Nymthae — So last year Multiplay announced a move from the Telford International Centre. Their new home is not too far away, in Coventry. Insomnia51 was the first lan to be held at the Ricoh Arena.
The whole event went pretty smoothly, especially for a new venue. It is important to remember that ticket sales were capped to around 1600 BYOC gamers so this event was not running even near full capacity. I’m not exactly sure how they’re intending to expand, although I heard words about using the pitch space. TF2 TENT REBORN.
I’m hoping this article will serve as a bit of an FAQ for i52. All prices listed may be subject to change.
Parking
Parking was pretty decent at the Ricoh. However, I felt parking was sufficient at Telford until the summer events were getting out of hand.
The stadium has two car parking areas designated next to the stadium itself, to which weekend festival pass holders were directed. Another car park looked to be over a footbridge, with a fourth over the road a bit further up. The day pass visitors were directed towards these further car parks.
As the venue is a football stadium I’m going to assume they should be better equipped to deal with the larger volume of cars that the summer events bring.
Parking at the Ricoh
Accomadation
This is my biggest gripe about the new venue. TIC had an abundance of hotels next to and nearby. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the Ricoh Arena. They have blocked out the bookings again I imagine, so wait for an announcement about release.
DeVere Hotel – £50/night
This is the onsite hotel. It looked nice, and I haven’t heard any complaints. I probably haven’t heard any complaints because I haven’t even heard anyone with a room. I think they have around ~120 rooms, but then minus rooms for management staff, some volunteers and some exhibitors. The amount of available rooms must have been ~70. The phone lines were jammed, and in summary it was an absolute cock-up.
Novotel – £50/night single, £56/night double
After I’d stopped raging at the DeVere mess I went ahead and booked to stay here. The hotel was about a 15 minute walk from the venue. The distance is similar to that of the Premier Inn at Telford, but it felt longer – maybe because it was a straight road for the most part. The hotel was clean and generally what you’d expect from a reasonable chain. The shower was very good. I had a double room, which when I walked in, consisted of a double bed and a double sofa bed already made up. As long as you’re up for some good spooning then it’s an ideal set up for four people sharing. Floor space was limited so I’m not sure you’d quite get anybody else in there without it being a bit of a pain, but that’s up to you. It also costs £4 to park your car there for the weekend/whole stay. I parked at the venue and just walked…
Britannia – £49.50/night, £57.50 for exec/night (?), taxi £10-£12
I don’t know much about this hotel, other than my friends likening it to something out of The Shining. They didn’t seem too pleased overall.
Indoor Sleeping – £20/event
Basically entitles you to some floor space in a room. The room was only open 11 pm – 11 am due to health and safety. Bring ear plugs.
Camping – £20/event
This is no longer free. The camp site looked a bit of a mess, and many people have commented on how uneven the ground was. The ground was hard and it wasn’t a surprise if your tent pegs hit some rocks or metal when you tried to dig them in. They were planning to dig up the ground and do something about it before the event but this decision only came ~3 weeks before the event so it never got done. However, the word is that it will be sorted before the next event so not to worry, apparently! There was a burger van by the campsite and it was pretty close to Tesco (i.e. half way between the arena itself and Tesco). Camp site access by wristbands only.
I saw a block of porta-showers nearby just by the arena and apparently they had opened one of the gates into the stadium for people to access the fixed (communal) showers in the changing areas. People seemed happy with those.
There’s a free shuttle bus that serves the arena and a couple of the hotels. Probably worth using that on a morning if you can, but again it doesn’t run that late into the night so you will probably need taxis.
Yay, camping!
Food
On-site
The masses seemed to agree with the food here, more than they ever did at Telford. The quality was generally better, although occasional bits were either a bit cold or the bread a bit stale. The things I didn’t have problems with were pretty delicious. Nachos and chilli, mmm.
The ‘street food’ sections had: Italian (pizza, basically), American (burgers, pulled pork), Mexican (nachos), Chinese and British (sausages). The majority of items were £4-£6, with the pizzas being £7. I thought the range of food kind of sucked a bit. They didn’t seem to have chips or wedges, which surprised me. There were some paninis available, but they were just pre-packaged stuff and somewhat disappointing, although perfectly edible. Most of the food is pre-cooked and kept warm. Service was usually very quick. The online ordering (foodplay) was put in place at the last minute and things arrived very quickly through there too. You can find the menu on the Multiplay forums still.
There’s a Costa on the ground floor as you go into the venue, and the tuck shop still does ice cream (£1.50). They did a breakfast box which I heard good things about.
Off-site and nearby
Next to the arena is a sort of shopping complex. This has a Pizza Hut, Frankie and Bennie’s, and Chiquito. There’s also a Gregg’s and a Subway. The most useful place of course is the Tesco Extra. It pretty much sells everything. Handy petrol station here for your departure too.
There’s a Decks café over by the Tesco and it’s so good. They offer a carvery for £6 which everybody has been raving about. I went over there to get a Subway which was closed, but turns out Decks have a craft your own sandwich option. The bread was very fresh, and fantastic chicken. Would buy again.
You can order whatever you like on to the site. That delicious Dominoes that TIC had a mare about? No problem! Plus, you can also grab whatever local Chinese/Indian/other takeaways from online.
Exhibition
Much like the last couple of events: lots of minecraft. I wouldn’t say there was anything that caught me as super exiciting or different from previous events. Stuff like the board games were here, some bits to play on, and random stalls to buy stuff. For those of you who remember Mr Peckerston he could be found in the indie zone showing off the game he’s been working on. It was good!
Some people found great pleasure in minecraft
Stage area and bar
To get to the stage you had to go outside which was a bit of a nuisance. More of a nuisance when it’s raining, and perhaps if you’re not so keen to walk through a wall of smokers every time you want to head down there.
The room itself had only the stage area and the seats for the audience. To me it felt more intimate (and consequently a little bit less epic than the area they had set up for i49). I do think it will be a fantastic atmosphere though. I popped down to the DotA 2 final, surprised to find a large crowd who were making a lot of noise.
The stage was on the way to the main bar, but as there was an abundance of bars around the event then it wasn’t necessary for everybody to walk down here. I think that loses a few of the impromptu stops at the stage. I did stumble on some hilarious Just Dance happening on Friday on my way down there though.
Bar 87 was the ‘main’ bar. It was pretty nice. They had a projector screen up with the main stream on there and some small monitors that were impossible to watch MOBA games on. Service at the bars was typically very good until just before the pub quiz, when they clearly couldn’t cope.
There’s a drinks list on the Mutliplay forums with prices, but things are basically very similar to what they were at Telford i.e. £4/pint.
Work that crowd!
GAMING HALLS
As a gamer you have a choice between the Jaguar Hall and the Eon Lounge.
The Jaguar Hall was on the ground floor. It is a pretty standard lan hall. There is a bar by the entrance to it, and the hot water urns and microwaves live in here by the helpdesk. The entrance to this hall was close to all the hustle and bustle from people going to the ale bar just outside of the hall and the food area. The atmosphere seemed fine inside the hall for the most part, but I’m unsure if those near the entrance ever got annoyed at it.
The Eon Lounge is on the second floor of the building. There are two escalators to go up to the second floor, and none to go back down. There’s a lift, which is obviously a good idea when you’re packing up and down but err, yeah the stairs got a bit annoying. The hall itself was nice, and personally it felt a bit calmer from being away from the exhibition crowds drifting. It even had carpet – luxury! There were a couple of large screens with the main stream on in here too, which apparently the other hall didn’t have. I found them quite handy at times, just to see what was happening over on the stage because it was otherwise so far away. The hall had two bars, although only one of them was in use. They only have bottles up here though so if you need things on draught you have to make the effort to go down the stairs again.
Both halls had air conditioning, although they were clearly confused as to what temperature they needed sometimes. I wasn’t particularly prepared for the arctic when I packed my lan bag. The temperature itself probably wasn’t that bad but the chill factors from the air just lead to frozen fingers. They fixed it around ~Friday 7pm, and then messed it up again by Sunday evening somehow. I suspect this is easily fixed by next time!
Each hall had some security on the door checking wristbands to avoid the minecraft kids sitting on people’s PCs again. The guy on the Eon Lounge door couldn’t have looked any more bored.
MISCELLANEOUS
Rental PCs
No rental PCs were available at i51. It is extremely unlikely they will offer them for i52 so I would make alternative arrangements. Arrangements are being made for Americans/Australians. Sorry about that ;(
You’ll probably need a weekend pass if you want to stay for the evenings. They seemed to actually pay some attention to restricting those with tickets that expire at 6 pm, compared to previous years. I guess it’s to limit the loitering day visitors from minecrafty things.
Casino
What it says on the tin. There’s even a cash machine with free withdrawals ;)
TAKE MY MONEY
i52 Tickets
On sale now, yo! 20% discount until June 2nd (9 am).
tl;dr – accommodation is shit, everything else is similar or better than TIC, come to i52
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2014-04-23 by Nymthae.
Recovered from the Internet Archive (archived copy) as part of tf2esports.com's preservation of VanillaTV's TF2 coverage. The original site is no longer online. All rights remain with the original author; reposted for historical reference.