A history of epic.LAN events and what’s next

Playing games online, against others, has become increasingly easier across the globe each year. It's great that you can just play without the need to carry your gaming devices around from the comfort of your home.  

However, nothing really beats a good BYOC LAN event. For those in the UK, that's where epic.LAN comes in. Today, we take a look at a brief history of epic.LAN events, how far the organization has come, and what's next. 

A brief history of epic.LAN events 

The goal of epic.LAN is to "bring back the fun to LAN gaming", with a mixture of casual gaming and esports tournaments. The British organization and tournament organizer is all about community and those awesome BYOC LAN events that bring gamers together. The team is filled with volunteers that have a passion for gaming. 

epic.LAN focuses on LAN parties and esports events, with three main events taking place annually, while there are several smaller events as well.  

Not only does the epic.LAN team provide UK gamers with some fantastic LAN parties, but they also work behind the scenes at UK's biggest gaming events, where they provide services, from admin teams to networking, software and more. The team also works closely with gaming industry organizations such as EGX and ESL UK. 

epic.LAN events have been around for a very long time. In fact, the team has over 17 years of experience in the industry.  

The team is filled with avid gamers, who've been running their own community gaming and esports events since 2003. The first big BYOC epic.LAN event under the name epic.ONE took place back in March 2009, and even back then, it was an awesome experience for gamers to enjoy. 

While there has been a tonne of smaller events created and organized by the team, there have been 28 main epic.LAN events over the past decade. Since February 2013 (epic.TEN), the main epic.LAN events have taken place at the Kettering Conference Centre in Northamptonshire.  

These events focus not only on several esports titles and tournaments with some great prizes, but also on the casual gamer, providing attendees with an authentic LAN experience. Then, there have also been various activities to take part in for attendees, from quizzes to fun tournaments and more. 

The epic.ONE event had only 69 people register but attendance has grown quite a bit. In October 2019 with the most recent main event, the epic.28, 661 people registered.  

These events have improved in every aspect over the years, and in 2020, there's even more for UK gamers to look forward to. 

Upcoming epic.LAN events 

This year is looking very promising for epic.LAN, with three main LAN events already planned. 

 The next one is epic.29, which takes place 20 to 23 February 2020. From 2 to 5 July, epic.30 will take place and from 8 to 11 October, epic.31 will take place. These three main events will all happen at the Kettering Conference Centre. 

You can check out a full list of future as well as past events on the epic.LAN website. 

If you live in the UK or happen to be visiting, keep epic.LAN in mind because nothing beats a good old LAN event.