This begins a series of interviews, conducted by GotFrag, showcasing some of the people involved in the EverLAN Winter 2006 National Invitational Tournament taking place in Denver Colorado this coming weekend. The first interview in this series is with none other than the "master of ceremonies" if you will, EverLAN|Baker.

 GotFrag - Please introduce yourself and your affiliation with EverLAN.

My name is Brandon "Baker" Keever, and I'm the Event Coordinator, and NIT Tournament Director.

GotFrag - Can you give our readers a short history of EverLAN please?

EverLAN started off in October of 2001 by Andrew "Everman" Soeldner and a group of like-minded people, who wanted a semi-large event in the Colorado area. Everyone really enjoyed attending events like the CPL and Quakecon and really wanted one closer to home.

We started in the Spring of 2002 with our key prize being an unreleased video card from Nvidia, and then progressing to a new venue in Summer 2002. For Winter 2002 we were fortunate enough to be chosen as one of the 4 national qualifiers for the CPL Winter 2002. Winter 2002 was also our first event with ATI as a major sponsor, and they have backed us ever since.

Summer 2004 was our first event that allowed us on the National stage, and we hope Winter 05 continues to not disappoint.

GotFrag - What happend with the cancellation of the last EverLAN event?

It was more of a postponement than a cancellation. EverLAN depends a great deal on sponsorship participation in order to plan and implement first class events. The Summer 05 event saw two major sponsors pull support due to internal reasons and market conditions. Given that situation, there was nothing to be done but postpone the event.

GotFrag - EverLAN has switched to an Intel sponsorship this time around from AMD in previous events. Can you tell us how and why the Intel sponsorship came about?

Oftentimes, a company's ability to sponsor an event depends on more than just their interest in the market. There are several factors that are taken into consideration when a company looks for marketing opportunities. Some of those factors include timing, product cycle, market conditions and internal budget constraints. The timing was right for Intel to support this event, and we are proud to accept their involvement.

GotFrag - Why CS Source for the NIT this time around?

EverLAN has always ran the latest in software, and while admittedly 1.6 is a different game than Source, I still feel Source is the way to go. Based on our registration numbers & pre-payments comparing Summer 04 and Winter 05, I will have a good chunk more teams for the source tournament than I received for the 1.6 tournament at the past EverLAN.

Summer 04, I ran an $18k purse 1.6 tournament, and we had 14 teams on site. While there were some issues involving that, such as cash prize payouts, and the fact that all of the 14 were top teams, we ran into an issue filling the bracket. Currently we have 27 prepaid teams for this years NIT, so I'm excited to see Source get another high profile tournament.

GotFrag - Based on the present indications, are you satisfied with the decision to use Source and will you consider it again for the next event?

As I stated earlier, I think EverLAN, specifically for choosing Source, I wouldnt have seen a change in pre-pay numbers for 1.6 versus Source. If the tournament goes well, and the competition is as tight as early indications show, then we will look at running another Source NIT in the future.

GotFrag - We have heard you say this event is centered around fun for the BYOC first with a NIT added. Can you explain what it is that makes EverLAN more about fun than most large events of this nature?

With EverLAN Summer 2004 being our first 'major' national event, we sat down as a collective staff and decided which direction we were wanting EverLAN to head. We like how the CPL runs smooth tournaments with worldwide exposure, but their BYOC seems to be merely a staging ground for the tournament, and the atmosphere in the BYOC always seems subdued. On the other end of the spectrum, we love the way Quakecon puts a heavy emphasis on fun events for the BYOC, while still offering tournaments.

So, we decided to run our tournaments with a professional manner, but keep our byoc fun filled and maintain a party atmosphere. There is a huge list of other things you can be doing rather than playing games, although the key reason you're there is to play games. I realize that $21,000 is a lot of money, and that each team is spending a lot of money to attend and compete, but at the end of the day, you play games to have fun, and that is something we are trying to showcase at EverLAN.

GotFrag - GotFrag will be providing live comprehensive web coverage of the event with live scoreboards, scorebots, Source TV, stats, picture galleries, interviews and more. ITG will be shoutcasting the event and video to be provided by Mania TV. Can you tell us more about ITG and Mania TV coverage of EverLAN Winter 2005?

Radio ITG will be providing their amazing shoutcasting skills not only for our NIT tournament, but doing coverage of basically everything that is occuring at EverLAN. They were our shoutcasting partner in Summer 04, and we don't see replacing them in the future.

Mania TV is a new media partner of EverLAN. They are an Internet TV station based out of Denver, and will be shooting some segments for their Arcade TV show. We are excited about this new partnership, and we can't wait to work with them at our future events.

And personally I am excited to see Gotfrag attending again. I enjoy the coverage your group of writers provides, and I am anxious to see EverLAN happen and what you write about it.

GotFrag - How personally did you get to this point in promoting such events? What would you like to do with it in the future and what are some future goals for you and EverLAN?

I am by no means the only person assisting in the design, planning, and implementation of EverLAN. We have a solid group of staff members who are great at what they do, who assist EverLAN in running like a well oiled machine.

But me personally, I have been involved in game administration since I was a CS admin with CAL, and moving up the ranks to second-in-command of the league. I then attended the CPL to help administrate the CS tournaments and loved seeing "big name" teams attend and compete and I wanted to bring that type of a tournament to EverLAN; so I proposed the idea of a NIT to Everman and the rest of the staff, and was given the go ahead for a $5,000 tournament at EverLAN Winter 03, it was such a huge success that we extended it to $18k for Summer 04.

As stated above, Summer 05 was more of a postponement than a cancellation, I hope Winter's NIT is a success and I hope to see some awesome matches.

As for the future, I see big things in EverLAN's future. We already have some other events planned for 2006, and we hope to make another splash on the national scene.

GotFrag - The announcement of Team 3D's attendance of EverLAN has definitely cast a new twist, if you will, to the NIT. Are you guys at EverLAN excited about having them and also the top Source teams in North America competing in the event?

3D is always a blast to hang out with, I've known them since my time at the CPL. Them attending adds another act, if you will, to this Source soap opera we are currently living in. All of the professional 1.6 teams do not wish to play source, so the source teams are currently excelling in this new game and are awaiting a tournament such as EverLAN in which to showcase their skills, then a 1.6 powerhouse decides to attend. Will be interesting to see how it plays out. =]

As far as the rest of the teams, they not only have to look out for 3D, but they have to look out for the other teams as well. If the teams who currently have their spots paid for show up, this should be an amazing, nail biter of a tournament.

GotFrag - We have heard about some surprises that might be coming at EverLAN. Would you like to give our readers something they might not know about what could be happening?

Surprises are just that - surprises! =]

GotFrag - Do you still have time to play anything? What game do you play if any and is it possible we could could see Mr. Baker in a pug or something of that nature in the BYOC?

At EverLAN I'm usually running around doing various things until the tournaments end for the night, so you dont catch me playing games often at the event. But during offtimes, and at home, I enjoy playing most FPS's, but mostly CS and Quake 4. When not playing them, I enjoy playing World of Warcraft.

GotFrag - Thank you very much for everything, any last words before this tournament kicks off?

Beyond thanking Everman, ATI, Intel, and the rest of our sponsors & staff for allowing this to happen, I would like to extend a personal thank you to the CSS staff writers at Gotfrag, the admins, moderators, and forum trolls at the CAL forums, and everyone who tossed me a message showing support and offering help for this tournament. These people have allowed me to build this little rocketship and get it onto the launching pad, now its time to see it fly.

Good luck to all teams attending!

 Full GotFrag coverage of EverLAN Winter 2006 can be found here.