lots of photos from hugs.tf 2023, some behind the scenes things

thanks to all that came and watched and donated :)

https://www.teamfortress.tv/gallery/26/hugs-tf-2023

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<3

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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

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?

pickaxe

trello uwu

currently not something we've got plans for c; but if theres any more marketplace items anyone would like to see, feel free to suggest!

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https://i.redd.it/320r1lpc2vt21.png

sorry its scuffed / if you missed it, standing on chairs infront of the entire tf2 community is not my thing.. c: