How do I get Lan Party Sponsors?

[IceDigger]

Hello [H]ard peeps!

As most of you know I run a computer repair shop located in PA and am hosting my first "Ye Old Lan Party" soon with older games like Quake 1/2 and the original Unreal Tournament. I was wondering how abouts I get software and/or hardware companies to help sponsor it.

I'm thinking of just 5-10 people to start and if it gets better more. Its a small shop so I can only fit so many people.

Any little bit helps.

Thank you!

 

[dvsman]

As an aside, when I use to try to get sponsors for my car club, it was all about the pitch. I would tell them what I could do for them and not just ask for free / discounted crap.

 

[That_Sound_Guy]

Just being honest here - you won't get any sponsors for 5-20 people. I helped run a 200 person LAN group in St. Louis and we had to know people to get any hardware sponsors (granted we didn't try hard as we had a lot of our own gear). Usually small LAN's like that is just SWAG donations. LAN's are dead business now unless you are 400+ people. Its now a hobby form. Good luck.

Have the patrons bring their own PC, you supply power and network - maybe monitors if you have enough. The games server engines you want to play can exist on any modern era computer together with plenty of head room. Make ISO's of the games with a key for those who don't have it installed and you should be good to go. If licensing is a concern for the games, grab a handful of keys for a couple bucks to have on hand. They may be old enough now to fall under freeware.

 

[Team_Slow]

The best way would be to put together a 5 minute presentation outlining what you are doing and how teaming up with your event will help make the sponsor money. And remember that many of the people who you'll be talking to are MBA's. So use language that they understand. Statistics, cost benefit analysis, impact analysis, these are all things business men and women like to hear in presentations. Then you'd start making phone calls and see who's willing to take a meeting with you. I agree with Sound_Guy in that 5-20 people at a LAN party probably wont get you Microsoft as a sponsor. However if you take your presentation to small, local, businesses I'm sure you'll find someone who's willing to team up for some community outreach.

 

[andrewaggb]

I don't think you 'need' a sponsor at all for 5-10 people. Any computer or laptop in the last 10+ years can run Quake 1/2/UT just fine. 10 people is a single switch, maybe 2 if people only have 8 port ones. You might need to split people up onto 2 breakers, sometimes 10 computers can blow a single 15A breaker.

The GOG (good old games) installers don't have DRM and they're cheap, eg https://www.gog.com/game/quake_ii_quad_damage, https://www.gog.com/game/unreal_gold, https://www.gog.com/game/unreal_tournament_2004_ece. People can buy their own copies (or share... it's drm free). When I've done retro lan's we all use the GOG installers even if we own the games on steam or have the original discs because that way we are all running the same version and patch level. I really can't stress this enough - have GOG installers available on a read-only network share or you can potentially spend an hour or more for each game helping people get the right versions. If you're not providing installers, be specific. Quake 2 version XXXX. Otherwise you're going to be hunting down patches and wasting time.

If you've never done it before be aware that 9+ people isn't a great number for many games. It works for Quake and Unreal, but many retro games are limited to 8 players. Plan accordingly.

Recommend that people install their windows updates beforehand and check their network shares. Maybe they have publicly shared stuff they use at home they don't intend to share with others. Or they have publicly writable shares that other people could upload to.

 

[That_Sound_Guy]

check their network shares. Maybe they have publicly shared stuff they use at home they don't intend to share with others. Or they have publicly writable shares that other people could upload to.

Man I remember the wild west with this with windows 2000/xp before built in firewalls. peoples rotary drives would be screaming and games running like a apple II due to hd lag.

 

[sharknice]

We emailed Nvidia, ATI, and others back in the day. We mostly got swag to give away, but we got a couple nice mouse mats, some games, and I think a mouse too. But we had semi annual LANs with 100+ people and a website with pictures. And part of the agreement was posting pictures with the sponsor stuff.

I don't think you'll get anything with that few people, but it's worth a shot I guess.

There was a small gaming cafe I went to that had a lot of sponsors. The ISP gave them internet for advertising, the Balls energy drink had some sort of deal with them too.

 

[andrewaggb]

Man I remember the wild west with this with windows 2000/xp before built in firewalls. peoples rotary drives would be screaming and games running like a apple II due to hd lag.

Totally. I know Microsoft has better default sharing permissions these days but you never know what'll show up when random computers get together.

 

[sharknice]

Totally. I know Microsoft has better default sharing permissions these days but you never know what'll show up when random computers get together.

I remember people setting up network drives to share at the LANs. One person would be dropping games on it and another person's antivirus would remove them. LOL