Multiplay announces Insomnia is moving to the NEC

Multiplay, the gaming server provider and host of the multiple-yearly-Insomnia gaming festival and LAN parties, has announced that with its next event, the winter LAN, it will be moving from its current home at Coventry's Ricoh Arena, to Birmingham NEC. This will allow it to fit in more gaming space, more booths and perhaps most importantly for some, more parking spaces.

“It is with a huge amount of excitement that we can today announce that with the support of GAME the Insomnia Gaming Festival will be moving to the NEC Birmingham for our upcoming Winter event, Insomnia56,” said Multiplay in a statement on its site.

This is the second venue move in as many years for Insomnia, which until 2014 was located at the Telford International Centre, where it began operations in 2011. While the Ricoh Arena offered more space initially, that was only possible because the Coventry City football team were unable to use the pitch, so Multiplay had all of that extra space to work with.

However when the team came back to using the grass, suddenly a huge portion of the Insomnia events had to be moved into the carpark, beginning the issues with getting to the event.

While this is no doubt a good move for the iSeries, not everyone is happy. The announcement was made during the i55 LAN that took place this weekend past, where we spoke to a few gamers about the news. Some of them had already pre-booked hotels in Coventry for the Christmas LAN, after Multiplay “confirmed” the dates a few weeks before. They're now out of pocket.

It's unknown if any of them will be able to move their hotel bookings to the same chain in Birmingham instead.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: This is a move that absolutely had to be made, but considering the Christmas LANs are typically smaller than the big summer ones, it feels like Multiplay could have made the move next year instead, or at least given people more warning. 

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