I'm a LAN veteran of the esports scene, previously worked for MLG and now currently with IPL. I have a twin brother that still works at MLG as a referee, so you've probably ran into one of us before if you've been to an event.
I managed to film some footage of the end of Temp0's set, a little of CatZ's acappela, and SeleCT killin' it singing "I believe I can fly" during the TwitchTV Afterparty.
I wish I recorded more of SeleCT's moment, he really got the crowd going with his dazzling voice. I recorded this on a Motorola Atrix and my battery was almost dead at the afterparty.
I also met someone who worked on the Jimmy Fallon show who said Jimmy was a huge fan of SC2, pretty awesome.
Some other neat things about the event:
- Screens all over the Caesar's Palace were broadcasting on all the TVs, so you could go gamble and keep up with the SC2 action all at once.
- You could watch the event from your hotel TV at Bally's or Caesar's Palace.
- We hung out with Mr. Chae from around 2 - 5am to catch the GSTL Finals using the Samsung 3D monitors than routing sound through a laptop on the party speakers in the lobby. There was about 30-40~ cheering on the event. Mr. Chae was having a blast and text'd GOMtv to give us a shout-out (which Tastosis did).
- Waxangel held up a sign during the GSTL party that said "Terran Imba". Mr. Chae loved it because he's a Zerg player.
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My personal thoughts: this was one of the most fun LAN event / tournaments I've ever attended. Throwing alcohol into the mix of things turned out to be not that big of a deal, people that like to drink are going to drink. It doesn't really change at MLGs either.
I hired to be a Main-stage PA and performed various activities all over the place. The IPL staff was all very professional and cool, I could tell they were really passionate about making this the best show possible.
It was a little disorganized from a production and operations standpoint in comparison to MLG, but granted this is their first event and MLG has been doing it for almost 10 years now, they did a magnificent job.
My only regrets were drinking late into the night on Thursday with some of the personalities and deciding to gamble. I was down $200 on Blackjack playing like a rookie with too many drinks in me. Otherwise, it was an awesome event!
View of Behind the Scenes backstage.
BoxeR walking out to greet HuK before their first match
Shoutout to: AConn, Ryan "Syckness", Alden, Frank, Afroken, Ron, Samer, Adrian, Neha, Alex, lilsusie, Smix, Rokman, Fams, Joshy, Evoli, Painuser, HD, RavenWolf, Mr. Chae, Ret, CatZ, Rinoa, Zyz, and anyone else who made this event a blast for me! Thank you