Venue
The proposed venue for the 2013 MegaLAN is the Winthrop Undercroft (Building 101 on the Crawley Campus).
A low-risk EMP needs to be completed and handed in to the Guild at least a month before the event. It is suggested that the Camp and LAN EMP be submitted during the summer break before semester.
Costs
Our booking cannot be confirmed until 10 weeks in advance (just over a fortnight away as at 20130404).
The estimated venue hire cost is just under $440 (inc GST) and covers the service charge and cleaning costs. If [MRD] is not available to supervise additional staffing costs will be incurred (which we want to avoid).
[MRD] is unable to staff future events at Winthrop Hall.
Layout
A draft layout can be found over at http://mattdidcoe.com/megalan-rough.pdf, a better layout is now available at http://mattdidcoe.com/megalan-tidy.pdf
This layout has tables in a North-South orientation with a capacity of between 94 and 120 depending on the level of comfort/space offered (it gets tight on either end near the stairs and eastern wall). There's space along the south side for consoles or alternately these can potentially be located in G05 if [MRD] can negotiate access. Consoles were located on the East and Southern Wall of the room and didn't take up much space, thanks to Byte Nyte for providing them and [TJB] for organising.
Cables (power and network) would be distributed from the North end of the table down as the 3 phase outlet is located in the NW corner of the room (another is available just outside on the SE corner and can be fed back in easily if required). A 3-phase power distribution unit was found in the Undercroft and used along with 2 rented units costing $150 which [SZM] organised from Newick's Electrical Services (who are UWA's usual suppliers).
Trestle tables are available at a small cost, exam desks are free of charge but may not be wide enough for most peoples rigs. Approximately 15 Guild Tables were used as well.
With regards to administration, 1 person on Front of House and 1 on Snacks & Drinks was sufficient. From around 8pm onwards Front of House was no longer necessary and Snacks & Drinks can be managed with someone at a laptop with some rotation.
Catering / Food & Beverage
Suggestion is just to have a bulk pizza run done (ie. situation normal), given the size it will be a good idea to forewarn the pizza place of choice ahead of time. Dominos generally works best price wise. [XON] was able to organise a pizza van Il Paiolo who served us awesome pizza but it's small and not cheap, $15 Full Pizza - $8 Half Pizza.
[MRD] has also suggested a coffee machine which could be a good money earner in conjunction with regular drink and snack sales. A fridge is available but will not handle the capacity we'll likely sell. A trailer fridge or series of other fridges will be needed along with people to look after the stock during the event.
A joint Snack and Coke run between UCC and CASSA was held the day before the LAN to buy goods. Refreshments more than covered attendance of 40+ people, may need more fridges/eskies with at least double the attendance. Thanks to [BOB] for providing an esky which saved [SZM]'s back.
Attendees were permitted to consume food and drink in the venue despite the risk of carpet damage, which would cost $600 to clean.
Student Guild was able to organise the supply of event bins from FM. They should be contacted at least a couple of weeks before the event. At this LAN, 8 general rubbish bins were ordered as well as 2 recycling which more than sufficed for event attendance.
Ticketing
The decided price for tickets was $10 for members given they had paid or regsitered beforehand, and $15 for all non-members and those who bought at the door.
Online booking / ticketing is suggested given it will be a cross club event. Plenty of options around with minimal fees compared to the hassle of trying to organise manually.
After late organisation with the website (thanks [BG3]) tickets were handled through bank transfer and an email to exec@. Suggestion to use a Google Form and Dispense / Bank Transfer in the future, investigate other online ticketing options.
Sponsors
Potential sponsors were contacted based on their sponsorship of previous similar events in the area. Tactics, Good Games St James, Nerd & Proud and Byte Nyte all sponsored this years event with product except Byte Nyte who provided console entertainment instead.
Publicity
Publicity was fairly poor this year, posters and sponsors took a long time to organise and should start before Semester 1 begins to ensure ticket sales from O-Day onwards and decent exposure. There will likely be a common UCC template for event posters which will speed up some of the process. Advertise across campus through Guild, Faculties and Publications like G-News and Pelican, make sure your sponsors advertise the event too.
Preparation
The networking equipment for the LAN was overseen by [TPG], [BOB] and [MRD]. Thanks to them for organising everything a week or two before the LAN with the fibre link between the Undercroft and the clubroom.