A small contingent of Gamestah was asked to head down to the expo this weekend in Melbourne. EJ, BoB, Rogue and I had the pleasure of rocking the expo and over the weekend we weren’t let down in terms of fun and excitement.

For those of you who are to lazy to read my pervious article on the first day of the expo, I’ll briefly fill you in on the details as to what the expo was. Basically the eGames & Entertainment Expo was a chance for all gamers, computer lovers, console players, online gamers and anyone else interested in electronic entertainment to go down and check out all the latest technology in everything. Starting with one of the biggest things of the year the Nintendo Wii, to all the latest in pc/console games, numerous computer parts manufactures and various other things this event had something for almost everyone. Gamestah's involvement at the event was to run the eSports zone along with Team Immunity manager Sentinal. This consisted of getting people from the public involved by allowing them to play all the latest pc titles on the Intel computers. We were also there to commentate all of the action as Team Immunity faced off against other teams over the weekend in CS 1.6.

After the Friday we knew that there would be a lot in store on the following Saturday. Walking into the event the crowd had already began to line themselves up along the hallway in anticipation of the expo opening at 9:30 for a 10:00 start. We headed over to the eSports Zone and began getting ready for the masses to arrive. The main job for the day was to shoutcast Immunity playing teams who had qualified to get to the expo. We also had a finals match between two teams who had been playing lead up qualifiers to the event, these two teams would be playing for prizes as well as a chance to take on Immunity in CS 1.6. EJ & BoB were there for every match and thrilled the crowds with their unmatched CS commentary. I would say looking back on it now that they would have pulled around 100 solid listeners every match who would stop and watch a few rounds on the big plasma TV’s, with the majority of them staying around for the whole match. During this time there would have also been 200+ people who would walk past and catch a glimpse of the match and stop to take a look. So it would be an understatement to say that EJ & BoB were stopping crowds. Of course we also had the die hard 1.6 fans who lined themselves up against the walls of the eSports Zone just so they could watch the iM players monitors to get a little insight into how the best in the business do it. We also had an intense match of Fight Night on the Xbox 360 between two of the biggest Xbox groups in the community. Rogue and I were the ones who brought the action to the public and funnily enough quite a crowd built up to watch the players throw punches at each other. Towards the end of the day we hooked up some 5v5 F.E.A.R. battles. Hosted again by Rogue and myself, the public enjoyed seeing a different game used for competitive play. Later that night the Gamestah crew headed off to the casino for a few drinks with some friends, these stories are not to be discussed.

After the huge success of the Saturday no one really had any idea what to expect again on the Sunday. Well, as a credit to the organizers, the same amount of people if not more rocked up to check it all out. Again we were over running the eSports Zone, but today would prove to be somewhat different to the other two as today we had an enormous amount of prizes to give away. So we decided to start proceedings off some Call of Juarez 6 player DM. With the person who came first each time, all selected from the public, winning themselves a prize. The prizes varied from a brand new copy of the game Call of Juarez, to an XFX pack consisting of a bunch of goodies, t-shirts, caps and many other random bits an pieces. Now with gameop extraordinaire Landers on the team and helping proceedings we were quickly able to jump from Call of Juarez to the yet to be released game War of Worlds. This game proved very popular as more public were selected to play DM, again with the winner taking prizes. I would say one of the best parts of the day was when we got War of Worlds cranking for the first time and the developer of the game walked past, only to see his game being shoutcasted by EJ and Rogue. We couldn’t wipe the smile off his face as he chatted with EJ to the public about his new game. We then rustled up the Immunity guys again and decided to have the Community vs. Immunity in CS 1.6. A huge lineup of around 50 people formed as everyone wanted to get their hands dirty against the top Australian team. They finished up the day playing in a finals match against No Justice and ended up taking the match out. Our own BoB was on the main stage for the panel to talk about eSports and its future; apparently he did a bang up job. Eventually the day had to end and as soon as it finished, almost everything was packed and out 2 hours later.

On behalf of myself and Gamestah I just want to thank everyone who came down to the event and said hello to us, it was great to see so much support. I would also like to thank EJ, BoB and Rogue for doing a superb job the whole time. Sentinal for getting the gig for us in the first place and without him there we would have been completely lost. Although I do remember him driving us home on the Saturday night and it taking a good 1.5 hours to get somewhere which was 45mins away, I think he was a little lost. There were numerous other guys who help us out over the weekend; Harry, one of the hardest working, if not the hardest working guy at the event. Lawrence and Rob the Xbox 360 guys for helping us out whenever we needed it, Landers for popping down and doing a top job on the Sunday, all the Immunity guys who help us out with technical problem whenever we needed it and just to everyone who was involved with the eSports Zone. Everyone over there did a tireless job and it worked wonders in the end.  

All in all this event was probably one of the best events I've ever been apart of, let alone attended. All the organization was top notch and everyone there conducted themselves in a professional and helping manner. I congratulate all who were apart of it.

Guys if you didn’t get down there this time and this same event pops up again, I would halt all plans and get to it, this year was awesome and it can only get better from here.

Sacrifice out.