Sorry for the long post. Please read it.

I think that the event can be the same LAN party next year, and many years after, and it wouldn't be too difficult to get it to work. I had a great time with my board games, and with hanging out with folks. The event that I helped organize went off well. Here are the three simple things that I think will make this work for gaming and socializing both, in the future:

1. A wake-up call. It could ba an air-horn, a stereo or an oozinator, but there should be something that gets everyone up at 9am, so that the days events can begin. With this many people, nothing will ever get done (except drinking, eating, and socializing) if they are not all on the same sleep schedule.

2. Restriction on 'beers'. I know people like to drink , but IMO this didn't need to turn into a 'drinking party'. I don't drink much, so I felt a little left out after 10pm (however, that's my problem, and I'm used to it, trust me), so I wouldn't mind a whit if there was no beers at all. However, it may be more realistic to limit the beers to a certsain amount, or to after a certain time of night. 'People drinking beers' was the number one reason that nothing could be organized after night-fall. If you have a bunch of people together for any reason, and you don't put some kind of restriction on the beers intake, drinking will stop all events except for flirting, talking, and more beers drinking.

3. Each event should have a designated MC. Brian can't run every event. He's the host, but he's made it clear that the events are up to the guests. The reason that the Engineering challenge went off well, is because I went around for half-an-hour telling people 'If you want to join the event, get to the front porch, right now'... I had to tell most people three or four times, and I'm sure they were annoyed , but that's the only way that the event happened at all. If each event had a designated person whose job it was to bug people, wake people up, tell them 'no, you can't go to lunch right now', pick them up, and put them in their disignated place , whatever it takes to get the event going.

With this many people at a single event it's tough to get people where they are supposed to be.

Here's what happens:
Someone desides to hold an event, and they try to get everyone together, when no one starts to move right away, the organizer gives up, not wanting to force people to attend the event. What the person doesn't realize is that this is the only way to get anything done. a group that size will do nothing without leadership. That event organizer just needs to remember that if the group is not pushed into doing what was planned then they may be disappoinrted later when they realize that they didn't actually get to do the stuff that they had planned on and signed up for . That person needs to be a bit of a jerk, a little badgering to get the event going, but in the end, everyone will have fun (again, like the engineering challenge).

I think that these three simple ideas will get the ball rolling next time, and none of them require Brian to do any extra work (unless he considers getting up at nine to be extra work)



Again: I had a blast. I got to hang out with my friends, play some board-games. We even got to play DS with four players for the first time because Alex showed up with a DS (a very good sport, by the way, consitering that he was still excited to be playing after loosing many games).

These three suggestions are just my ideas, from observation, and experience hosting and attending other events. No matter what kind-of party you want to have next year, I'll be there with my laptop, my DS, and my boardgames

I just know that if you guys want to have a succesful LAN party next year, it wont really take too much change.