As BYOC LANs have gone on, our audience has also grown and changed over the years. LAN parties used to have a BIG LOUD ROOM with music and colour that would give the whole student-house-come-party feeling, a throwback to the times when you'd decorate the various landings of your house with network cables.

As our audience changes, we get different feedback on the level of music, involvement and general exuberance, so we're going to be doing something different for EPIC38 in the Lakeside Room.

It'll still be lights-out for the usual LAN atmosphere in Lakeside, but the music will be more background and understated than before, providing ambience in the room rather than overpowering chat and play.

We'll still be involving people in games in the room, and we're going to have 'in room projector' games like Jackbox and Geoguessr and so on, but we're going to keep it down a little bit.

We know not everyone will like this new trial in Lakeside, but we've noticed a rising number of social and casual gamers (and, let's face it, our long-attending friends who are getting older!) sitting with their communities and friends in the arena area - which they're welcome to do! - but citing that they prefer the ambience in that area, so we're going to continue to try different things out.