Quakecon

Quakecon is a bring-your-own-computer computer gaming event held every year in Dallas, Texas, USA. The event, which is named after id Software's game Quake sees thousands of gamers from all over the world attend every year to celebrate the company's gaming dynasty. It is North America's largest Lan Party and is held over a period of four days.

Past Events

Quakecon originally grew out of a group of friends on EFnet (an IRC network) with the desire to get together and meet in real life. Jim "H2H" Elson, a Dallas area gamer, organized the bulk of the event for the first few years. The first event, in August 1996, was held at the Best Western in Garland, Texas. It had around 40-60 attendees who brought their computers to play Quake I and Doom, mostly. A small tournament was held, with winners taking home T-Shirts as prizes. id Software staffers were on-site as well, and stopped by to chat with the participants. John Carmack, lead programmer for Doom/Quake, even participated in a 30-45 minute chat with attendees on the porch of the hotel. Quakecon 1997 brought an estimated 650 attendees to the Holiday Inn in Plano, Texas. It was covered by numerous Internet and broadcast media outlets, and was aided by id Software and Activision. QuakeCon 1998 was held in conjunction with the Cyberathlete Professional League and is regarded by many as not a QuakeCon event. Quakecon 1999
  • Total Attendance: 1,100
  • BYOC Size: 500
  • Highlights: A change of venue allowed the convention to grow larger than it had ever been before, and, this time, just down the street from id Software headquarters in Mesquite. id Software employees, including John Carmack, participated in various tournaments with attendees on-site as well. A large number of companies sponsored the event for the first time, including Activision, AMD, Apple Computer, ATI Technologies, Logitech, Linksys, and Lucent Technologies.
Quakecon 2000
  • Total Attendance: 3000
  • BYOC Size: 1300
  • Location: Mesquite Convention Center
  • Highlights: 2000 saw a greatly expanded convention space, allowing for vendors to bring E-quality displays to the convention. Conferences and seminars were also added, creating places for gamers and developers to trade notes and discuss the industry and community in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.
Quakecon 2004
  • Total Attendance: 5000+
  • BYOC Size: 3000
  • Highlights: Yet another change of venue brought Quakecon into the record books as the largest LAN party in North America, with over 3000 BYOC attendees. Tournaments prizes totaled over $150,000 and saw the world's first DOOM3 Tournament, won by Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel. The event also had a live performances by The Sinus Show, an Austin, Texas-based MST3K troupe, and Tweaker, featuring Chris_Vrenna, former Nine Inch Nails drummer.

Statistics

For Quakecon 2004, the following was current:
  • Over 200,000 ft² (19,000 m²) of BYOC, vendor, and convention floor space
  • BYOC utilized over 1,200 power strips
  • Network composed of over 80,000 feet (24 km) of Cat5/Cat5e cable
  • Table switching infrastructure: 144 Linksys managed switches
  • Core switching infrastructure: Cisco Systems 6509 switch with 7 48 port Gigabit ethernet blades, dual Supervisor 720 modules and dual 400Watt power supplies
  • Setup of all components of the event (power, network, tourney, etc) was completed with a staff of over 500 unpaid volunteers over a 2-day period.

Popular games

Community

The Quakecon community primarily organizes itself online, through IRC. The main channel for everything related to the event is #quakecon on EnterTheGame. Here you can find people discussing not only the event but also chatting almost every hour of every day with their friends. The Quakecon website also hosts the Quakecon Forums, a common place for new members to introduce themselves to the community, ask questions about the event, organize for rides to the convention, and discuss event developments. Membership on the forums is open to all and is a requirement of registration for the event.

External links

 

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