Event: Showdown LAN 2007 - LAN Party Event Date: 06/16/2007 Written By: Warhawk Date Written: 02/26/2026

The Setup

After the success of Showdown LAN 2006, it seemed only natural that there would be a follow up event the following year. Maximum PC announced Showdown LAN 2007 was scheduled for June 16, 2007.  It was to be held in downtown San Jose in the “south hall” of the convention center. It turns out the “south hall” is actually just a giant semi-permanent circus tent type structure behind the actual convention center building.  The setup actually turned out quite well and the tent was filled with gamers, vendor booths, a large presentation stage and even some fun activities like a mechanical bull, and pugil sticks. 

Valve had recently acquired Turtle Rock Studios, who had been working on a new game called Left 4 Dead. Gabe Newell himself was at the event to give a keynote about Left 4 Dead, and there was even a booth where an early version of the game was playable for LAN attendees. 

My Own Master Plan 

Once again, I was involved with signing Antec up for sponsorship. As it would turn out, this event would coincide with a personal three phase master plan of mine; the first and second phases of which were moving out of Fremont and finding a new job. 

After some searching I ended up landing a sweet new job with EA. Not only was I a long time fan of EA games, but this job would allow me to travel the country working on game related press events. Given my experience with running LAN events, as well as trade show type events for Antec, this was a perfect fit for me.  When I told my Antec boss I was leaving, she didn’t want me to totally abandon working on the Showdown LAN plans, so I agreed to make Showdown LAN 2007 my last day with Antec. Showdown LAN was on a weekend, so I planned to start at EA the following monday. As it turned out EA was doing a big event the day before Showdown weekend and sent me to LA to be at it, making that my first day with EA. This created an odd situation for me at Showdown LAN 2007 where I was working for two companies simultaneously; since I was officially started with EA, yet still technically working for Antec at this event. 

Fortunately Antec sent enough staff that I did not have to do too much as far as Antec promotions at this event. In previous LAN events some members of TMC had been used to help out and promote Antec products. This event was no exception as once again JonDoms’ loud and commanding voice was used to direct the Antec musical chairs competition. In the final round of this competition the last chair was replaced with a large beanbag. Since it was a beanbag it would be harder to determine who had seating control of the bag. Therefore we announced that whoever pushed the other guy off the bag first would be the winner, and the final round was declared “full contact”.  The two contestants shook hands and the round was on. The music started and the two contestants danced around the beanbag and jockeyed for position. When the music stopped one guy plopped into the beanbag and the other dove on top of him, and in a wrestling-like move grabbed his opponents leg and used his momentum to roll him off of the beanbag and win the game. Luckily this was all filmed by Kuyaglen, and after reviewing the footage it could clearly be seen that the guy performing the wrestling move had missed grabbing his opponents leg and instead grabbed his opponents “bean bag”, if you know what I mean. We all got a good laugh out of it, and in typical Kuyaglen fashion this footage was reviewed again, and again, and again. It became known as the “gooch grab incident of Showdown 2007”. 

There were outdoor activities at this event as well, and Antec sponsored another PSU toss. As you may remember, the PSU toss at Showdown LAN 2006 turned a bit terrifying when a burly AMD employee decided to spin around Hammer Throw style before letting loose his PSU; thereby endangering the lives and faces of everyone around him.  This year we changed the rules a bit and instead of competing for distance throws, the competition was to throw the PSU in an attempt to get closest to a specific target. This plan turned out much better and no one was hurt or nearly hurt. 

The Event

The event itself was great and TMC as usual had a large section reserved where all the members sat together. There were many contests to compete in and many prizes to be won, and TMC members always excelled in taking home lots of goods. One of the great things about TMC was that buying, selling and trading parts was a common activity within TMC. Most of the time goods were sold to members within TMC at significantly discounted “bro deal” prices. Most of the members were very generous with one another, and if a member won a prize at an event that they did not want, many times it would be given to another member in need.  

One contest took place at the Patriot Memory booth and involved their partnership with the PMS Clan. Their star Quake III player [PMS]Missy was on hand to take on anyone in a one on one Quake III deathmatch. As part of Antec’s partnership with Patriot we were giving away Antec Cases as prizes for this promotion. To my knowledge no one was able to beat Missy even once (but we still gave away the prizes). As it would turn out; later on down the road Missy would become the girlfriend of TMC’s favorite crazy russian, Dima. 

The After Party

After the event, the Patriot rep invited me and some of the other Antec employees to go out and party with some of the Patriot folks and the PMS girls. We met up at the PMS hotel room before we headed out and a lot of the girls were still doing their hair and whatnot.

After the girls were ready we walked a few blocks to a nearby club. It was not entirely clear if the Patriot rep had any sort of relationship with any of these girls that extended beyond professional, but he did seem quite protective of these girls. He walked with swagger and it was obvious he was quite proud of himself for having so many attractive women around him. The girls were dressed up in clubbing type outfits and literally stopped traffic. While trying to cross the street at one intersection a car stopped to try and pick up on the girls; as a result the Patriot rep exchanged some heated words with the guy and it looked like they were about to get in a fight. Luckily we were able to move forward without incident. It was downtown San Jose and there were plenty of thugs and hood rats roving around; so I was anxious to get to where we were going to avoid this scene. 

The club the Patriot rep brought us to was called “Toons”. We walked in and it was like we had been transported inside the most low budget rap video imaginable. There were wall to wall thugs wearing gold chains, dancing and hoisting their 40 oz bottles in the air. It was quite the rowdy scene, but the PMS girls seemed happy with it as long as there was dancing to be done; and dance they did. I’ve been to a lot of clubs and bars in my day, but this one definitely took the cake for most ridiculously ghetto-tastic.

Pictures by Warhawk (mostly, I think):