>Games

Are they busy playing?  One of the things that I have noticed at various parties, is that when people are busy playing games things seemed to go smoother.   Sure LAN parties are not JUST about gaming, but more times then not the parties I don't have fun at are the ones where you can't find a good game to get into.  If I want to socialize I will find time to do so, but if I can't find enough people playing games, I am going to be peeved!

> Tournaments

I will not profess to be an expert on tournaments to be sure, but I have been to enough parties to see well organized ones and ones that people get upset about.  I intend to have some guest articles written on this subject so check back for updates.

One thing seems to be easy to understand but hard to implement though, rules.  For crying out loud make sure EVERYONE understands what the rules are before the event.  Wow, talk about your bitching and whining.  lol   What patch will you be using?  What if a new patch comes out days before the event?  O man the chances for peoples boxers to get in a bunch are endless when it comes to tournaments.

Make damned sure you have a method for resolving disputes.  That could be as easy as flipping a coin or one that I like that was implemented by Stompfest at one time, was a group of "elders".  I guess you could also call them officials or whatever but the idea was that several impartial, and well respected gamers would make the final ruling.  This had a side benefit of taking the host out of the hot seat. lol

Of course one of the easiest problems to solve is, what will the tournaments be.  Voting has always worked well.  You simply pick how many you will have, and what genre, then let them vote.  Make sure that you only offer those options that you know how to run though.  As an example lets say you have a 2 day event and you want to run 3 tournaments.  You select DM, CTF/TEAM, and a RTS as the genre you will be voting on.  Then you put down in each catagory the ones they have to select from.  So for DM it might be, Q2, Q3, UT, etc... etc..   There is nothing wrong with just telling people though that this is what it is going to be though.  Hey if that is what you want and are willing to turn a few people off who don't like that game, its your party : )

> Projectors, DJs, etc..

You might ask yourself, is this something that your guests will enjoy, or just you?  Does it really matter?  lol   This question is almost always answered in your attendance or your return rate.  I was about to say it depends on the size of your party too, but really it doesn't.  If 150 gamers want to listen to a DJ  a l l  n i g h t  l o n g, while they are playing games then it must be a good idea.
^ that's for you Malison : )

You should consider though what is appropriate for displaying on a projection screen based on your audience.  I mean if this is 10 of your gaming buds, you have some more leeway then if it is 200+ paying guests.  You know that none of your 18+ scallywag group is going to care if a boob flashes on the screen, hell you probably will rewind it,  but you can bet that someone out of 200+ is going to get bent about it.

> Streaming music or video

Lanwar did this......

> Wacky and other contests

Case mods are a good way to get people involved in the whole lan party thing... once they mod there case, where else are they going to get to show it off at. lol

Chair racing *warning*  lol   Yeah we did this once!  Not sure we would do it again as the first one just about ended in disaster.  Chairs can get a head of steam going with the right pusher behind them and we damn near lost a projector out of the deal.  Thank the man above that Prophet was there to nab it right out of the air to keep us from going $2k in the hole!   Ewwwwww I still have nightmares about that one.  I suppose in hind sight, pointing the finish line of the race where the prize table and projector were at was not the best idea either.

Norwell9 of the LPC had mentioned having a PC sound off at one time.  We never followed through with that one but it seems like it could be fun.  Course it also could cause irreversible ear damage too.

At FWGG 4 we did something to bolster our Clan or group attendance.  It was really simple too.  We just said that the group with the most members that pre-register and attend would get some free stuff.  We gave them the choice of a hat, t-shirt, or mouse pad.  The winning group had something like 14 members there, and several other groups had a large number as well.