There are fewer LANs today, big and small, than there ever were before. The research points to why.
Among an estimated 200 million North American gamers.
- 17% had been to an in-person event
- 60% wanted to attend (hadn't been)
- 23% other
In a 2020 survey, 77% of North American gamers wanted to attend in-person esports events as soon as they could; only 17% had ever been. The main reason people gave? Not enough places to go. The gap was access and infrastructure, not desire. We're building LAN.events so one platform can serve both small community nights and big events—same features, same tools, no "small plan" that locks you out of the rest. Here's how we think about it and why it matters.
What makes it tick
We wanted one product that works the same at 60 people and 600. That meant some clear choices.
Same product, every size. A 40-person community night and a 500-person tournament use the same seating, payments, check-in, and registration. We could have built a starter tier and charged more for the full thing. We didn't. You get everything whether you're small or big, and we built it so we're not maintaining two different codebases. One stack, one set of features.
Pricing follows capacity. Under 50 attendees? No platform fee. Above that, the per-ticket fee drops as you grow. The fee comes from your event size at checkout—we don't do separate plans or invoices by tier. We use the data we already have (event capacity, ticket count), so we can offer free under 50 and lower fees as you scale without a bunch of pricing products or manual overrides.
Building features around our customers' needs. One place holds the truth. When someone reserves or releases a seat, everyone viewing that event's chart sees it; no overbooking, no stale views.
Keeping our eye on our core technology. We keep our focus on events, seating, and check-in. Stripe already runs payments at scale; we plug into that instead of building our own. That keeps costs down for you. The gaming space can't carry the R&D for yet another payments platform, and we're not asking you to pay for it.
Keeping costs predictable. We run a small, predictable stack so we can afford a free tier for small events; no sprawling infra, no one-off runbooks. Simple for us, affordable for you.
Shipping with a small team. Automated tests and clear workflows let us keep improving the platform without a huge team. When something changes, tests catch regressions. The goal is one platform that works well at every scale over time.
Why this is strategic for big and small events
Small and first-time events
Free under 50, full platform, no starter tier. We'd rather have more LANs happening than nickel-and-dime new organizers.
Growing events
Your fee follows seat count, not a plan. Set up the event and you know what you'll pay; run a bigger one next time and the per-ticket fee drops. Same platform the whole way.
Large events
Same features, same tools, lower per-ticket fee at the top end. No separate "enterprise" product to learn or pay for.
What the research says
In the 2020 CSL/EEA study (2,200 North American gamers), 77% were interested in attending in-person esports events as soon as possible; only 17% had been before. Many said the problem was lack of nearby facilities. That gap showed up even when in-person events were restricted.
Venues with 600 or fewer seats generated 68% of all event viewership hours between 2018 and early 2020 (2,000+ global events with Newzoo). In-person events generated 2.4x more viewership hours than online-only.
Small venues, big impact
Supporting small and mid-size events isn't a sideshow—that's where most of the action is.
In CSL's 2020–2021 surveys, 42% of gamers said they'd travel at least an hour to an event, 24% at least two hours. Median spend per event was $107 (tickets, food, merch). Top barriers were distance and transport, then affordability. Making it easier and cheaper to run events of any size speaks directly to that.
Why do people show up? Eventbrite's survey of 1,500+ live esports attendees (US and Western Europe, 2013–2014) found 81% came to be part of the gaming community; 54% also went to LAN parties and local meetups.
Community first
The overlap between "esports event" and "LAN" is strong. We want to keep that going.
The long play
Demand is there; attendance has been under-served, and small and regional events drive a lot of the value. We built LAN.events so one platform can serve both small community LANs and large events—one feature set, pricing that scales with size, no ceiling that forces you onto a different product when you grow.
Why we're building
We want more events, more people in the room, and the scene to hold up as the rest of the world goes more digital. We're building infrastructure so the people who run LANs and show up to them have something that works at every scale.
Get started
If you're organizing, create your first event or read payment setup for the step-by-step. If you're attending, browse events and grab a seat.
Ready? Set. LAN.
Sources
- ESA 2024 (US gamer population) — Entertainment Software Association; ~191 million Americans play video games (2024). Used here as a scale for North America. 2024 Essential Facts.
- CSL/EEA 2020 study (North America) — Convention Sports and Leisure International (CSL) and Esports Entry Advisory (EEA); survey of 2,200 gamers (May–June 2020); analysis of 2,000+ global esports events with Newzoo. Reported by SportsPro: Study: 77% of North American gamers keen to attend in-person esports events ASAP.
- Tyler Othen / CSL 2020–2021 (travel and spending) — Esports fan travel and spending surveys 2020–2021. Reported by SportsTravel: Study: Younger Fans More Likely to Travel to Esports Events. PDF: Tyler Othen, CSL.
- Eventbrite "The eSports Effect" (2013–2014) — Survey of 1,500+ live eSports event attendees, US and Western Europe. What Do Gamers Really Want at eSports Events?. PDF report.