NARPs are one of the greatest things I got from Dtoid, I've been hosting them for 4 years now and we've had about 15 EuroNARPs. The number only goes up with the summer edition, in betweens are decimal numbers like 2.5, 2.6 etc. Since we can always use more people doing NARPs, especially this side of the ocean, here's a short introduction to how to host a NARP.

1. What is a NARP?

NARP stands for No Apparent Reason Party. It's kind of like a LANparty, but instead of using PC's, which are mostly single-player-devices, we use consoles. The benefit is that most of the time you'll have to get to know the people to get to play, as a result, everyone goes home with a bunch of new friends :-)

NARPs come in any shape/size you want them to be, we're lucky to have a dedicated location for EuroNARPs, but you can just as easily do it in your own home/dorm/garage/garden! Which brings us to the most important part.



2.Location, Location & Location!

As with all things in live, the most important part is having a place to do it. We're really lucky to have Teh Lair ( see first part of article ) but as said before you don't have to have something over-the-top like that :-)

There's just a few things that you need to think about...
- Gamers/Games are generally pretty loud, so if you're doing a 3-day-NARP like we do, warn your neighbors before it happens or find a place where neighbors aren't an issue ( we're "hidden" in a small forest in the middle of an industrial site, surrounded by factories :p )
- Seats!!! Make sure you have enough seating available or ask people to bring their own foldable chairs, nothing sucks more then having to stand up for hours on end...
- Powah!! This might seem logical, but it can be trickier then you think, lots of TV's & consoles together use an awful amount of power so make sure you're using different circuits in your location. We didn't have power until friday afternoon 2pm even though we were there since wednesday. Or to be correct, we had too much power, 400V iso 220V :p

Also, if you do a multi-day-NARP like us, you'll need to provide people with a place to sleep, we set up a campingground in our forest during the summeredition and use the available seats & floorspace in Teh Lair when it's too cold for that.


next up...



3.Games!

You can't have a gaming-festival without games, but which ones? Well, I believe any game is ok and welcome at a NARP, but logically MP-games are the most interesting.

our 2-player-racing-area ( farthest one is on a triplle-screen :-) )


MarioKart NGC ( Wii version is too easy! )


Worms:


if you read through the recaps of our previous events, you'll find some good tips on which games to play, the alltime classic for any EuroNARP at Teh Lair is "Mashed" on the regular XBOX ( Track: Polar Wharf Weapons: Chaos Airstrike:ON ) this one track gets played more then ANY game ever played at any EuroNARP ( it's what's being played on the beamer up there :-) )



4.Catering

This kinda depends on the size & location of your NARP, we're once again lucky to have someone like Strikeman who is a master of the BBQ. We also have deal with our local liquor-store that we can take along as much beer as we want and then return whatever is unopened ( per package of 24 of course ). Finally we made a deal with the local bakery a few years back, and he delivers our breakfast around 7am when most of us go to bed, so we can get up at 11am for breakfast and more games :-)

On nights where we don't provide food for all, we generally make 1 big order at the local pizza place and they'll deliver it since we order so many pizza's, as most gamers don't make too big a deal about this, there's generally nothing to worry about :-)



5.People

1. Get in touch with your local city-group ( or create one if needed ) e.g.: DtoidEurope via their blog
2. make sure it appears on The Dtoid Meetup-page
3. invite friends over, it might make them new dtoid-fans :-)



6.Rules

We have a few rules to make life at the NARPs easier for everyone.

1. Gaming takes precedence over ANYTHING: watching a movie on the PS3 but somebody wants to try out MOVE? too bad for you, Gaming Goes First!
2. Multiplayer >>> Singleplayer: trying out the MOVE on PS3 but a few people wanna play a 4-player-game of COD-splitscreen? Move over mate :-)
3. No sleeping in the couches unless it's too cold to sleep in the tents ( aka don't take up gaming-space if you just want a quick nap :p )

Now, go forth, host & visit NARPs!