I'm getting there. A lot of us are still "punch drunk" in the office here :). Our idea of relaxing this weekend is to all go to a LAN as well :p

i34 was great. It's always stressful moving to a new venue, but Stoneleigh made setup and pack down so much easier than Newbury - One big room versus seven over multiple buildings and floors.

There were a few teething issues, which are to be expected, but overall I think the LAN was our best yet.

Stoneleigh has a number of expansion options, from running BYOC in both halls to using some of the other large facilities on site. They are also doing quite a lot of building over the coming years which will further increase capacity.

One immediate option Stoneleigh are considering is putting a semi-permanent structure over the hard standing area behind hall 1 and 2. This would be larger than hall 2 is now, meaning at least another 2000 BYOC spaces in that area alone.

However, as always we will be growing steadily and not looking to jump suddenly to 4000 BYOC. We'll be sorting the teething issues of i34 with i35 in October, where we expect around 1500 BYOC. Then April will be the big push with i36 and M Festival Spring 2009.

As for the numbers at i36 in April 2009, we'll see how the demand goes :)

CSS has been the largest tournament at the i-series for some time now and we have responded to that popularity by supporting it directly ourselves and not relying on sponsorship for any prize funds for it. So long as people are coming in droves to compete in the CSS tournaments, they will have a healthy future at the i-series.

In general, I think it is really time for some of the other major competitions to move along to CSS. I really hope next year to see WCG finally move to CSS. 1.6 has had a good run but now it really is time to let it go.

I think when people make these sorts of comments they are often knee-jerk blind emotional statements, based on little if any actual thought about what is involved in running events like these.

When people sit down and actually do the math about the costs to stage an event like i34, suddenly they realise that it mounts up very quickly. If there was such a huge mountain of money to be made, it begs the question why no-one else has stepped up to take us on in the UK.

Over the years as we have seen the demand for the professional side of gaming rise, we have been keen to support it with money out of ticket sales, but this was and will never be the sustainable way to do it. Sponsorship is the key method of getting the large prize funds and it is still slow-going in the UK. We had to fund both the COD4 and CSS prize funds entirely ourselves for i34 as an example.

At the end of the day people will vote with their feet. If they feel £80 a ticket is too much for 4 days of fun with all the amenities and services provided on site, then they simply won't attend. Given the 3-week sell-out of i34, you could argue the ticket price is actually too cheap :)

At i33 we had problems with tournaments and I think from the feedback for i34, you can see that we nailed those this time. I've not seen a bad comment about them.

However, there are many areas we are looking to improve for next time. Heat was a real problem, so we're looking at extra ventilation, putting screens up to protect people near the doors from drafts, etc. The shower and toilet cleanliness caught Stoneleigh by surprise so that'll be fixed for next time. We've got quite a list of niggles in the office that we want to sort for next time.

I will be posting a full list of what we are looking to improve in the next couple of weeks on the Multiplay forums, so people can see how we've gone away with both our own and the community feedback to come up with an action plan for i35 and the future.

We're always keen to get feedback on the events and contrary to some people's beliefs, we do actually listen! We're gamers ourselves so we do care that the event we are staging is an event we would enjoy (were we not running around stressing!) :)

PCGS is not the first time we've been contracted to stage an event for another company. Another example was the Packard Bell iPower Games finals in Portugal which we were contracted to run. We continue to invest heavily in both the hardware and software to put on these events.

Combine this with our many years expertise and it makes sense for companies to come to us if they want to ensure their own event's success. You can expect to see us being contracted to run more events in the future, both in the UK and beyond.

Yeah it scares me to think how long I've been doing this now. I ran my first LAN some 14 years ago now. It was never about money and was run as a hobby, whilst I pursued a career in medicine. Whilst money is now an obvious necessity (both my staff and I have to eat at the end of the day :p), my main drive of these events is still to go for a walk round and see everyone having such a great time.

The Multiplay team here pour our heart and souls into these events. The buzz of seeing it all come together hasn't gone away. If anything it's become stronger as things have grown, both in size and scope :)