Melbourne PC User Group (2011 - 2014)

In late 2011, we received a phone call from Melbourne PC User Group in Moorabbin. The club was looking to attract younger members to the club and we were looking for a venue to host a large event. With the prospect of Fibre Internet, an air-conditioned office space, a dedicated server rack - the new venue felt like a very good opportunity.

In 2012 we formally created the "LAN-slide Gaming SIG (Special Internet Group)" under the club. This opened up the possibility to host game servers exclusively for members and we also arranged with the committee for the introduction of the Student B membership at a lower rate of $35 per year. All Melbourne PC User Group members received a discount to all LAN-slide events. Our debut event attracted over 70 people with League of Legends being a particularly popular attraction for the event.

Through 2013, LAN-slide gradually increased in number. Popularity had significantly diminished for some First Person Shooter franchises (including prospective participants ability to agree on the best one(s) to run tournaments for). Meanwhile a lot of MOBAs saw modest increases in popularity introducing Dota 2 and the ever growing League of Legends player base. We also saw the introduction of the famous LAN-slide charity raffle where attendees have collectively raised over $2,000 for various charities. With 2013 event feedback in, it was clear that the community really wanted to see e-Sports run well at BYOC events.

For 2014, we began to focus on how we make tournaments run better. For many events we tried new rules, schedules, analysis - you name it, we tried! What was positive is that we saw our average League of Legends tournament time-span drop from over 12 hours for 6 teams to under 8 hours for 12 teams. As a result, we were consistently getting more than 100 players to each event so much so we had to entirely gut the venue of all fixtures and networks just to squeeze the maximum number of players in. Unfortunately due to ongoing venue constraints, we simply couldn't fit any more people in the venue. Knowing as early as July 2014 that we were looking to exceed capacity by the end of the year, we began a large and exhaustive hunt for a larger venue. Our last event was held in October 2014 with approximately 130 players attending.