of exhibitors and an epic stage, that by all reports, dwarves anything attempted at a previous i-Series.
As always, photos and video can be found on the gallery as well as on YouTube.
Categories: Gaming, LAN Parties :
Aug 08 2008 
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