Hey Gamers, BloodyIron here.

As of right now we have rescheduled LANified! 37: Bandolier from July 4-6 2025 to November 28-30 2025. We have not sold enough tickets to keep the dates, and thought it best to rescheduled this event.

Anyone that has bought tickets is eligible for refunds for a limited time, or if you choose we can keep your tickets for the new event dates, it's up to you. If you want us to refund you, please reach out to us on the Feedback & Help page.

We are also working on a March 2026 Gaming Event, but the details are not yet ready.

Restarting our events has been with lots of challenges, and if you're reading this, we really want to hear what you think we're doing right and what you think we're doing wrong. If you would please do us the honour of telling us what you think we're doing right and wrong via the Feedback & Help page that would be very appreciated. As always we want to keep doing a better and better job with the events we run and your feedback can greatly help us in achieving that.

But BloodyIron, it's not 1990's, LAN parties are dying, why not give up?

It's blatantly obvious that online gaming is huge, but to me, it never is nor can be the same as gaming in-person with others all around you. I, and my staff, are still driven to build the in-person gaming experiences we think online gaming CANNOT provide. We are not really trying to replace online gaming but to offer an experience you really cannot get online.

I myself attend LAN parties ran by other groups, and to this day they still are a completely different experience from online gaming, and I for one get great enjoyment out of them. I'm genuinely invested in fostering and growing experiences like that.

An example that might resonate with some of you is playing Rust. In Rust a lot of the time you're some rando who joins a rando server that maybe just wiped. You'll only really hear other gamers on the server through your headphones, but not across the room. It's impersonal and generally can be harder to gain trust in other gamers on online Rust servers. Are they going to betray you and loot your base? Are they actually upstanding and will fight tooth and nail to defend your shared base? It's really hard to know.

Rust at a LAN party however is a whole other experience. It's no longer impersonal. You literally can see the people you're gaming with (or against). You can literally hear the victories and failures across the room. One team raids another, you'll probably hear someone talking about it across the room. This opens up a whole new possibility of experiences that to me cannot be replicated in online gaming.

Picture this (at LAN), you're on a team of 3 (in Rust), and another team of 3 comes to raid your base while your team is inside it. Your team defends successfully. Their team breaks in and steals stuff and runs away. Or any other variety of outcome happens. If it's a good battle, then there's a good chance someone from either team is going to walk across the room and shake your hand, then proceed to talk about how exciting that fight was. And then get back to more LAN Rust gaming.

Can you shake your opponent's hand in online gaming? No.

So why not give up? There's no joke about it, running these events is hard. But to me it is worth it because it offers experiences to my fellow gamers in ways that they CANNOT get online. And it's not just about Rust, CS, or whatever competitive game you want to talk about. It also includes cooperative gaming, constructive gaming, any kind of gaming.

Have I thought abouut quitting? Fuck yes I have, many times over. It haunts me.

But when I talk to fellow gamers about our events I receive so much positive vibes, appreciation, love, excitement, and more that I start realising that I really do need to keep this going and grow it.

Am I insane? Probably, just ask my staff and friends. But I do know that LAN parties and other gaming events are fun, and that I want to keep putting on the best ones possible.

Wait, you've read this far? Well if that's true, please do me a favour and tell me/us what exactly you think we need to do better or whatever feedback you want to give us. What you have to say matters to me and us. I cannot stress that enough.

Anyways, enough rambling for now I guess. Hope to see you at the November event!

And to those who have attended our events throughout our history, supported us in various ways, THANK YOU.