The I-Series is a series of LAN parties and e-sports tournaments held in Stoneleigh Park in England. Every year there are three events roughly broken down into Easter LAN, Summer LAN, and Winter LAN. Attached to each of these is the M-festival, a games industry expo. Of all these events the summer series is always the largest, with more gamers, more tournaments and more industry news.
So what went down this year? First thing to note is that this I-Series had taken a hit from the credit crunch, with less than half of last year’s exhibitors showing up. Secondly, Multiplay seemed to be even more determined to put on a great LAN. They scored a massive win by getting early beta access for all 2000 gamers for Section 8 and impressed everyone by overcoming the security issues encountered at previous events.
I arrived Thursday night, and no one was overly surprised by the ridiculously long queue to get in, or by the English down pour. The event doesn’t really start in full until Friday morning. Thursday is usually when you either walk around and check out some of the other gaming rigs being used, or head off-site with your clan to grab some food and drink.
Things really kicked off Friday morning. All the tournaments went live, the expo swung into action, and at noon the Section 8 beta was launched. What followed was over 48 hours of hardcore competitive play, including the European finals of the World Cyber Games.
Every year, a special stage is reserved for a big announcement from a developer, but this year Multiplay reserved this space for themselves. They announced several different new ventures, including Multiplay Connect, a social site geared towards tournaments, leagues and ladders. It’s still a long way out and at the moment it’s little more than a concept but it sounds great if they can nail it.
If you’re a little old school, and your reaction times aren’t likely to win you a title, there’s still plenty of gaming to be had, with many people coming just for the chance to meet their clan mates and other gamers in real life. Not to mention the large number of other things to do at the event, including my favorite geeky gaming pub quiz.
As a Canadian living abroad it was not too much hassle for me to travel to the event, but what surprises me every year is the number of people travelling around the globe to attend. I’ve met Americans, Canadians and even people from Kuwait. Most attendees would agree that the opportunity to meet their friends and competitors is enough of a draw. However, it’s the atmosphere and openness of the European gaming scene that makes them come back, despite needing to ship their rigs over, and all the issues that entails. Maybe this is due to the fact that after 37 events, the community has seen it all and can quickly come to the aid of people coming from afar.
I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed my five days of gaming, and can’t understand why there aren’t more events on this scale in Canada and the States. One theory is that it comes down to distance. Despite the people travelling from abroad for the event, most of the gamers live in England and the site is roughly 3 hours from any where in the UK, not counting Ireland.
Is that really the reason though? If there was an event in Toronto on this scale wouldn’t there be a similar response, with gamers flocking to the site for their own version of the I-Series? Sound off below if you know of any similar LANs or would want to attend one if there was one.
Tobin Taylor is a Canadian gaming guru undercover in London, England. When not attached to a PC or console he's chasing werewolves, spies and assassins around the streets of Europe. He's also an editor and contributor for alluplay.co.uk, a UK site powered by the Total-Oblivion gaming community, under his gaming alias [TO]Wolf. 
I am from the states, and I was over for 2 different I-series events. I was there for i-28 and i-31. I had the plesure of meeting Tobin at i-31 as i was sat across from him. Though these events were at Newbury Racecourse and not stoneleigh park. Anyway, I loved the atmosphere there both times. It was great to sit there, meeting new friends and game with them. It’s not just the lan part that was teh draw… it was going out and having a meal with some of the folks that you played these games with. Seeing that the “bad guys” in the MMO you played really weren’t bad guys, but just people trying to make the game more fun for themselves.
I also question WHY isn’t there a big Lan fest within the states, other than quakecon. Quakecon isn’t an official lan fest, but it’s really the only event that happens like that. They did recently hold, New EngLANd in the North East of the US, but they only had room for 100 people. I mean really!!! Where is goup like multiplay for the US to bring out something BIG!
What about the World Cyber Games that were held in San Francisco? Is that not at a big LAN?
Xeserox I think I remember you from i28/31 you used to play EVE right?
There are some great Canadian LAN parties. Some are small – about 75 people – but some can seat a few hundred. These guys do a great job of keeping all the LAN news up to date around here: http://www.lanpartyeh.com/
MLG Toronto a few years back and a few private LANs for some console FPS, but nothing outside of that. I would appreciate just one nice LAN centre much less a whole event here in Toronto.