EPTOne of my biggest gripes with entities such as MLG and others is that they really don't try and give you the experience of being there. It's for this reason that I still think IEM Gamescom was the best tournament to be hosted outside Korea so far.
The biggest thing I liked about Gamescom is the crowd shots. Just seeing a massive crowd watching, cheering and shouting for the players on stage is one of the best parts of going to LAN's, but it seems like many entities try and completely block out the crowd as much as possible.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Xxio/IEM/IEM_Crowd.jpg)
Things like these get me excited for Esports
If you want to show investors, spectators and players that Esports has arrived, you need to take advantage of your audiences and get people involved in the games.
The biggest perpetrator of this so far has been MLG. Its almost as if they try and erase the crowd at some points. I remember (don't remember the exact one) that at one MLG you couldn't even see the crowd because there was literally no lighting at all. I find it hard to get excited as a spectator if I feel like I'm watching something alone. It's these reasons why they show people in giant stadiums at sporting events, to build the excitement of seeing professionals pull off some of the most amazing things you never thought were possible.
My other big gripe is that a lot of LAN's don't try and capture the audiences cheers. I remember when IEM Comic Con rolled around I was watching the stream and If I hadn't gone there myself the next day I would have thought only 5 or so people were watching.
In reality, the crowd was HUGE. There were people overflowing the IEM area and there was literally almost nowhere you could get a seat to view the games. But the problem is, they weren't making an attempt to capture the audience. I seriously don't understand why they don't put at least one mic out where they can capture the oos and aahs of the crowd.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/heyoka/iem/tlcrowd.jpg)
IEM NYC, picture by Heyoka
It really baffles me why they wouldn't want to show that there are (OMG!) actual real people showing up to their events. If, say, I had never heard of Starcraft before and stumbled upon the most recent MLG stream it wouldn't be far fetched for a person who sees this to automatically presume its just a bunch of nerds in someones basement.
But anyways, to sum it all up, LAN organizers need to take advantage of the people that show up to support their players and their games. Crowd shots such as the ones at Gamescom and actually letting us hear the audience will become essential to spread esports to wider demographics.
I love Lan!
