Despite arriving in a rushed state to Laugardalshöllin, I actually find I’m early, as the gig area isn’t ready and nobody can enter. To pass the time I decided to check out the attendees. I’m not an internet gamer, and like many, I’ve held some pretty hackneyed stereotypes of what an internet gamer looks like (pasty white, overweight, bad skin, variable hygiene standards, living with their parents at 30), but after a short while I realise that my frankly ignorant views of what makes an internet gamer need to be mended, as the EVE Online fans seemed a ridiculously diverse bunch.
You had the likes of the middle aged American couple, the unfeasibly tall women dressed in cyberpunk fetish gear, the shy Japanese teenagers, a charming bearded Brit known as ‘The Wizard’ who was there with his daughter, and a weird Belgian man sporting a drawn moustache who spoke no English but insisted on giving me free drinks. And there were a lot of men wearing kilts for reasons I was unable to ascertain.
Eventually the concert doors were opened. It was immediately apparent that eve isk CCP know how to organise a concert space. It’s dark and cavernous with the odd area bathed with pools of red and blue neon light, while one side contained a looming raised stage and a sound system that possibly had its own Borg mothership. And that wasn’t counting the THREE bars staffed by people made to look like vampire extras from the ‘Blade’ movies.
After getting a drink, I observed the PartyZone DJs providing the smooth assorted beats between the main acts tonight. From a distance it just looked like two blokes with some decks wandering around aimlessly, but my attention was diverted by a large booth that housed a bewildering display of TV screens and assorted techno gadgetry like it was the CTU hub from ‘24’. It turned out to be the room where they were the live internet streaming of the concert was being hosted. Watching the swooping camera shots of the DJs, they looked gooood, almost handsome even. buy eve isk
