Next Lan Numbers

[Riotcoke]

£30 is kind of fanciful, we paid about ~£200 per Euro flight. Prince's fight was the most expensive

It's possible assuming you go Ryan air , and fly to hub airports. £30 might be hyperbolic but you can 100 percent get flights from the UK to Prague at least for roughly £50 return.

I have had some flights sub 30 euros in the past. I've actually done NL - Rome - Catanaia (sicily) - NL for less than 90 euros.

The thing is that for inidivual flights you usually have fluid dates (so you can shift around by a few days to find the cheapest date) plus you get to choose whatever destination is cheap. I usually look for cheap flights to decide where I want to go, instead of the other way around. With the example of my journey in Italy, this was also boosted by the fact that you can choose if you fly to sicily or to rome. Doing it the other way around (NL -> Sicily -> Rome) was actually more than twice as expensive. I did the same thing when I flew to Varna (Bulgarian beach) then to Sofia and then back. Doing it the other way around was much more expensive. I also book with different airlines for the flights and I have the ability to choose between 4 airports for all flights from and to NL and often multiple airports to the destination. So you actually have dozens of options, of which one or two are super cheap. The average price is not nearly as cheap.

This sort of approach is just not possible when planning a community event. At that point you are easily looking at 100+ for European flights. I sometimes have to go to spain (best place to rent an actual villa)where you're limited to only 4-5 destinations (Alicante, Murcia, Malaga, Sevilla basically) and the average I pay for my flights is something like 150-180 for a retour flight. That is after picking from the cheapest airports and picking the cheapest dates possible. The average price to fly to less touristic places (so not to the summer beach but to say Berlin) is quite a bit cheaper, but I think the average retour flight on a set day to a set location might still be ~100 euros.

It all depends on when you fly and where you fly. Hub airports tend to be far cheaper, for example prague is a hub airport hence why it's cheap to fly there. If you fly during the week it's also a lot cheaper. It still goes without question though flying to somewhere in europe is cheaper than to the US which is the main reason i've noted the reason a lan can't happen in the US. As black_duck said trains are also an option for somewhere like the netherlands which i believe is relatively quick to get to from places like Paris, which although not as glamourous as a plane is only 3 hours and is actually £30. Also people tend to book their own flights not in a community sense.

[RefluxSemantic]

I know people book their own flights, but a community event needs a set location and a set date. Which means you lose a lot of flexibility in terms of booking. Even if its a generally cheap location, it might be inconvenient for you or it might be pretty expensive for that time window. You cant easily switch up travel dates either, since you are bound to that one window. I dont think the average price for community members will go below 100, unless you do it in the off season.

Trains are not an option in terms of price btw. Its actually really expensive to go by train.

[Riotcoke]

Well yea off season is the way to go i think, summer is just too expensive due to school holidays which thankfully for the people who play aoe3 doesn't seem to collide so the off season just makes sense for lan, it makes accomodation cheaper, it makes makes travel cheaper and depending on how you run the lan, either by renting out a space specifically for the lan or using accomodation that's already booked, it can make the venue cheaper too.

I'm not 100 percent sure on the train thing btw, but it's honestly £50 to dam from the UK and €35 from paris to dam.

[CuCkO0]

I’m more than up for this. If it happens in another country this time then us UK lot could meet up and be travel buddies.

[I_HaRRiiSoN_I]

for any europeans who was tempted to go to the last lan, if a lan was able to be held etc I would highly recommend it. I would happily fly to anywhere in europe for this. However manchester works again

[Podawe]

As much as I'd like it to be held somewhere in the US (like Lancaster PA) it does make more sense to just have it hosted in Europe since that's where the majority of top players are atm and it's much cheaper to travel within Europe than across oceans.

Also I have never really travelled Europe much (went once when I was a kid for a week to Germany & Austria) so that would be a cool experience. Also I'm sure we could book out a block at a or hotel and get some kind of group discount. I used to work in the hotel industry (and still have connections) so I think just flights would be the most difficult part.

[Riotcoke]

As much as I'd like it to be held somewhere in the US (like Lancaster PA) it does make more sense to just have it hosted in Europe since that's where the majority of top players are atm and it's much cheaper to travel within Europe than across oceans.

Also I have never really travelled Europe much (went once when I was a kid for a week to Germany & Austria) so that would be a cool experience. Also I'm sure we could book out a block at a or hotel and get some kind of group discount. I used to work in the hotel industry (and still have connections) so I think just flights would be the most difficult part.

In terms of accomodation i feel airbnb is possibly cheaper, especially if you go for somewhere like prague where you can get a 6 bed flat in the centre for £40 a night unless you can rent the venue and accomodation in the same place, but yeah overall it's somewhat unfortunate for Americans just that it's far cheaper for the majority.

[Timurid]

prague is probably the value for the buck. someone talk to microsoft to sponsor usa event in Lancaster PA. ffs they are >1trln$ company. few grands is nothing for them!

[RefluxSemantic]

Well yea off season is the way to go i think, summer is just too expensive due to school holidays which thankfully for the people who play aoe3 doesn't seem to collide so the off season just makes sense for lan, it makes accomodation cheaper, it makes makes travel cheaper and depending on how you run the lan, either by renting out a space specifically for the lan or using accomodation that's already booked, it can make the venue cheaper too.

I'm not 100 percent sure on the train thing btw, but it's honestly £50 to dam from the UK and €35 from paris to dam.

Paris is 70 retour, so that's not great for how close it is. I went to south of France by train once and it actually cost me 90 bucks for a single. And this is the part of Europe that is actually properly connected. Going to spain or something would be a pain in the ass because you can't take the TGV. I just looked at tickets to prague and it's also 100 bucks for a retour.

[Snuden]

Benalmadena.

[vardar]

Do it in Malta

[Podawe]

prague is probably the value for the buck. someone talk to microsoft to sponsor usa event in Lancaster PA. ffs they are >1trln$ company. few grands is nothing for them!

Do we have anyone as a liaison to Microsoft? I feel like them sponsoring a LAN tourney would be in their best interest to start to build hype towards the AOE3 DE and AOE4 releases.

[Riotcoke]

prague is probably the value for the buck. someone talk to microsoft to sponsor usa event in Lancaster PA. ffs they are >1trln$ company. few grands is nothing for them!

Do we have anyone as a liaison to Microsoft? I feel like them sponsoring a LAN tourney would be in their best interest to start to build hype towards the AOE3 DE and AOE4 releases.

We actually do, the likelihood is rather low though.

[Podawe]

prague is probably the value for the buck. someone talk to microsoft to sponsor usa event in Lancaster PA. ffs they are >1trln$ company. few grands is nothing for them!

Do we have anyone as a liaison to Microsoft? I feel like them sponsoring a LAN tourney would be in their best interest to start to build hype towards the AOE3 DE and AOE4 releases.

We actually do, the likelihood is rather low though.

So let's give it a shot though! If we pitch it in such a way that shows that it's in their best interest we might get somewhere. These people just care about the $ so we can come from the angle of building a following the will be more likely to buy the new AOE games.

[Snuden]

Benalmadena.

[Timurid]

Show hidden quotes

prague is probably the value for the buck. someone talk to microsoft to sponsor usa event in Lancaster PA. ffs they are >1trln$ company. few grands is nothing for them!

Do we have anyone as a liaison to Microsoft? I feel like them sponsoring a LAN tourney would be in their best interest to start to build hype towards the AOE3 DE and AOE4 releases.

We actually do, the likelihood is rather low though.

So let's give it a shot though! If we pitch it in such a way that shows that it's in their best interest we might get somewhere. These people just care about the $ so we can come from the angle of building a following the will be more likely to buy the new AOE games.

definitely worth a try.