shoutout to drhappiness, kirsty and blackoutjon for setting this up
shoutout to all the ppl in production this year u did fantastic
shoutout to adysky for being paired up with the worst caster of LAN for his first LAN and still killed and also putting up with my rage fuelled final cast on sunday
shoutout to mr jelly for non-illicit reasons

shoutout to this mad cunt who thought he could out drink me in a jagerbomb race. maybe next time :)

shoutout to everyone i met and forgot at least 5 times this lan
shoutout to extine who sat and spoke with me until our flights in BHX
shoutout to all the people that enjoyed buckfast i promise to bring more next year x
shoutout to Thaigrr for being a good cunt
shoutout to coke dick

also shouts to geoff for being 6'5 and the nicest boy

shoutout to everyone in Gamers For The Win, #BIGBLOKELAN
shoutout to Hugo and bum for being questionable roommates
shoutout to aph for watching me "speedrun" hollow knight for 5 hours
shoutout to dead sonic

just want to thank everyone for a great time and for the compliments, they all meant a lot and i hope to see everyone again next lan :)

im tired af but thanks to everyone I met (too many to name), my team and DrHappiness for saying some of the most motivationional shit to me ive heard in a long ass time.

also ofc all the etf peeps u guys did a great job

thx gemm u made attend another lan but at what cost

it was fun to do observation at lan and I enjoyed my time working more so than I thought I would :D
I don't wanna do shoutouts cuz I'll forget ppl lol cu@ cphg20

Shoutout to all the drunk players who insisted that I was introduced to everyone they know
Shoutout to Loric for rebinding wsad to the arrow keys and then making me do a jump map
Shoutout to Loris and totallynotcupcake for being a massive help, especially when it came to error troubleshooting
Shoutout to DrHappiness, Soda, and ArchRythm for the massive amounts of work they put in during it all
Shoutout to Rahmed for always being able to lend a helping hand whenever possible
Shoutout to everyone on production tbh
Shoutout to all my teammates, current and former, that attended and said hi (QC, woah, MB, McV)
-Bonus shoutout to Whip for the McV shirt
Shoutout to Tanning for holding me hostage on Sunday
Shoutout to the gaming chairs in production for being so comfy I can't go back to my chair
Shoutout to DigyB, he knows what he did

Edit: DigyB (8:46 PM): dont tell anyone what you meant by Shoutout to DigyB, he knows what he did
if I dont know no one can know

DigyB (5:11 AM): Ok tell me what I did

Kick out whoever tried to show the OW bodypillows on camera

shoutout to my parents for booking a holiday that ran over lan

shoutout Gamers For the Win and the boys
shoutout Pitts and her team for putting up with a merc with no mic and being super chill
shoutout iron for being a sober angel
also big shoutout to ams and ma3la for being super nice guys when i introduced myself

special mention for the idiot staff who kicked out the people watching faint in our row, was a nobhead

Writing this on the train from BHI to Euston, got time to kill so time to get this done in no particular order. I met probably over one hundred people this weekend, and if I miss anyone I am incredibly sorry, there are so many people I have to give thanks for making this the best LAN of my life and a truely life-changing experience.

Shoutouts to ArchRhythm for executing a broadcast that smacked the ball out of the fucking park, and for looking out for me while help was on the way during my panic attack. Real fucking props man, excellent job.
Shoutouts to Gemm for being genuinely one of my best friends I've made at lan. Spending time hanging out with you was something else. On top of all of that you are honestly such a fantastic observer and you earned the title of lead observer this lan. I can't wait to see you again, mate

Shoutouts to eXtine for having his top 1 yao live at i65, managing to carry my high ass to the NEC mid-panic attack, and being insomnia's staple host and a killer interviewer. Overall Jeff is just such a sweet guy and you were fantastic to meet after years of working with you online.

Shoutouts to kirstysoda for being the backbone of every facet of essentialsTF this event. Organizing people, securing broadcast gear, communicating between broadcast, tourney admin, servers, and talent, and doing some magical work. Your hard work does not go unnoticed and it was a pleasure to come on and work with you.

Shoutouts to DrHappiness for being a fantastic project manager for this event and making sure everyone was in the right place at the right time. You are also an absolute chad and went above and beyond staying for 5 hours at the hospital with me. The appreciation I have for that is unconveyable by words, seriously thanks.

Shoutouts to Duffy for being an absolute lad to chill with during LAN, buying me lots of drinks as 'stretch goals' for my fundraiser, and having really good ideas for lighting, as well as taking initiative and trying to get involved with the event. Hopefully we can see your talents put to use on a big event soon :)

Shoutouts to BiG for being low-key the reason that every single person, player, and ETF staff at the event was taken care of. Running water, getting drinks, smokes, finding people, and just literally anything anyone could think to ask you made it happen. A lot of people didn't see *just* how much shit this man did this LAN for the community outside of bringing some excellent local alcohol (shoutouts to Central NY gang) to the finals aftershow. Really man, you are doing as much for the scene as anyone on the staff and I am humbled to call you a friend.

Shoutouts to everyone on Ascent.NA for being the international team I knew I could count on, you guys played a fantastic tournament and your presence , let alone your fucking amazing tourney run, is the kind of competition that keeps this game at it's top level. Every single one of you were a pleasure to get to talk to at the bar.

Shoutouts to hamaham for blessing me with EU shitposting wisdom and being fucking hilarious the whole LAN through (I'm really glad 'uh oh... stinky!' got used in the finals cast LMAO). Your very supportive style of secondary observing was really neat to see in action and helped improve the broadcast a lot.

Shoutouts to Cyanic for being the miniature hammered energy ball he was all LAN and for being a really cool frag editor :)

Shoutouts to Ma3la for being a cool guy to talk to and a fantastic guest caster/analyst. It was really fun talking about casting days gone by, and it feels good to know that such a good team has been in your hands for so long.

Shoutouts to Plunk to being the craziest man I think I've ever met and just going ham all lan. You were a blast to be around, and you brought the hype to every cast you did.

Shoutouts to Samiface for inviting me over to Wetherspoons Thursday night when I was a bit shy and didn't know many people yet, and just for being one of the most welcoming personalities in the community. Without you I wouldn't be in the position I was to come to LAN or meet dashner, thank you for all you do.

Shoutouts to Birmingham Heartlands hospital for taking a blood sample and then making me wait 4 hours before we realized we weren't going to be seeing a doctor; glad it was only a panic attack bc if it was a heart attack I wouldn't be typing this.

Shoutouts to Dempsey for being the best memer in the tftv news team, for hanging out with essentials all lan, and for being such a nice guy overall.

Shoutouts to Jayflexia and Fill for helping setting up the audio and video mixers respectively, was impressed with your efforts and you guys did an excellent job of being our eyes and ears along with Nano and Twiggy.

Shoutouts to simm for being one of the best mouse/kb freecam observers in the scene, I'm impressed you were able to get so many of the shots that I called while directing on the fly; really excellent job.

Shoutouts to uberchain for being nice to me and for supporting the LAN both as an Ascent and ETF homie.

Shoutouts to the phenomenal lineup of LAN talent we were blessed with this event; you guys really did justice to the excellent games this event.

Shoutouts to raptor for taking me in Monday after my hospital stay caused me to have to reschedule my travel a day later, very fun to just chill back with y'all in the hotel and trade stories about NA/EU lans and seasons prior.

Shoutouts to MiaKitsune & crew for inviting me over to drink and have a good time, you guys were a blast to be with.

Shoutouts to Loris for sharing a name and being such a nice guy to talk to :) appreciated getting to know you better and getting to have some really good conversations. Also your outro video had me in tears for 30 mins, thank you

Shoutouts to all of the prem/invite players I got pictures with/of (will add them when I'm back on my PC/in the pictures thread): Starkie, Raptor, Jay, yight, laz, y'all fuck at tf2 and I appreciate the pics :)

Shoutouts to all of the teams that played in the main bracket; this has been one of if not the closest iSeries to date and you all played your fucking hearts out. Casters and production and viewers would mean nothing without great teams, and from all of the games I got to watch you guys put on fantastic matches and really showed what it means to play proper TF2.

Overall shoutouts to essentialsTF for putting LAN on. The broadcast team was great to work on, the media tram put out kick-ass content, and the LAN team for making sure match schedules ran and servers (once insomnia staff let us have access to them lol) ran well. I am absolutely honored to call myself an ETF staff, and being given an opportunity to in-game direct and vision mix the event that got me into TF2 means more than you will ever know to me.

Once again thank you to anyone in the competitive TF2 community that has either been financially or otherwise supportive of me throughout the years. I was given a truely magical opportunity on the community's good will and it was a blast to in-game direct this event. I hope I was a help in making the broadcast as excellent as the rest of my fantastic peers in Essentials did, and I hope I made my NA production bois proud.

Last but certainly not least thank you to dashner. The fact that you supported me so hard this event despite hardly being in the scene anymore is part of why I love you so much, and I would not be here without you for so many reasons. Back when I first started watching iseries it was your productions that inspired me to become a producer, and getting to even just be associated by name with this event, let alone have an impact, makes me realize why you wanted me to experience this. Thank you, Alex.

This has been one of the best experiences of my life and I'm so grateful and happy for it. Love you all to bits, godspeed on your journeys home.

Shout out to Lena, Tanning Bed and Phong for being a very cool airbnb crew for the second LAN in a row, watching cool stuff with me while I lay on the floor and listen to me rant about British food.
Double shout out to phong and Tanning for being one of the most hilarious drunk duo I've seen so far.
Shout out to dempsey for shit talking teams in the open preview group article that we both wrote but only I signed, leading to at least 4 different players coming up to me and asking why I was such an ass. Also for the flamboyant outbursts when drunk and the online harrassement of bleghfarec.
Shout out to Subway Overload for letting me call in this slightly chaotic team ("we'll distract them by feeding our demo this mid"), getting 2 points !!! and being great blokes.
Shout out to Nevo, amarok, mulaa, dwo and Smirre for giving long, in-depth answers to questions such as "why did you lose lel" "how did you get into prem I don't know you" and "What is confidence ?".
Double shout out to all the prem frenchies for all agreeing that Reckoner was a lit map, and to amarok and mulaa in particular for saying that my mousepadless, arrowkeys-using setup didn't matter as long as it worked for me. It took me 3 LANS for that to happen.
Shout out to Ironhawk for giving me her disease and the creepiest snap I've ever seen, and to the rest of PoundLAN black for putting up with Dempsey
Angry shout out to Heny for mocking my setup multiple times, and to DigyB for dodging the MGE game we planned.
Shout out to domiq, ondkaja and Mike Rotch for being really nice and chill gamers, Mike Rotch also lent me his PC to play Apex, and bought a can of beans to eat cold. Not a shout out but I needed to get that out of my system.
Shout out to uberchain for being the coolest boss (fuck u blegh), and helping me retell the Starkie furry porn story to Se7en players.
Shout to the OG Porg eSports players Cosmo, Dowel and Eve for coming back this year, Dowel even came back twice because I was lost in Coventry the first time.
Shout out to the one dude who said I had nice pants.
Shout out to Rahmed for bossing it at his first ever LAN, kid will go far.
Shout out to everyone else I've spoken to : Storm, Pitts, gilga, dBubble, tiia, LoveTF, Prawn, nicco, Mia, hobnobs, Haunter, Lukas, Amik, Dying Tom, Nhaaj who helped me buy shit, Whip who looks like Captain Crunch, Ascend, Fenrir, Acecle, Munky, Frysk, CeeJaey, Cloudy, Dying Tom, Demos, twiikuu, jun0, Thaigrr, Deox, Aidelos, Yohn, HOI, Austin, Aoshi, Thomson (or Thompson am still unsure) and everyone else that I forgot.

thanks for everyone I saw for making my first LAN really fun and enjoyable (even if I am now bedridden with LAN flu), especially KAOi, Grenja, Pandahhh, Koston, Callum, Rennui, Kronis, Hysteria, DigitalTomato, GrimsbyDan, Lux, Squirrel, Kermit and Dying Tom! And then all the people I briefly met like ever_x, counou, ceejaey, mop, yeehaw, marten, eepily, samiface and more (my memory is terrible). Sorry for not coming to say hi to more people I was just feeling a bit shy lol but love you all, shout outs to all the casters and production staff too !

Shoutout to the guy that bumped my phone at the airport on thursday
Shoutout to the monster energy drink that burst in my bag and ruined my keyboard and mouse on saturday
Shoutout to qjacker for giving me food poisoning on sunday morning (I just wanted a burger man)
Shoutout to Cryo and Grumpy for getting me a keyboard and mouse (even though I barely played with them, it was a nice gesture)
Shoutout to Sivik, Louis and Plunk for getting the plane down with me and the 9am spoons conversations on thursday and another big shoutout to Sivik for letting me use his phone to call my dad and asking people for spare peripherals.
Shoutout to Plunk in general for the level of sesh he achieved all LAN
Shoutout to the rest of my team and zombocom for making the games and outside of games awesome despite my poor luck & shoutout to lucky for the team t-shirts they're so cool
Big Shoutout to DrHappiness and the rest of production and admin crew, you guys did a fantastic job and don't get enough credit for how good it was.
Shoutout to the Geezers & Mak's people they were super chill to talk to at the bar
Shoutout to Seeds & Toemas, I owe you a smoke and a beer
Shoutout to Aga for telling me on the first day "This is the year I beat Maxi in the Arm Wrestling" then breaking his arm doing it
Shoutout to Poly, I also owe you a few beers :D
Shoutout to Ascent.NA, atleast 1 NA teams has the balls to take on europe, all of you guys were so chill when I spoke to you
Shoutout to Ma3laa (Wyatt? :D) and Uberchain you guys do a wonderful job running Ascent (next time make the hoodies white so I can get it signed :p)
Lastly shoutout to Ascent.EU, you guys were so awesome to watch and to let me coach this season was a blast, I learned so much and when I met you guys in person you were all so welcoming, even outside of watching the games every interaction with you guys was great, It made the LAN so much more awesome.

Despite LAN being pretty cursed for me, The people around me made it awesome, thanks to all the people I met, maybe we'll meet again soon. :)

Shoutout to Heny for for being an amazing tournament admin. Its a real pleasure to work together with you.
Shoutout to everybody from production for making it an amazing event.
Shoutout to everybody that came up to me to introduce themselves.
Shoutout to Maurice Moris for eating a lime and dying.
Shoutout to everybody that put up with drunken me.
Shoutout to Ashaneru for spending countless hours working on the LAN servers even with the unfortunate events.
Shoutout to proky for drunken admin talks.
Shoutout to my bank just dying during the LAN.

Hope everybody had a great time, see you next LAN!

I'm gonna post this from the train before I convince myself not to so sorry for broad strokes and any missing people.

First off thank you once again to the TF2 community both at LAN and at home. It's a joy and an honour, albeit an occasionally stressful one, to make things for you.
Ascent + Ma3la + Uberchain thanks for having me at the bootcamp and being super lovely at all times. Amazing to meet you, NA boyes.
Congrats to se7en you're all great
Essentials Production thanks for having me. There were brilliant, confident, and skillful displays every day. You should be proud (you're also all ace)
Essentials Talent thanks for destroying your voices and taxing your brains for our enjoyment. There were some great games this year and I believe it's just the beginning of where you guys are taking TF2 (you're also all ace)
Teams cheers for putting up with my camera in your face and for putting out some sweet interview c o n t e n t.
Thanks to the many people who asked if I was eepily and I now demand a twitter follow from all of you in penance (lor_is)
I'm going to stop shy of listing everybody but thanks for hanging out with me.

Special mentions

doggo need I say more holy shit I love my team so dog damn much every damn one of you (and all of the eepily.cool mumble crew if you havent been on doggo YET)
Amy and zen for the sandwich and the dopest finger rock at LAN
gemm ily + thanks to Robbie for caring so damn much
Drhappiness + Kirsty gj gg wp make sure you take some rest time
Large mention to sirduck for being an editing machine and Mr jelly for being the best photographer in tf2
Sami, tom, eepily, lux, squirrel, cg, and Sami's parents for an awesome cool off last night and maybe a couple too many drinks. Definitely didn't have a little cry on the train.
(also squirrel sorry for blowing up your hard drive and emptying your bank account brother)

Final giga shout-out to cuppers for being my partner in crime all LAN and always pushing me to be more bold. I'm so proud of what we created.

shoutout to my team: not dead doggo! Had definitely the most fun games ive ever played with you guys
shoutout to the old doggos and extended doggos
shoutout to squirrel and eepily who let me stay with them before lan
shoutout to domiq
shoutout to the frenchies for breaking my heart into a million tiny pieces
shoutout to everyone at the bar
shoutout to 009EFF for carrying me during lan
shoutout to planck for making my keyboard fly every time he died
shoutout to jlebs for being a SHAGGER
shoutout to kaptain, aubriac, marten, dr phil and silves for keeping me company at the airport. I hope kaptain will get home sometime this week
shoutout to grumpykoi for being nothing less than a delight
shoutout to ties for being an absolute disaster in the airplane
shoutout to all the people ive forgot but nonetheless made this lan one of the best ever.

Lan was genuinely one of the best experiences I've ever had, thank you all for an amazing time and everyone being so friendly. In no particular order my shoutouts are as follows,
Catherine for being my best friend and just amazing all round.
Gilgasesh for being the biggest lad ever and rolling me so many joints I lost track. Although he nicked my lighter and alot of booze from other tables.
Troy for being great banter and giving me money to survive.
Credu for hooking me up and being such a nice guy over all.
Dempsey for supplying me with booze, sorry you're broke.
HOI, Kireek and vclox for letting me shittalk them to the face and still being best pals after.
Proky and Swanny for the laugh on Gilgas phone.
My team, Scar, Godmode, Lucky, Pitts and Gilga for letting me play and not being mad I missed an entire day due to flight cancellations.
Godmode for letting me steal his beanie.
Scar for having the most beautiful hair and being so nice.
Lucky being good on his word when it came to giving tobacco back.
Pitts especially for making sure I had enough money and lovingly calling me a little shit.
Lauren, Stim, Grizz and Fezhoof for all the great fun.
Redd for taking care of me and letting me use his PC despite the fact he's quite possibly the strangest man I've ever met.
Crayon for being too tall.
Bumfreeze for losing to me at Minecraft top trumps.
Mak for meeting me on accident and feeling like it was destiny all along.

Love all of you and I hope all of you go next year. Would like to meet more people as I didn't have a good chance. Stay top cunts until then. Sorry I was toxic boys, I only mean well. I hope you had a good experience with me and will continue to do so. Was a true pleasure being there. Sorry if I forgot anyone.

Shoutout to everyone I spoke to.
Shoutout to everyone I didn't speak to (next time).

Shoutout to the production boys for working with me and letting me do stuff. It was nutty busy but I feel like it was well worth the effort. I've given you guys my thoughts already, so I wont repeat myself too much here.
Much love for my desk buddies for constantly finding new stuff to talk about, making solid predictions and generating the storylines for lan. Watched most of the games with you guys and it was sick.
My doggo/eepily.cool/extended mumble brothers and sisters were also great fun, even though I barely got to spend any time with you.
My Dota boys for the TI talk and our tiny crew constantly switching between the TF2 and TI Finals was sick. I'll have to catch up on the rest of those games over the next couple days.
Sami folks for giving me a breather day post-lan too, even though the chance they read tftv is like 1%. You guys are still the chillest anyway.

All the teams did awesome and particular love to the Faint, 7, Ascent EU and NAscent for the closest lan games we've had in ages. The competition was stacked and it was great to get an opportunity to see everyone playing so well. Of course an additional shoutout goes to NAscent, uberchain and Ma3la for putting in so much effort to come to the UK to compete. It means a lot to the Lan that we got an NA representative and I know how difficult it was for you guys to put all this together.

I spent a lot of time talking to both old and new friends at Lan and as people have said before, naming names will result in me missing a lot so it feels kinda rude to do that. As a general rule though, if I talked to you at Lan I consider you a cool person and if you fancy chatting again at any time in the future, please add me on steam/twitter since I'm TERRIBLE at making sure I do that.
This was definitely the Lan where the most people came up to me to actively ask what I thought of the event, make predictions, celebrate wins and mourn loses, and that's something I really love that I can have happen to me.

CU@ next lan boys, the future is bright and I'm looking to be a part of it.

Thanks for the amazing lan, was great as always and loved meeting both old and new friends. Until next time <3

Shout out to doggo boys and girls, always good to hang out and had fun with lan team.
Thanks to production for the great show, loved the outro as super adorable (love the kaido wink)
Shout out to all my drinking buddies, had a great laugh and good company from Thurs to Sunday :D
Sorry to people I missed this year, suspect I was sat opposite end of BYOC but i o u all the hugs.
Cheers to sami and family for the post lan hangout, was super chill despite the extra night of drinks ;)

Was so hyped to watch final thanks Ascent NA for travelling all this way and showing a great performance and congrats to Se7en for the win! Looking forward to next year and hopefully another North America versus Europe final, can never match the hype of a lan final and loved the energy of the crowd!

p.s. if anyone would like to play league or TFT or league with a bad player hit me up I need more league friends :p

shoutout to soda, doc and arch for being absolute champs this weekend
shoutout to everyone else i worked with on staff
special shoutouts to uberchain, i don't think you understand how much i relied on you, so thank you
shoutout to everyone on ascent (.gg) you are such a wonderful group of people, thanks for the drinks and laughs
shoutout to my fat fucks
shoutout to twiikuu, i can't imagine going to lan without you
shoutout to ombrack
shoutout to all the teams
shoutout to everyone else my fever wrecked brain forgot rn, love yall

wish i had time to talk to everyone more, but there's always next time
cu@ whatever is next

edit: sorry for lan death, i'm pretty sure i was patient zero and i'm paying for it now

my names kirsty or soda, ive stayed behind the scenes on most events ive been to in the past couple years, so for those of you who dont know who i am, hi o/
I was one of the project leads for i65, and its still a super emotional thought for me that I was trusted with organizing such an amazing event, that means so much to so many people. because of this, my biggest thanks have to go to everyone on the essentials i65 crew, who payed money to get here, just to work unpaid for a week straight on something they love

drhappiness thanks for keeping me sane and working on this event with me, its been an epic experience and you were always there to take over again when i needed to sit down and die for half an hour

archrhythm we've been working with each other on the majority of tf2 events thats happened in the last 3 years, thanks for always being there for me, and the countless 4am calls we had writing up run of shows for the production.

eXtine thank you put putting so much effort and personality into tf2, for this event and the endless list of others that are so lucky to have you be a part of them. I dont think people realise just how much you care about tf2, and every single one of its community members, please know that it doesnt go unnoticed.

eepily thank you for being willing to do whatever we needed to put on the best show possible, you're considered one of the best casters tf2 has to offer for good reason, but you were willing to sit and talk to me in depth on multiple occasions about your opinions. even when i disagreed and made mistakes, you consistantly stuck by me and the rest of the team, I have so much love and respect for this doggo

grumpykoi you've been a friend for just about as long as ive played tf2, thank you for being there with me for another event, youve constantly been willing to dedicate time and effort into projects, i dont get to say it enough, but you being there is appreciated SO much

adysky, surny, bum, alba I didnt get enough time to talk to you guys anywhere near as much as id have liked to, youve all done an amazing job this lan, and you can only get better from here. its been all of your first times on production, so thank you so much for taking part, i hope youve enjoyed it, its been a pleasure having you on, and i really hope you guys can work on more stuff with essentials in the future.

turbotabs, kermit, plunk, dummtm thank you guys for turning up and putting so much work in to yet another event, you guys are always here for the community, and you're always down to do stuff for essentials when were trying to put on a show, you guys make our events, and you're always willing to work through our slightly janky comms on the first day, our constantly evolving production setups, and our ever changing staff roster

BlackOutJon thanks for updating our overlay and site with so little notice, working with me on designs, and being on discord all day on your phone at work waiting to pay invoices and hand out passwords.

hamaham thank you for being a part of our production, really hope you enjoyed it, you were epic to work with, and you blew all of our expectations out the water with your observing, please give your blanket a wash, its been slept under by like everyone on production at least once, uh oh.. stinky...

gemm thank you for being here for another event, its a pleasure having you every time, and we honestly couldnt do it without you. youre one of the coolest and nicest people to hang out with at lan

fill_30, sim, jayflexia, console, nano, twiggy thank you guys for working with us to make this one of our best productions yet, there were technical issues, and mistakes made, but we're all learning, and it could never have gone as well as it did without all of your guys help.

sannyside and rahmed thank you guys for being there for all the rest of our production staff, you guys did a great job at basically keeping everyone alive, and willing to give anyone a hand wherever its needed, im super glad you guys got involved, fingers crossed we'll see you again at another event soon.

uberchain, pie4life, sirduck, mrjelly thanks to our content and social media teams at the event, these guys really pulled it out the bag, and i was super happy with the end result of both our social media coverage, and the content we pushed out

loris and cupcake thank you guys for creating litterally the best VT content ive seen on a lan so far, last year at i63, this was my job, and my replacements have been 10x better than i could have asked for. I know some of the stuff we had you doing wasnt the most fun to work on, but im super grateful to you both for it, and i hope you had a good time at the event, despite being stuck editing for so long

ashaneru, aoshi, heny thanks to the belong admin team (aoshi and heny), as well as our own server tech, ash. these guys did a great job, and had an infinate amount of issues to tackle over the event. all of these guys did as much as they could to make your tournament and viewing experience as good as it could be.

BiG thank you for like, litterally everything you did for the entire event, you were constantly helping people out and running around for people, youre such a nice and genuine guy. if anyone sees robbie at an event, buy him a drink, he honestly deserves it more than you can imagine.

Ma3laa / ascent Thank you for coming over, especially the ascent NA guys, it was great seeing you here, and having some NA representation was amazing. you were constantly up for coming over and jumping on the desk, and working with essentials to find players for content before and during the event. I really hope you and the teams had a great time at insomnia, and will do again some day.

Lucky thanks for coming on stream so much, was great seeing you back on talent for tf2 even if it was only for a minute. also a big thanks to lucky for running his discord, and keeping mixes up all the time for people, you have no idea how much things like that help the community out. also sorry for calling you the wrong name (i was drunk)

Thanks to everyone who i spoke to / hung out with on the sunday night, and sorry to anyone (everyone) that i cried on,
Pitts, Cryo, Thompson (lukas) and Thomson (lloyd), Niro, Blob, Sivik, and everyone from the old Troublemakers gang (lets get the band back together?

Jon Kelly Is our main contact with belong / player one, and is the reason tf2 happens at insomnia. he's been great to work with, and hes gone above and beyond his job description to help organize our production and tournament. I dont think its understood in the community just how much some people working for insomnia care about tf2, jon is one of those people. he was also slightly drunk sunday night and told me he's banned from etf2l?? are we allowed to unban for helping to keep tf2 alive?

Insomnia Stage Crew these guys are really helpfull with every year, but this year especially i feel that they were really willing to work with us, they could have gone home and called it a night, but they were still there this evening before the finals, sitting down with me taking notes, on how we wanted the stage lighting to work, our run of shows, and when to send teams on, theyre always great to work with, and far beyond what theyre required to do.

if we've spoken and i cried on you, or on the off chance i didnt, thank you for chatting, its always the best part of lan for me personally, and its been crazy again realizing just how many people at lan i now know.

if we spoke and didnt swap deets, or if we didnt speak and you want to, dms on twitter and discord are always open @sodaboop and soda#1071 thanks everyone <3

I never post here but:

Shoutout to my team (Gilga, Scar, Godmode, Lucky-sun, Nurwhal) for picking me up to play @LAN and not raging at my excessive feeding.
Shoutout to Prawn for mercing for us during the first day and hanging out for smoke breaks.
Shoutout to Lucky, Thompson and Thomson, Cryo, Sivik, Krokit, Niro, Blobchap, Jack Walms, Enzo,Love, GrumpyKoi etc for the amazing company and hugs.
Shoutout to Mirra and Seeds for the floor talk session (thanks for the tummy pillow, Mirra).
Shoutout to Vclox for not letting me starve.
Shoutout to Plunk for letting me wear his watermelon shirt.
Shoutout to the whole production crew, you were fucking amazing this year (Soda, hamaham, plunk, koi <3 )
Shoutout to Louis and AWJ for the free booze.

Honestly y'all are amazing. Thank you for the good times <3

Shoutouts to all the doggos, you all played amazingly and did the brand proud.
Shoutouts to all the teams we played and everyone that played in the tournament.
Shoutouts to heny for having the best sigh in esports.
Shoutouts to Loris and cuppers, madlads
Massive props to all the seven boys, amazing Lan
Ascent.NA you guys were unbelievable, can't wait to see what you do if you come next year!
Shoutout to marten for crushing my dreams
Shoutout to ceeg for being a living legend
Sami and samis folks thanks so much for letting me hang on Monday, it felt good to set the world to rights and talk Blakes 7 till the early hours
Shoutouts to all the Lan hugs, TF2 community you are the greatest, I'm sure I've forgotten loads of people but I love you all

Finally shoutouts to eepily for being the best goblin in esports and putting up with living with me for the last year.

Shoutouts to my teammates - Prograde, SolarLight, Storm, Scyper, Hugo - you all performed really well and I was happy to play with y'all
Shoutouts to an_artichoke for being a good drinking buddy
Shoutout to plunk for introducing me to jagerbombs
Shoutouts to eXtine for keeping me company on the bus to Birmingham
Shoutouts to ma3la, kaidus, starkie, kaptain, bear for signing my stupid-ass b4nny shirt
Shoutouts to the production crew for a really great stream - production quality looked like it was pretty great, and the casting and observing were good as well

This LAN was really fun to be at and it was fun meeting everyone that I did!

shout out to coyo ties ascend mould sprite for being the main boys
not shout out to kodeeey for not going :(
shout out to macamoose for being sound and telling me about how i caused relationship problems with him and his gf and calling rntenant a nonce
shout out to digy and frysk for being sound and getting me alcohol when i asked
fuck you digy for getting me budweiser when i asked for vodka
shout out to fenrir and acecle for not going mad at me for distracting coyo and mould while gaming and being annoying
shout out to digy frysk nurhwal crayon cryo dempz silves for being irish
shout out to dempz for getting the same flight at 6am and bullying ascend with me
shout out to aph and mak for sharing a room with me and allowing me to come home at 6am every day
shout out to gilga for giving me lots of alcohol
shout out to maxi and haunter for offering to cut cyanic to play with me despite not knowing who i am
shout out to cyanic for screaming every time anyone was in view
shout out to hobnobs for the jagerbombs and for getting mould to another fucking planet
shout out to chez for giving me jin
shout out to row for shagging my ma
shout out to mia for thinking i was row and almost hitting mould with a left right goodnight mid official
thank you everyone i spoke to hope my accent was funny and i wasnt annoying

*attempting to do it

shout out to my team Haunter, Cyanic, Maxi, Hobnobs (Maurice Morris), Mia.
shout out to Aga for being my travel buddy and drinking buddy with my team.
shout out to everyone one I met or talked to there is too many of you and I can't list every single name!!!!

cu@ next lan :)

Shout out to Zim for his business casual attire and spewing all down it in our taxi (and all over our Lan house).
Shout out to production and the teams.
Shout out to the random Insomnia discord gamer who gave me a lift down.
Shout out to the guy who suggested I check the Insomnia discord to get a lift down. I owe you a pint at the next Lan for sure.
Shout out to Oaken and Peckle's team for beating Dempsey.
Shout out to Jimb0t for getting me and a few others on our old fresh meat team into comp and then lans.
Shout out to everyone I didn't speak to. Next time.
Otherwise, shout out to everyone I spoke to beyond just introductions. It was interesting and a laugh in equal measure.