History

Back in the primordial soup that was the beginning of the millenium a bunch of teenage gamers decided to gather at Wincanton Memorial Hall in Somerset with our PC's, piles of network cables, a few switches and a tangle of extension cables. The year was 2001, the internet was full of squealing, monitors were heavy and none of us could drive. Somerset's bring your own computer (BYOC) LAN Party was born. From those humble beginnings we hosted several more gaming events with the help of Gigabits and we called ourselves ShinyLorry because... umm, just because.

From 2004 we decided to call ourselves ShinyLAN to avoid confusion with transport enthusiasts. At the same time many of the original crew went to university all over the country to pretend to learn about things for a bit while mostly getting drunk (with exceptions). Serveral different lovable reprobates stepped up over the years to help organise the events and LANs continued in Wincanton on our usual family unfriendly dates over Easter, August Bank Holiday and Boxing Day. We've had gamers attend from mainland Europe, others who live close enough to the venue to stumble home for a shower and real bed (shame on them). As the years have gone by our LAN Parties have become much more than just a room full of PC's linked up chasing frags. We are a large group of friends and we welcome like minded people to our laid back interpretation of what a LAN Party should be. We pride ourselves on our reputation as the social LAN.

A special mention to previous staff and crew that helped make the LANs happen: Matt (Intim), Rich (Excalibur), Lawrence (Mupet), Chris (Spud) and Ed (EdTheProfet). And much love to all those that attendend over the years, we'll see you next time!