b4nnyIn almost all respects, Rewind is a far superior LAN for the TF2 community (PCs provided, production provided, stage provided, free live spectating, cheap travel to LAX, etc). Because we've had nothing except Insomnia for our annual international LANs people have naturally become quite attached, but I think we would be just fine if we had to replace it with an annual international Rewind type LAN. [...] Of course, the more the merrier and the healthier our scene is if we can sustain them both, so I'm still hoping we can make them both successful.
Rewind was great overall and I agree for the most part, but I would like to point out that it was by no means problem free. Yes, there were provided PCs, but ironically, the esports arena was only able to provide PCs with 60hz monitors for the entirety of the open group (aside from those few locals who were able to bring a monitor with them). IIRC, even a few of the invite teams had to scrim on 60hz for the first day because there weren't enough proper monitors. My open team had to play on 60hz up until the grand finals when we decided to just poach monitors from invite teams that had been knocked out before.
That's not even to mention the headache that was having to shuffle from table to table like a game of musical chairs since there weren't enough computers/seats for everyone. And it was near impossible to save demos because in addition to the constant switching of computers, the PCs for some reason wiped all of your data after being restarted.
At i58, the PC rentals provided everyone with proper 144hz monitors & PCs that didn't randomly wipe your data, and there was assigned seating so nobody had to shuffle their stuff from place to place. That's not to say there aren't drawbacks, like the fact that there was no tf2 on the main stage and and the much higher travel costs (also ofc birmingham is no sunny socal), but I think you may be a bit biased since the venue for rewind was literally like 20 minutes away from where you live.