shoutout to my whole EssentialsTF crew for i71 - great show all around, everyone was exemplary.
special shoutout to Samus as the rookie LAN observer, fantastic work! 100% better than JMax! (ily really jmax ;) ) (and congrats to you and TurboTabs once again, i'll await my invite!)
shoutout to all the players who did make it to lan, without you there is no tf2 lan.
shoutout to kharne and deanish and proto for being awesome people to work with at Player1Events and always looking to do the best they can for TF2.

My few photos including some production BTS: https://imgur.com/a/I7dKnC8

i71 LAN signups now open: https://www.challengermode.com/s/InsomniaEsports/tournaments/6330b8f4-dff8-4650-2e93-08db926e7a03

All teams attending including those playing in the TF2 Zone must sign up.

If you wish to play in the TF2 Zone, make sure to sign up as soon as possible as only 16 places are available!

Tournament schedule will be released shortly.

i71 LAN signups now open: https://www.challengermode.com/s/InsomniaEsports/tournaments/6330b8f4-dff8-4650-2e93-08db926e7a03

All teams attending including those playing in the TF2 Zone must sign up.

If you wish to play in the TF2 Zone, make sure to sign up as soon as possible as only 16 places are available!

Tournament schedule will be released shortly.

There is a small risk, but as far as we know at this moment the layout will mean that any speakers are positioned offset from players so we aim for this to not be as big of a problem as say on the Esports Stage. We also don't tend to be nearly as loud as the stage can be.

With good schedule planning! We'll be implementing a rotation system like we did with DreamHack Atlanta. Schedule will be released at a later date.

cu@

We're currently finalising some details with Insomnia that we hope will give players a great discount on attending i71.

Stay tuned for a new thread very soon.

https://twitter.com/TF2Essentials/status/1624415766408732672

I'll see where the rest got put!

im sure a couple people owe me drinks from many years ago at this point

Blocking new medals being added to the game

How's your streaming career Rahmed?

At this time we are looking into what changes we can bring with i71 when we meet with Player1 Events soon. We believe that TF2 will still have a significant presence at i71 regardless and we plan on making an event happen there even if the scale or format changes. It's completely normal for nothing to be confirmed at this time as the Easter event has only just finished yesterday.

For the community and based on feedback that has been raised recently, we would like to obtain some changes that improve the affordability for players and we will pursue those.

Despite a lack of alternative options to Insomnia being readily available to the community, we know that without any changes to Insomnia's cost basis for players that it will severely affect attendance.

If any players, especially top-level players, want to relay any feedback you have, absolutely feel free to get in touch with us on Discord.

EPIC.LAN is a potential and are somewhat cheaper vs. Insomnia, especially when factoring in a PC rental. This is something we might explore for 2024.

As for other LAN centres, the only options in the UK are Belong arenas but these are a) quite small in terms of physical space and available PCs, and b) not cheap to hire out for a weekend.
We have ongoing contact with Belong already from last year to understand the finances and logistics involved. Anything done at these centres would be very much a tournament-focused event with an invite-only/online qualifier process to participate and likely a higher-than-expected ticket cost for those participating teams. This is still something we are exploring.

EDIT: SideQuest is also a thing, but the opening times on the locations are quite restrictive and almost certainly would not work out any cheaper than Belong I suspect.

The 'why' is due to another show (a car event!) at the NEC that must have beat Player1 Events in booking the August bank holiday weekend.

https://thenec.co.uk/whats-on/gravity-show/

everyone say hi, but no-one says how are you....

Just to say that we may be back with a TF2 LAN event at DreamHack Dallas in June 2023. Stay tuned!