SISU Spring LAN ’22

SISU Spring LAN ’22 is an event organized by HAMK International Business students. Project SISU-module is a part of the second-year studies. SISU Spring LAN ’22 is first of its kind in Valkeakoski, our team is the first one to organize such an event. The team organizing the event consists of 6 students with an interest towards e-sports and gaming. The goal of the event is to organize something fun for our gamer students and also to raise awareness towards E-sports. This article is written by Miika Järvistö and Emilia Lähderinne. The article will also include brief introductions to some of our team members.

The LAN event is meant for HAMK and VAAO students and it is held here in Valkeakoski campus starting on the 23rd of April from 3pm (15:00) and lasting all the way till 24th of April 6am (6.00) so in total 15 hours of gaming. It will be held in the HAMK Valkeakoski B-building, with usage of auditorium and classrooms. There are only 25 spots for players, so the event is still quite small.

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How was the event created?

The event came to be after 6 students showed interest towards E-sports during the team application process. Originally, such an event was not even an option from where we could have chosen from, but our teachers created an extra team for us, so we could organize an E-sports event. The point of the course is to organize an event from start to finish, starting with a budget of 0€, so the team must figure out everything by themselves for example sponsors, marketing, logistics and entertainment (activities in the event).

The team was then divided into smaller groups where everyone had a specific area they were responsible of. As the group was relatively small, most of us had to work two roles. The team was divided into following roles:

• Management was organizing meetings, overlooking the tasks given to different teams and making sure everything gets delivered before the deadlines. Overall, management made sure everything ran smoothly.
• Marketing created all our social media posts and delivered them onwards to people who would then post them in different social media accounts.
• Logistics and Venue designed the venue and worked with security and IT support and overall gathered physical resources required for the event.
• Sales and accounting worked with the sponsors of our event and created the overall budget and made sure we would stay within that budget.
• Entertainment was responsible of planning other activities for the event. In our event this meant that they invited different companies related to esports to have a presentation in our event.
• HR had the responsibility to keep other teams updated on how our event is going and of course manage the working hours of each member.

First, we started looking for a suitable venue, which was not an easy task as an E-sports event requires a specific type of venue to support gaming. After some long discussions and problem solving, we settled on having the event at the campus of HAMK Valkeakoski. As our event has a low budget, this option seemed to be the best one for us. HAMK also has a great internet connection already set up so we would not have to buy a separate service from somewhere else.

After finding a suitable venue, we had to figure out things related to insurances and security of the event and as the event takes place during the weekend and in the nighttime, these two aspects turned out to be really challenging.

SISU Spring LAN ’22 is not all about gaming in one room though. We wanted to have other activities too, so we settled on having presentations about E-sports and gaming overall. So now the visitors have a great opportunity to hear real life examples of E-sports entrepreneurship and marketing. We managed to find a couple of presentations for our event, one being Incoach. Also, our visitors are more than welcome to bring classical board games with them if they so wish.

Sponsors

SISU Spring LAN ’22 would not be possible without a great help from our sponsors; City of Valkeakoski, K-market Vanhakylä, Apiankatu and Sointula (Jarno & Miia Eklund) and Wilson Coffee. We are grateful to everyone who have helped us plan and make everything possible.

K-market: They showed a lot of interest towards this co-operation, and they were willing to support our event and cause and for this we are extremely thankful for.

Wilson Coffee offered to provide us with their amazing coffee products and their coffee will be served for the duration of our entire event. We are also very thankful for their will to work with us and support our event.

City of Valkeakoski was involved in all of the projects from the beginning and was interested of our event. They agreed to sponsor the event and we tried to come up with more marketing solutions together, to benefit us both.

The Team

We gathered a little introduction of some of our team members and you can read them here!

Name: Paavo Saarinen

My role in our event is the Project Manager. This means that I am the leader of the team. In my role I lead, motivate, and control the team. I arrange all of our meetings and be the leading voice in them.

My background in E-sports is not anything special. I started playing some console games such as Call of Duty and FIFA when I was younger. Nowadays I play games such as Valorant or Rocket League with my computer. I use gaming as my getaway from schoolwork and other stress that might be occurring in my life.

Name: Miika Järvistö

I decided to take the role as a logistics and venue manager. I was responsible of the security aspects of the event and designing the venue itself to suit our event. I also took part in marketing activities, meaning that I took over some tasks related to marketing the event.

I have been an active follower of E-sports for quite a while already. I think my first touch with E-sports overall was back in 2014 when Counter Strike Global Offensive was still quite a new game. I became more active follower after 2019 when the Finnish team ENCE reached the finals in the Katowice major, so since then I have been following CS:GO quite closely. I also have gained an interest in racing games in e-sports as I have played such games since I was little. You can usually see me playing CS:GO, racing games or PUBG.

In the past I wanted to play CSGO in a team, not necessarily professionally however, but the dream to play in a live tournament still remains to this day. I would like to work with E-sports also in the future.

Name: Milla Jääskeläinen

My role in the team was sales and accounting. Most important tasks have been trying to find sponsors and partnerships for the event and sorting out our budget.

My spark for being part of organizing this kind of event, comes from my own hobbies, especially gaming. I actively play every day and mostly focus on Overwatch and Valorant. I am also part of up- and -coming international E-sports organization, where I am part of the overall staff and as a coach. We currently have three Overwatch teams, two EU-teams and one NA-team. So, most of my free time goes with working around there or playing some games whenever I have the time.

Name: Emilia Lähderinne

Hey, I’m Emilia from SISU Spring LAN ’22. I’m the head of the HR and Entertainment, I take care of the staff and the people who come to present and market their company in the event. With SISU project I’ve learned a lot about planning an event. There are so many factors to take into consideration, and this is a best learning place, at school you can still make little beginner mistakes before entering work environment.

My gaming background is not that much: first with Nintendo DS, then with PlayStation 4 and now with PC. I have been to couple gaming tournaments, like Red Bull Flick 2021 in Helsinki. Now that I’ve gotten more into the world of E-Sport, I started to follow teams and go in more tournaments. I’m interested of E-Sports and hope to learn a lot, maybe in the future I could be a part of a bigger event.

Conclusion

This event turned out to be a huge challenge for such a small team, especially when we are the first students to organize something like this but this challenge was something we all wanted to tackle together. During the planning process we faced a lot of issues with security, internet, and sponsors. With the help from our amazing teachers Melanie Kirwa, Sanna-Maaria Mäkelä and Simona Chilba we managed to solve most of our problems along the planning and staging process. While also not forgetting the huge amount of help provided by our IT specialist Kimmo Koivula and our Head of Degree Programme Merja Helin.

Now, 2 months later and a few days before the event we have managed to create something we truly believe will succeed and our visitors will enjoy their stay. Even though the event is quite small, we hope that our fellow students would join us to play games and have fun together! This event hopefully works as a basis for future events which could be organized later. We welcome all of you HAMK students to join us!