Multiplay have today announced that they have been forced to drop plans for their usual third LAN of the year and cancel insomnia62 for this year. In a big move, they have cited that costs at the National Exhibition Centre had become an issue for their smallest LAN of the year.
Winter insomnia LAN has always been a bit of a community favourite, from lit up Christmas trees down the rows of computers, to tournament surprises, the final iSeries event of a year, always seems to be a lovely way to round a year up and give the Counter-Strike scene a way of figuring out who is the best team at the end of the year. Who could forget insomnia56 where several European teams had been knocked out early and Team CeX caused the biggest upset to date, by winning the entire event? What about further back at insomnia47, where Counter-Strike: Global Offensive had it’s first UK LAN outing and there was lots of people at the event wondering whether the new title could succeed?
Safe to say, after many years, it seems that the move to the NEC has come at a high price, as costs have been driven up and attendances of Winter LANs (coupled with most likely unavailable dates) have forced Multiplay to wave goodbye to the Winter LAN event. It should be noted that in their forum post, they did state that it was based on customer feedback that Winter LANs being so close to Christmas had meant that prices for people meant it was simply unaffordable to head to Birmingham. Multiplay also stated that they had been looking for a suitable venue but had ultimately come up short.
There had been rumours all year that Multiplay were looking at dropping the Winter LAN from their schedule due to the fact that the Season Pass for this year’s iSeries events only stated insomnia60 & insomnia61. There had also been a forum post asking about the insomnia62 dates to be confirmed but went on for weeks before finally today the news had broken.
Christmas Trees at LAN won’t be appearing this year. (Credit: Multiplay Flickr)
On a statement on the Multiplay Forums, Michael “GeoSnipe” Lambert had this to say;
We are only 3 weeks from Insomnia61, our biggest Insomnia to date! With that in mind we want to take some time to look forward and let you know our plans for Insomnia62.
We worked incredibly hard to find an alternative venue to make a winter show more affordable during the Christmas season, as this was the feedback from many of you last year. However we were unable to source a location that would have provided a cheaper price point for our customers. So we are going to focus on ensuring we have the best events for you next year!
So, don’t delay, grab your friends and come to i61, the LAST Insomnia of 2017 and make it the biggest we have ever seen!
Whether this means that overall Multiplay will go to just two events a year, is another question entirely, but we shall see whether they can find a venue suitable enough for 2018. insomnia61 will take place at the NEC in Birmingham on the weekend of 25th – 28th August.
This now means that epic.LAN’s epic22 will the final UK LAN event of the year held in October, which is open to 470 participants, and tickets are on sale now.
