What is Shotgun LAN?

Shotgun LAN is what is commonly known as a LANparty. For those of you not familiar with the term, it is a gaming event, where a group of people gather in a venue, usually a hall of some description, and then play games over a local area network (LAN). These event commonly run for several days, and are as much about socialising and meeting people as playing computer games.

Shotgun LAN was founded in 1998 by Chris Ashworth (mid_gen), Peter Matthews (PeteTheHair), and Ian Elvar (Lo-fi). Our first event was at a venture scout hall in Basingstoke, where we catered for less than twenty guests, and played predominantly Team Fortress 2.8 for QuakeWorld. Our network was ran by one or two 10mbps hubs, and we had no dedicated servers.

Over the years the event has grown larger, we have had one change of staff. Ian left our team because he no longer had the time to put into the event, so Nick Maynard (Kulgan) took his place. We have upgraded our network from it's humble 10mbps repeater beginnings, to a fully switched, managed, link-aggregated fast ethernet network, kindly provided by Intel. We often run tournaments, with prizes provided by companies such as CaseAce, Razer, Everglide and Barrysworld. We have an excellent venue at the moment, with low overheads and plenty of space.