Alright, the finals are over, VODs are up, comments are still beeing made and we're all looking forward to the next major LAN event.

I was at the venue on friday and saturday. So I booked a room in Hannover to make sure to watch all the playoffs matches live on stage.

The disappointment was huge, while sitting in the front row for about an hour and watching CS to hold on to a good seat when the playoffs are starting and eventually finding out NONE of the promised matches are beeing played on the stage. So me and my friend walked over to the area where all the pros were playing to find out the ifs and whys. Chance told me the mood (of the players) wasn't the best either and after someone asked Carmac what's up he couldn't seem to give straight answers either. I assume he wasn't happy hisself, so probably some organizers must have screwed up the schedule or Intel called and told Carmac the CS.Female tourney attracts more viewers than unshaved Quake players. But who knows...

So on friday we (some ESRers and random n00bs) were watching the Quake matches from behind the players' backs, which wasn't too bad either, since we could talk to them directly. To my surprise Chance turned out to be quite the nice guy :) He talked to us just as if we're one of his team mates. Thumbs up for this guy!!! [+]

The last relegation matches were over quite quickly and eventually Carmac promised us that EVERY SINGLE MATCH of tomorrow would be shown on the main stage. After that promise me and nBk went off the venue into the next bar to kill the time until tomorrow...

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On saturday we (becks, nBk, kan1, TronicGgG, Anarki320, memento mori, his girlfriend (whose name I forgot) and some others maybe???) were at the stage ON time to secure the first row :)

I brought a big notebook and a highlighter and made signs like these:

becks told 2GD about our little "ESReality meet" sign and you can see us at this VOD at around 05:00 (http://tv.esl.eu/de/vod/22009) (there's a picture as well: http://www.esl-world.net/masters/season4/hann.../50858950/ and here: http://www.esl-world.net/masters/season4/hann.../50860080/) (later on I made it on screen while holding up my favourite sign: http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/3444/coollerbabies.png ^^)

During the av3k vs Cooller match the hall became more and more crowded. And by the second semi final match (Cypher vs rapha) there was no more seat empty and the people began to sit down in front of the stage. But only a few of them. Most of them were standing.

With the Grand Final coming up the entire hall was about to explode every second. The problem was, that between the seats and the big stage there was a huge hallway separating these two from each other. That lead into us (and a dozen more rows behind us as well) not beeing able to see the big screens anymore. We got really annoyed and told everyone in front of us to bugger off. That didn't help much, as one can imagine (Keep in mind that there were thousands and thousands of people...). We told 2GD a few times to tell them via the stream to have a seat, but I guess most of them didn't really get what Jay tried to tell them, because of lack of english knowlege :(

But then there was a man. A little man, who ran like a maniac through the masses for quite some time to tell EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM to have a seat (please). To everyone's surprise after less than 60 seconds ALL OF THEM were sitting down and the mood changed quickly to a "there's something huge gonna happen very soon, so be quiet, sit down and enjoy"-feeling.

That man was no less than Chance Lacina! Thank you very, very much for that, Chance! You do have your very own fanclub now!

The final was awesome. I was cheering for Cooller, but applauded for every good frag (of course). I haven't been to alot of LAN events, but this saturday final matches and Joe & Jay AND the huge crowd was just an awesome feeling. It felt so intense when everyone was "wowing" when Cooller made the last frags on dm13. It gave me goose bumps when rapha held up the trophy, surrounded by a thunderstorm of flashing cameras. Yeah, it was pretty cool, if you don't mention the fucked up friday, some technical problems, lame noobs running around in front of the seats during matches and these shitty tech talks (yeah, I know it's the sponsor 'n shit).

Thanks Carmac for bringing us Quake.
Thanks Chance for beeing a nice guy and rescuing the final!
Thanks neok for charging my phone.
Thanks becks for the Beck's ;)
Thanks id-software for the game.

/e: and of course, thanks to the tournament admins (especially xou and rondrian) ;)
/e2: thanks 2GD for the shirt :D