Hey folks, my name is Tristan Bailey (aka OUTCAST). I'm the one responsible for running the show, as Project Manager of The LAN Link Network. It's always refreshing to know that there's people behind community projects, and not robots; hence, the reason for an Introduction section on our forums, and the reason why I'm posting here (finally).
I have a fair bit of background in LAN parties, so I'll post it in parts. Here is my story:
PART 1
I first discovered a LAN party in Adelaide by the name of XLANSA (Xbox LAN of South Australia), on the Internet. Given that my brother and I was invested in playing Halo on the Xbox at the time, we went to several of these "parties", which were often a lot of fun. Not only did they play games with/against each other, the administrators also held tournaments (Halo being one of their main games), and awarded prizes to winners. As the events went for over 10 hours, we all ate pizza for dinner, and drank softdrink when thirsty.
Inspired by these events, I decided to try my hand at running my own LAN party, which I named PHLANX (Power House LAN for Xboxes). It was based on a very similar setup; Xboxes, tournaments, prizes, pizza and softdrink. Around the same time, I discovered another LAN party, named Zeal, run by the Salvation Army in Golden Grove. Their focus was more broad, with people playing on PCs, as well as Xboxes, and a Nintendo Wii. They too, ate pizza, except it was often for lunch instead. They also had a canteen full of food and drink, often staffed by parents of kids who regularly attended. After attending a few of their events, I volunteered to help out at their events, as someone to run Xbox tournaments.
After a couple of years, I was contacted by an administrator of StreetGeek LAN parties in Adelaide, to see if I would be interested in volunteering as an administrator of a large-scale event; something that would be collectively organised and supported by other LAN parties around the state of South Australia. I accepted, and began attending meetings held to organise the event. The resulting event, "SAGAFest", was held in St. Clare Recreation Centre in Woodville, and attracted over 100 people. This was a considerable number, but it was below expectations. My duty, as Lead Console Administrator, was to draw up rules for the event's tournaments, and monitor the console tournaments during the event. Due to some unfortuntate mishaps in the event's preparations, the rules were never finalised in time, and the draft acted as a set of guidelines, instead.
During one of several "SAGAFest" meetings that I attended, I learned that one of the administrators of the StreetGeek LAN parties, Matthew Allpress, was working on a project that involved listing all LANs in South Australia that existed at the time. I thought that the project was a great idea, and I offered to help collect as much information as I could, not only about LANs in South Australia, but the entire country. The project was hosted on a website with the URL http://lanparties.com.au, and was eventually titled "Australian LAN Parties".