TMC - The Mowers Clan - Gaming Organization

Event: Showdown LAN 2006 - LAN Party
Event Date: 08/26/2006
Written By: Warhawk
Date Written: 02/16/2026

Showdown LAN was an event put on by Future US, the publishers of Maximum PC and PC Gamer magazines. Since Maximum PC and PC Gamer were popular PC gaming centric publications a LAN event was ideally suited to their target market. They were also able to use their publisher clout to bring in a variety of hardware and software sponsors to help fund the event.

The Antec Connection

For my part I was involved with getting my employer, Antec, signed up as a sponsor for this event.

During this timeframe I had established myself as “the gamer guy” at Antec, and as part of that, I took charge of all LAN sponsorship responsibilities at Antec. In any way I could I wanted to show that the PC Gamer market shouldn’t be ignored and that LAN events were the perfect opportunity to market directly to this group of consumers.

Andrew Lee, the founder and president of Antec, was a very stoic man that wore designer clothes, and drove a Lamborghini (or sometimes Ferrari). He created the company himself, and had made quite a lot of money doing so.

One day, my desk phone rang, and to my surprise the caller-ID said that Andrew Lee was calling me. I was taken aback as I did not realize he even knew who I was. I then got a bit worried as I wondered whether this call was going to result in some weekend spanning project, or if it was just simply a wrong number. I picked up, and in his broken english, and without any explanation, Andrew asked me to come to his office.

My mind reeled as to what he could possibly be calling me into his office for. Had I done something wrong and would be fired? Was he going to ask me to do some extra work? What could it be?

It turned out he had a new product prototype in his office and he wanted my opinion on it, as a gamer. He wanted to know if I liked it, what I would change and if I thought that gamers would buy it. Han, the company's lead engineer was there as well. I made a few suggestions, some of which were noted and some of which were disregarded by Han as being too expensive, or not necessary.

Over the following weeks and months I was called in several more times to comment on this product. The product turned out to be the Antec Nine Hundred case, which when it was released would go on to become one of the most popular PC cases among gamers at the time. Apparently Andrew saw the value of soliciting my opinions and this would be the first of many prototypes he would show me.

The reason I mention this story is because my presence at Antec helped shape some of their gaming related products, and paved the way for participation in many more gaming related events. Showdown LAN 2006 would be a major step in this direction and would mark the debut of the Antec Nine Hundred case.

Prior to going into full production, we received some demo samples of the Nine Hundred case from the factory. These would be the units we would be unveiling to the public at Showdown LAN in the Antec booth. We decided to build out full systems in these cases, and set them up as demo machines in our booth so gamers could see them as built out systems. Unfortunately in true low budget company style, we were given no budget to actually purchase any parts with which to build systems. Our solution was to contact various other local companies, such as Asus, AMD and Patriot memory; we brokered product trades with them until we had enough parts to build our demo systems. I’m sure in the end the time and effort we spent running around making these trades cost the company more money than if the company would have allowed us to just purchase the parts we needed, but on the other hand it resulted in some valuable industry networking.

The case showed very well at the event and the gamers in attendance seemed very excited about the product, which built up a lot of anticipation for the product launch. We conducted a lot of contests and giveaways at the booth; at this particular event one of the new things we decided to try was having various party games at the booth such as musical chairs, and twister. This added to the fun and gave participants another opportunity to win Antec products.

Of course, running these contests and promotions also meant that the event was more demanding on those of us staffing the booth. Since Antec was perpetually low budget and understaffed, I had to get creative in finding helpers to assist with the various activities at the booth. To accomplish this, I recruited some TMC members as Antec volunteers to help me run the booth activities. JonDom’s proved to be especially effective as his loud booming voice became a human bullhorn that was extremely helpful in coordinating contestants for the contests, calling out twister colors, or musical chairs rules. The TMC members that volunteered would then be rewarded with free product for their services. It was an arrangement that was mutually beneficial for both groups and using TMC members as Antec volunteers became a regular thing at LAN events.

At the event we at Antec gave away lots of Antec products as prizes which fostered quite a bit of goodwill towards the company. Starting with this event Antec started to become a more household name in the gamer community. From an Antec product marketing standpoint, this event was an amazing success.

One last side note on the Antec Nine Hundred case: At this event I ended up winning a Danger Den watercooling kit in a raffle. I was also given one of the empty prototype Nine Hundred cases. Immediately after the LAN I went with QueMine and Raven, to Raven’s home workshop and we installed a new PC and the watercooling kit. At this time PC watercooling was still a very niche hobby market and not many people were doing it, and personally this would be my very first watercooled build. I realized that since the Nine Hundred case was not yet on the market or available to the public, we had just become the first people on the planet to build a water cooling system in one of these cases. +1 cool points for TMC.

The Event

As far as the LAN itself went, Maximum PC highered Vector and the PDX LAN staff to run the LAN portion of the event. The event completely sold out with over 400 gamers in attendance. There was a very large sponsor booth section which included the usual hardware companies as well as some software companies. I remember seeing and playing early demos of Company of Heroes and seeing a developer guided presentation of Supreme Commander.

Everything about the event production was completely smooth. There were lots of contests and prizes. In particular, I remember during one lunch break the LAN participants headed out to a nearby park to eat pizza and partake in various feats of strength in order to win valuable prizes. Crucial, the memory company hosted a 100 vs 100 dodgeball contest, which was complete mayhem and a lot of fun to watch.

Antec hosted a PSU toss contest. For this one, we brought in a bunch of broken PSU’s from our warehouse and had a competition to see who could throw it the furthest in the grass field. This turned out to be a lot more dangerous than we had envisioned, especially since we didn’t think to set any guidelines as to how the PSU should be thrown. At one point a particularly burly AMD employee decided to try his hand at it; what he did was dangled it by the power cables, and then spun around extremely quickly and let it sail. It was basically the geekiest hammer throw you’ve ever seen, and also the most terrifying. There were people standing mere feet away from him as he spun this flimsy metal box at breakneck speeds. I shudder to think what would have happened had it let it go at the wrong time and flung it into the crowd behind him instead of the field in front of him. “Lets not host one of these ever again” was a thought that went through my head, as I pondered how quickly I’d be fired if this went awry.

Luckily we all survived without any major injuries; prizes were won, pizza was consumed, and everybody had a lot of fun.

Regarding TMC’s presence at the LAN, it was our largest LAN turnout to date. We coordinated seating so we were all seated at the same table. We even had a large TMC banner made that we hung over our table so that our area was visible throughout the entire LAN. This proved very effective and not only got us a lot of attention but also a lot of new member applications following the event.

Final Notes

The following is a forum post by Kuyaglen that outlines his experiences at the event (with a big focus on prizes - one of his favorite things).

Not a review of Showdownlan 2006

Non TMC version:

When I first heard about this lan, pretty early in fact, I immediately signed up and paid for my seat as soon as I was able to. It didn't matter that, back then, the ticket cost $60. $60 for a lan ticket is the most I've ever paid but then when I considered how many days/hours the lan would go for 72 hours and that the event was hosted by PDXLan...it was a no-brainer.

Once the word of this lan spread though, the price immediately brought down rage and furious anger by many potential attendees (Californians can be funny like that). Thankfully, the person in charge of the lan Vector (a.k.a Matt) was able to get the sponsors to help lower the cost in half for the final price of $30.

The 480 person BYOC sold out.

A large lanparty like this couldn't be possible without the help of the sponsors. The sponsors help pay for things like, power, space and advertising. They also provided prizes and "shwag" to the attendees. In fact, for the $30 price, every attendee got a copy of "Armored Fury", "F.E.A.R. Extraction Point" and "Prey". A gaming value of over $80. There were t-shirts, keychains, mousepads, balls, rumbling foam grenades, pens, case badges and company promotional items galore. The retail value of prizes/shwag that the sponsors gave out tallied to over $70,000.

Antec gave out tons of cases and power supplies and an Ageia PhysX card.

Danger Den gave out a godly amount of water cooling kits, cases and coolers.

Newegg gave out motherboards, notebooks, food and 2x $1000 gift certificates.

Crucial gave out an amazing amount of system ram and usb thumbdrives.

Corsair gave out systems.

OCZ gave out cpu coolers and ram.

Patiot gave out computer parts, and ram.

Zalman gave out coolers for you cpu and video card.

Zboard gave out keyboards and Fang game pads

Func Industries gave out customized comemorative mouse pads.

THQ gave out prizes for the "Company of Heroes" tourney they held.

There was a tourney from the people bringing out the game Timeshift.

One gamer said that there was so many things to do, when do you have time to game?

The organization of the event was out standing. Seeing as how the entire staff from the sponsor boths to the PDXLan/PC Gamer crew worked together, like a CAL-I team. Contest and raffle drawings other sponsored activities never seemed to impeed on the main tournaments or the BYOC.

The free BBQ (and by BBQ I mean Pizza and VitaminWater, good stuff btw) thrown by Newegg was the site where Danger Den held their Water Ballon contest, Antec held their PSU toss and where Crucial held their 100v100 Dodgeball contest. If sunlight and phyical activity doesn't bring 480 gamers together...I dont know what will.

The fun times and halarity Newegg's Picnic provided is almost as good as being one of the two winners of their $1000 gift certificate. For 3 days San Jose was besieged by the PC gaming community and from what I've scene I think everybody (myself included) is ready to do it again...and soon...and hopefully next time with internet access.

[TMC]/[TMM] Version:

I came to this lan expecting good times...and once again PDXLan did not dissapoint. It was awesome how you could just drive up to the door and unload. I was able to score a ride from JonDoms because unfortunately Sn1perfox had to bail. Harbor Freight foldable cart FTW! That cart was brought in not 2 or 3 or 4 comps since both JonDoms and I bought two seats, but 5 computers. Our BF2/Vent/Trackmainia server made an appearance...thanks to the JonDoms.

Through no fault of Hawtie, our shirts were not available, but what she was able to pull of in time was providing a pwn sauce TMC banner. Mucho Thanks for taking one for the team (the banner appearantly made a crack on her windshield). Table 8 err...the TMC section could not be avoided by anyone. If you were on the mainstage and looked towards the crowd our banner was there, if you were in the BYOC and looked towards the booths our banner was there. If you turned your head to see who was yelling out "In the butt" or "Damn you SilentDeath", our banner was there.

A side note: I think everybody preferred the plump Ruby over the anorexic cracked out Ruby. Though conversations were littered with crossfire references/inuendos.

Being as how teams had to be registered and full for the tourney and some dudes were not around at the same time, scrambling and creating non "homo squad" teams was done on friday evening...followed by BF2 and some Dead Rising. Yes Dead Rising...for the XBox 360. It seemed that Orangeshirtmafia, instead of paying back $600 to Metalslug's mom, provided an Xbox 360 with 4 controllers to him...there was no reciept, unsurpisingly.

Speaking of Metalslug he told us where we could buy some energy drinks from the hotel lobby for cheap, but the next day it was double. It seemed that night was "half off" night. With people comming and leaving at different times Metalslug, Juice and Dima had some shuffling and bitching to vent.

A bunch of us walked to a pizza joint friday night (My <3 Pizza), sans Pink Shirt. EvilKickass keept up the conversations and walked back we saw Supermans house and Gat3Keeper's new SUV limousine.

Not too long after we came back, Antec held a musical chairs contest that JonDoms Mcee'd and we saw some really cool action of Hypertheading on my file server. The Friday night late night crew had no internet but what we lacked in connectivity we made up for in refrigerated exhibition hall. I was not able to connect to the TECH wifi connection, but Gat3keeper was. Gat3keeper also had uber leet pwn you in the butt Trackmania maps. That JonDoms was able to put on the Trackmania server, after he brought us some breakfast. Pancakes/eggs/hav/beacon/potatoes.

Saturday mornings was the time for the multiplayer tournies. With lan going on...even without TMC...there was a scramble/shuffling of players and who's computer they would use...all that work payed off in the end since even though every TMC team lost in the first round, we had Saftey Dance playing on KraZ's phone when Dima called him.

Celebration of our BF2 n00bness was on short order since the Newegg's Picnic/BBQ was up on the list. We were told to form a single file line, get a slice of pizza and a vitaminWater and enjoy ourselves. After getting a slice of pizza and a vitaming water I enjoyed myselft right back to the back of the line when KraZ went in the line.

Wash rinse & repeat, KraZ 4 times, me 5 times.

Then people lined up for the DangerDen water contest...but we stayed sitting in our area but then I saw some chick lineing up to get wet, and immeadiately went forth to partake of the festivities. Boris got pwned by the DangerDen dudes and I suffered splash damage via the Russian conflict of Dima/Boris.

Following the DangerDen thing was Warhawk with the Antec PSU toss. People were almost killed and everybody cheered. The Crucial guy won and Mameman took 3rd. Crucial guy then held the 100v100 dodgeball contest. CSI Little Asian Kids had the highest kill/death ratio. Metalslug had missed a golden opportunity, missed was left vaulnerable but was still able to escape some (as he taunted in the heat of battle) bitch.

The festivities provided by all was frickin sweet.

Back at the BYOC I took some pictures of the booths and sat in on the "Supreme CommanderJ" presentations, while Evilkickass won a 7950 GX2 for filling out an Nvidia survey. Dima and KraZ broke out the Dremels for some popcicle bridge pwnage. All their work payed off in the end with them winning a t-shirt. At least Dima won a 1st place at a Paperairplane contest and won an Antec case.

IT DOESN'T STOP!!!

I had been up since Friday 6:30am I got tired enough at 2:30am Sunday to borrow the large leather chairs from the Timeshift booth...so was JonDoms and Metalslug. ++Magic points to Dima for being cool with overnight staff to let us keep using them. Ginger showed back up and somehow JonDoms and I went with him to see if he left his light on his new truck on. Yes he did, what a n00b. Magically we ended up at some taco joint and Metalslug built some lan shrine.

Sunday morning was just getting in on as many sponsor raffles as you can and playing GRAW on the free-to-play Antec gaming area for a while with Ginger|R|. KraZ got into the Intel overclocking presentation and again won an Intel Extreme Edition proc and mobo (3.7Ghz and 955 chipset). The Abit guys came around and awarded me with a cool Abit watch because I displayed my Abit mobo on top of my computer.

IT DOESN'T STOP!!!

Then after the prizes for the main tournies were awarded it came time for the main. Your seat number was your raffel ticket and because of me you can only win one time. Seems getting back in line for the Danger Den Waterblock Shuffle board contest made Vector want to handicap my chances of winning. (it did not work)

With everybody to the front Dima got all of table 8 in the back. When Vector was handed the number of table, we all chanted "TMC, TMC, TMC", when ever Vector said, "Table 8" we all cheered. When every someone's seat was called, the crowd initiated the 10 second countdown unclaimed prize limit for the next seat.

Warhawk got another water cooling kit, Quicksilver got an Antec case, Offspring won a 7950 GX2 but was at a Giants game, so I won it. At the end they gave out commemorative customized Funct mouse pads and Boris got one.

It DOESN'T STOP!!!

Then it was time to pack up. Some lady asked me to use my cart, I said no...some other girl almost tried to sneak away with it...not happening...Boris almost won Gat3keeper's lcd gear grip...

THATS WHERE IT STOPPED!!!

I got home around 10:15pm...10:00am this morining I awoke in my chair.

The following was the internal event report submitted to my bosses at Antec (real names redacted):

09/11/2006 - Antec Showdown LAN Report

From August 25th to August 27th, [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] attended the Showdown LAN event in San Jose.

In comparison to many other lan events this event was the largest and best organized event of it’s kind ever held in the Silicon Valley. Organized by the famous PDX LAN crew, this three day event brought in gamers from all over the world to play video games, compete in tournaments and just generally have a good time.

Sponsor booths were setup for Antec, Intel, THQ, Abit, Patriot, Ageia, Crucial, OCZ, Killer NIC, ATI, Newegg, Zalman, Corsair, ASA Computers, Danger Den, ASUS, Zboard. Sponsors showed off their latest hardware and software as well as give attendees a chance to win cool prizes.

Not only did Antec have one of the largest booths at the event, but Antec products were also present in many other booths at the event. The reason for this was that we made sure to create partnerships with the other companies we knew were going to be at the show. We made agreements with them beforehand to trade products with them. This meant that not only did we get to use and give away products from our partners, but it also meant that nearly every raffle and competition at the LAN featured an Antec prize. This proved to be an excellent way to have our name constantly mentioned in other booths as well as over the PA system when prizes were announced.

We also hosted a number of games and raffles that gathered very large crowds and an extremely high level of excitement from the participants and spectators. Games included Twister, musical chairs, power supply toss and a Ghost Recon tournament on our new demo systems. We got many compliments from participants about our games and our booth in general. Everyone who came by seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Our new demo systems worked flawlessly as well. Made up of free parts and software donated by partner sponsors, these systems were a good way to keep people in the booth and were a reason to have them keep coming back for more every day.

In addition to the core group of [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED], other Antec employees that came by to help out the booth at various times were [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED]. [REDACTED] came by to make a presentation on one of the days which was very well received and got the crowd excited about our new products, especially the Nine Hundred.

Even with all the help, the event was very hard work and extremely long hours for the core group that maintained the booth. I would recommend recruiting more help for future events to take even more advantage of the opportunities the event provides.

Antec’s gamer supporters were definitely taken care of, and good times were had by all! This was one of the best shows of the year.

Pictures by Warhawk (mostly, I think):