Pittsburgh LAN Coalition

The Pittsburgh LAN Coalition, Inc. (Pittco) is a group of LAN parties in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Pittco was established in December 2003 by a number of well-established, smaller LAN parties looking to combine their efforts to hold large-scale LAN parties.

Pittco Logo

professional American football team.

Event details

The name of Pittco's event is "Iron Storm." The name comes from Pittsburgh's notability as a former steel mill center^{" [citation needed] "}.At its events, Pittco holds tournaments for games including , Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Tournament 3, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, Quake 3, Quake 4, , , and Warcraft III. Attendees often organize unofficial tournaments for games like DOOM 3, Call of Duty 2, and Nexuiz. When a high-bandwidth broadband Internet connection is available, attendees may play World of Warcraft.

Console tournaments also include Halo 3, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Guitar Hero 3, and Dance Dance Revolution. Although not heavily supported with the attendees, it does give an alternative to the computer games played all night long. Iron Storm 8 is the first event that is supporting Halo 3 as its main console event, with prizes being given out.

There are many side events, called "jackass events" by many attendees.

Jackass Tournaments

*Karaoke
*Rap Battle
*Human-powered drag racing
*Red Bull chug
*Red Bull relay
*Freeze head (who can hold their head underwater the longest in the cooler full of ice water)
*Musical chairs
*"Bring me a" go-for contests
*Clamato mini-games

Past Events

Iron Storm is held bi-annually, generally in March and in August.

Iron Storm 1

*February 28-29, 2004 - 120 attendees, held at the Four Points Sheraton by Pittsburgh International Airport

Iron Storm 2

*July 31 - Aug 1, 2004 - 115 attendees

Iron Storm 3

*March 5-6, 2005 - 115 attendees, held at the Ross Township Community Center

Iron Storm 4

*August 6-7, 2005 - 150 attendees, held at the Ross Township Community Center

Pittco Lite

*March 4-5, 2006 - 76 attendees + staff, held at the Beechview Holiday Inn Select; a sudden venue conflict for the scheduled Iron Storm 5 caused a last-minute change of location, and approximately half of the registrants were unable to be contacted

Iron Storm 5

*August 12-13, 2006 - 136 attendees, held at the Castle Shannon Fire Hall

Iron Storm 6

*March 17-18, 2007 - 141 attendees, held at the Castle Shannon Fire Hall

Iron Storm 7

*August 11-12, 2007 - 139 attendees, held at the Castle Shannon Fire Hall

Iron Storm 8

*March 15-16, 2008 - 167 attendees, held at the Castle Shannon Fire Hall

External links

* [http://www.pittco.org Official web site]
* TwitchGuru (Tom's Hardware Guide subsidiary) review of Iron Storm 3 [http://www.twitchguru.com/2005/03/12/iron_storm_3_blows_steel_city_gamers_away/index.html]