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LAN Party Forums => FITES News => Started by: The Shoctor on August 13, 2008, 08:13:03 AM
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Hey! Where's the LAN?
At this time last year, the FITES staff were hard at work finalizing the preparation on what would be our best event ever with the 150 MAN LAN of August, 2007. It is now August, 2008 and we're still working hard to bring you the best LAN's in Central PA, but..."Where's the LAN????" some of you have been asking.
At FITES we want to bring you an event experience that is unmatched in quality, even if that means we have to change our course slightly. The last couple of years we have held a large LAN in the summer and we all had a great time. Unfortunately, there's another event that we have to compete with for hotel space and when put head to head, we get owned every time; I'm talking about wedding season. Hotels are in the business to make money (who can blame them, there's no other reason to be in business really). In the summer when demand for their space is high, they can charge much higher rates for their ballrooms, bringing in $10,000 or more for one Saturday afternoon. We simply can not afford those rates and still bring you the best LAN experience in PA unless you want to pay $75-$100 in admission (I know I wouldn't!).
What does this mean for me?
If you haven't figured it out by now, there will be no Summer '08 FITES LAN. As much as we wanted to and as hard as we tried to nail down a venue, we just couldn't find space we could afford. The staff wrestled with many different scenarios and options, but in the end it always boiled down to the almighty dollar. The prices of everything have gone up dramatically since last year and the cost of putting on a LAN of the quality we demand was simply not possible in the summer. The venue costs were up, the cost of generator rental was up, the diesel fuel to run the generator was way up...you get the picture. We talked of scaling back, finding a fire hall or church instead of a hotel, and several other options. None were acceptable; they would all be steps backwards.
So we thought about shifting our time frame into the winter months. We've put on big LAN's during the winter before (who can forget the burning snow plow (http://gallery.fites.net/main.php?g2_itemId=860)!?) and there's been nothing about winter vs. summer that detracted from the LAN experience. We could have the space we want, the date/time we choose, and do it all within our budget. Why not? Let's go for it!
What now?
We have a venue. We have a date. We have a lot of work to do. The reports of our death are greatly exaggerated.
As we finalize more details and start to bring things together into a presentable form, we will spell out all of the details to you, our loyal LANners, in plenty of time to plan time off from work, babysitters/pleading with the wife, and to finish your killer case mod! This is something we have been wrestling with for quite some time, but we did not want to announce anything before its time. We owe everything we are now and will be in the future to you and we will do everything possible to make sure you have the best time possible. I truly hope you can understand our situation and have the patience to wait just a bit longer as we pull everything together.
Regards,
The FITES Staff