Campzone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CampZone, or Codemasters CampZone, is a large outdoor LAN event held by Gameparty.net. It takes place in the summer lasting for eleven days. 2005 marked the fifth anniversary of the event.
British software house Codemasters has been CampZone's main sponsor for the last three years. Getronics PinkRoccade became sponsor in 2007.
Contents |
[edit] Location
[edit] 2001 - 2006
From the start of CampZone in 2000, until 2006, CampZone was held on the festival grounds surrounding the Walibi World amusement park. Originally these grounds were created to accommodate the 18th World Scout Jamboree. Since then the terrain has been used for several large scale events, such as the annual Lowlands music festival. These fields are fully drained, so they could be used for camping in the relatively wet Dutch climate.
The festival grounds are subdivided in smaller fields separated by a thin treeline. CampZone used two of these fields. One for entry, car parking and sports activities, the other for the event itself. The fields used are approximately 56700 m² (67800 yd²), about 9 soccer fields in size.
Due to the nearby presence of a hostel for terminally ill children (the Colombinehuis), strict rules pertaining to sound were enforced during the event. The sections of the field used during CampZone nearest to this hostel were reserved for participants generating only moderate noise levels. People bringing sound systems capable of generating over 100 watts of output were required to use the sections of the field furthest away from the Colombinehuis.
[edit] 2007
 |
This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
In 2007 CampZone moved to a different location near Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
The new location is easily accessible from Eindhoven Airport, which should draw more visitors from outside the Netherlands.
[edit] Origin
Campzone originated from WAN. WAN was held from 1998 until 2000 (WAN NULL) WAN was a smaller LAN party which was held in the recreation area "De Kibbelkoele" near Emmen (NL)
[edit] Past Events
CampZone 1 (2001)
-
- ~400 visitors
- Festival grounds of Walibi World
- 350 kVA power generator used
- Photos CampZone 1
CampZone 2 (2002)
-
- ~800 visitors
- Festival grounds of Walibi World
- 350 kVA power generator used
- Photos CampZone 2
CampZone 3 (2003)
-
- ~1200 visitors
- Festival grounds of Walibi World
- 650 kVA power generator used
- Photos CampZone 3
CampZone 4 (2004)
-
- ~1500 visitors
- Festival grounds of Walibi World
- 1000 kVA power generator used
- Photos CampZone 4
CampZone 5 (2005)
-
- ~1750 visitors
- Festival grounds of Walibi World
- 1250 kVA power generator used
- Photos CampZone 5
CampZone 6 (2006)
-
- ~2000 visitors
- Festival grounds of Walibi World
- 1250 kVA power generator used (nearly 40000 liters of diesel)
- Photos CampZone 6
[edit] Organisation
The organisation behind CampZone consists completely of dedicated volunteers. The basic structure of the CampZone organisation is as follows:
- Main organisation (4 persons), responsible for the event. They are addressed with all problems and take care of agenda's, structure, information etc. All of them are members of the Gameparty crew.
- Network team (3 persons), responsible for the network.
- Server team (6 persons), responsible for the servers and services needed for a network.
- Webteam (~10 persons), responsible for the intranet and internet site. They also maintain order on the sites.
- Activities team (2 persons), responsible for extra activities during the event, such as sports.
- Power team (4 persons), responsible for the power at CampZone. They take care of the power, the power-distribution, monitoring of the power and mainly all heavy machinery. They also take care of the sanitary (warm showers, running water and such).
- Field admins (50 persons), administer the giving out of network ports and power for their field, and keep directly in touch with the main organisation and technical teams. They are the first to address for visitors who are experiencing problems, and make sure that only the structural or global problems reach the main organisation or technical teams.
- Main security (3 persons), responsible for security. They make sure security runs in shifts, problems are swiftly addressed and global order and rules are maintained. They make the final decisions when problems occur.
- security (20 persons), voluntary visitors who see to safety and order on the event. They work in shifts and keep notes of what happens and troubles.
- First aid (6 persons), responsible for applying first aid to visitors who need it.
- Gate-crew (6 persons), watching the gate of the event. They also upgrade payment cards, a money system Campzone uses so visitors do not have go around carrying real money.
- Casemod-crew, supervise the casemodding on CampZone. Casemodding is quite popular among LAN party visitors, but since it uses dangerous tools and machinery, CampZone supplies with a special section for this practise. Four people supervise this, helping out the visitors who are modifying there cases, but also making sure that it is done safely to prevent injuries and broken computer parts.
[edit] Network
Translated from the CampZone website (Dutch):
The Network at CampZone 6 (2006) was based around a center high-speed glass fiber switch, with cables to several location-switches. These switches grant 100mbit CAT5e Ethernet and are usually hosted by external parties and have an appointed field admin. Switches were allowed, as long as they did not grant 1 Gbit/s connection to the base network.
Every visitor was granted a fixed IP for the network, and if needed they could get more. Personal network cable length needed was 64 meters at most.
The Network Headquarters (NHQ) was where the backbone of the lanparty resided. Servers of the organisation, as well as personal servers could be placed here. The temporary building was cooled using air conditioning. The backbone was a Foundry BigIron 8000 which has 64 1000BASE-SX (full-duplex, non-blocking) optical ports.
In 2006, CampZone had 1 wireless access point per field. Using a vlan all wireless access points were made into a separate LAN. It was less suitable for games, but that is not what the wireless network was meant for.
Internet is available at CampZone, but is also not meant for games. It is meant only for browsing sites, checking e-mail, and using Instant Messenger products.
[edit] Power
Since there is no normal power source at the location of CampZone, the power has to be generated there. The entire event greatly depends on trustworthy stable power, because computers and other hardware can very easily damage when the current fluctuates, or is not properly aligned or consequent.
Some power usage facts of CampZone 5 (2005):
-
- 1250 kVA generator (extreme silent edition).
- 11.500 litre (3038 US gallon) diesel tank for the generator.
- 40.000 litre (10567 US gallon) diesel was used by the generator.
- 70 current dividing stations, from which the visitors could take their power.
- 8 km (5 mi) power cable in various diameters.
- Averaging use of 750-800 kW per phase.
- Used even more power than the Lowlands festival.
[edit] Competitions
During the event, many official and unofficial competitions are being held. The official PC-competitions are organized by the Best of Benelux crew, a sub-division of Gameparty, the organisation behind Campzone. All official competitions offer prizes for at least the winner, most of which which are provided by sponsors.
The official outdoor competitions are organized by the activities team of Gameparty. Most competitions are announced long before the start of the event, but some outdoor competitions are announced during the event. Examples of outdoor competitions held during previous editions of Campzone are riding a mechanical bull and playing soccer on a field of soap.
Unofficial competitions can be organized by visitors and vary from playing old-fashioned board or card games, to sports and a "strongest man" competition.
