droso — If you tuned in live to VanillaTV last weekend or even caught the VODs later, you would have witnessed a  BLAST victory at InsaLAN featuring some thrilling games in the Upper Bracket and Grand Finals against  LDLC.com.

With that in mind we thought it was a good time to draw back the curtain on the upcoming LANs in France.  As you all know, we usually don’t do a great job of promoting them beyond the French-speaking community and it’s quite rare to see European teams attend such events (with the notable exception of MaxLAN 2011).

Well, we think it’s time to enter a new era: we would love to be able to lure as many foreign teams as possible from now on!  Before I give you all the details about these LANs, I think it would be useful to remind you of the French e-Sport structure.

As some of you may know, “Les Masters Français du Jeu Vidéo” is the biggest LAN organisation in France, with their sights set firmly on becoming the official e-Sport Federation.

This association assigns ELO-style ratings to our LAN events, taking in to account criteria such as the number of estimated players and the organizers experience.  The best LANs get awarded the “Masters Series” label, which has included Gamer’s Assembly, MaxLAN, Spirit LAN, InsaLAN, Azerty Party and PXL, whilst the smaller LANs only get the “800 Series”, “400 Series” or “200 Series” labels according to their relative importance.

Depending on the LAN label and their final position in the brackets, attending teams awarded points over the course of the season, the teams who have accrued the most points get invited to the TUP “Masters” final.

Now, you’ve got to know that all this only concerns French teams, which are defined as teams with at least four French-speaking players; so for the wider community this is not a concern. However, as a European team, nothing prevents you from getting involved with the vibrant French scene and attending these regular LANs which occur several times a year.

Masters Final 2011: TUP tournament 

The next upcoming LAN will be Anjougame 11

      • Date : from 9th – 11th March
      • City : Angers
      • TF2 Slots : 12
      • Entry fee : 30€
      • PC rent : TBA (but probably not or very scarce)
      • Label : 800 series
      • Prizes: 1st – 600€ + hardware ; 2nd – 300€ + hardware ; 3rd – hardware

The event has a really good reputation overall and the organisers have decided to host a TF2 tournament for the first time this year. Currently, the top French teams are planning to attend so we should be expecting a jolly good show!

It’s worth noting that this is one of the biggest event for the European DoD:S community as well since most top most top DoD:S teams (TLR, 3DMAX) attended previous Anjougame.

Look a little further down the road and you will see the biggest French LAN of the year coming in to focus: Gamers Assembly

      • Date: from 7th – 9th April
      • City: Poitiers
      • TF2 Slots : 16 to start with. Up to 24 if the LAN fills itself.
      • Entry fee : 45E
      • PC rent : TBA
      • Label : Master series
      • Prizes : TBA. Mostly Hardware.
      • Transportation : From Barcelona and London, direct flights via Ryanair
      • Sign-up: click here

 

Gamers Assembly stage

Simply put, this is the most prestigious LAN in France, it takes place in the Futuroscope convention Centre which is a truly spectacular venue. More than a simple LAN tournament, this is a huge gaming event with conferences about video games and major publishers attending.

This LAN is definitely affordable for our Spanish, English and German friends and we’d love to see as many as possible there.  At least sixteen French teams are expected to attend and with several Euro mixes and teams showing interest as well, it could turn out to be a European TF2 extravaganza!