Multiplay UK

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Multiplay UK hosts the largest LAN party in the United Kingdom, the I-Series. These events were hosted at Newbury Racecourse in the United Kingdom from i5 to i33 when the venue was relocated to Stoneleigh Park for i34, increasing the total amount of BYOC places to 2000.[1] Multiplay UK are also one of the larger Game Server Providers in Europe, hosting close to 2000 online game servers. Additionally, Multiplay UK holds agreements with companies such as Electronic Arts and Vivendi in which they are allowed to host official "ranked" servers for certain games.

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[edit] History

Multiplay UK began in 1999, when it hosted Insomnia99. [2] Up to that point, it was one of the largest LAN parties held in the United Kingdom. This spawned the I-Series events, and the success of these also resulted in Multiplay UK's other events and services, including the StratLan events, the short lived StratLan-based Manalan, and the company's game and web server hosting.

[edit] LAN Parties

Multiplay UK hosts the following LAN parties:

[edit] I-Series

The I-Series events, which are the largest regular LAN party in the United Kingdom, were hosted at Newbury Racecourse from i5 to i33 where it was then relocated to Stoneleigh Park. I-Series LAN parties are generally three times per year.

Since the original Insomnia 99 event the number of attendees has increased considerably and lead to changes in venues over time. The location for the first 4 I-Series events was Swindon Town F.C.'s stadium in Swindon. For i5, the event had outgrown the stadium in Swindon, and therefore moved to Newbury Racecourse's Berkshire Stand, and later the Grandstand at the same location. Most recently the I-Series has occupied both stands during events. The next event, i34, will take place from the 8th-11th of August, 2008.

I-Series events generally have a number of both prize winning and non-prize winning tournaments as well as a variety of exhibitors. Both the number of prize tournaments and exhibitors have increased in recent events.

[edit] StratLAN

StratLAN, a smaller LAN party without large tournaments or exhibitors, is hosted in Stratford Racecourse.

[edit] World Cyber Games

Multiplay UK have also hosted the United Kingdom's national qualifiers for the World Cyber Games at their I-Series events for the last 2 years.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Multiplay Changes Venue", Multiplay UK. Retrieved on 2008-04-15. 
  2. ^ "BBC Website", BBC.