fl0m on hosting his first LAN: "Just being able to say I did it was the most important thing"

Jeffrey “Mnmzzz” Moore talked to Erik "fl0m" Flom after the conclusion of the fl0m Mythical LAN grand final between M80 and NRG. fl0m discussed building a strong community environment, working with other talent, and the potential for another LAN with new ideas.

Below is a full transcript of the interview. All questions and answers have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling after hosting your first LAN event?

I’m a bit tired, obviously. Three long days, two and a half long days we’ll say. Dinko and moses carried me most of the way. Having the tech issues in the grand finals was a little unfortunate, but for the first one it’s part of the course. Having those two next to me and having the team that we did handle it was really nice.

That moment was actually one of the most fun moments for me because you get to see everything that you’ve built throughout the weekend all come to one moment. You see the admins handling what they’re supposed to, production is working the crowd, the casters are with me helping to keep the moment entertaining.

That was the moment for me where I got to see everything come together all in one. That was, funny enough, why that tech pause for the game felt the most special.

Tell me about the journey to finally host your first LAN event?

I feel like we have really polished LANs and we have Fragadelphias, with no disrespect to sasquatcH. Those events have their place, we have the crowds, we have LANs, but we don’t have this intimate venue/experience where we’re building the community together. It’s like, hey come watch this show. BLAST Austin Major was incredible, but we were all there watching a show.

This is more, we’re here together watching Counter-Strike and that was what I was trying to create.

How does it feel as a consistent streamer to watch a LAN with so many people that has your name on it?

It was pretty nerve-wracking. When we were going over how we’re gonna do ticket sales, the pricing and all that, everybody kept telling me I was lowballing it. I wasn’t sure, you never really know as a streamer. When I go to events, my meet and greet lines are incredible, especially in Austin. That was a pretty surreal experience; I kind of felt like a celebrity for an entire weekend.

With this, I wasn’t sure. This is new, you talked about it. Nobody’s ever done this before. The first time I ever co-streamed, nobody co-streamed before. The first time I’ve done this event, I feel like this has never really been done before in the way that we’ve done it. Obviously, there’s been Beyond the Summit, but you never had fans there. Especially as a streamer, there’s no streamer that I know of that’s really putting on this style of event.

There’s some things that are similar, but I feel like I’ve found a good way to carve things out in my own way. The answer is, it was surreal to have real people here. I wasn’t really sure what to expect; I just knew that if I did it, I would feel fulfilled. Just being able to say I did it was the most important thing.

What’s it like working with moses and Dinko, a top talent duo in world Counter-Strike?

I like those guys, but I don’t think I’d say it’s surreal to sit next to them. Not to insult them, but we’ve been together before. We’ve chatted before, that kinda thing. The interesting thing was more them walking me through and the challenge of me being a broadcast talent, but also still being the Twitch streamer who’s also still hosting the event. That’s where it was kind of fun in trying to balance those things.

I still have a lot to learn. They helped me a lot and carried me in so many different ways. Without them, it wouldn’t have been possible. With all those things, I’m happy, I’m content with what I was able to bring to it. Without them, it wouldn’t have been possible.

Are you proud of the environment you were able to build for the fans around your Twitch channel?

Yeah, absolutely. Shout out to my manager, Sam. He was a big part of how all of this came together and he’s really the glue that kind of put the production with the staff on the stage, with me, with the casters. He was kind of the glue that put all that together and little things like needing signs. Sam was making sure my ass was running around all of Vegas to make sure I had the signs for the people.

Those types of little details kind of culminated into something that felt really special that was there. That was something we did focus on; we wanted it to be something where, yes you’re at a smaller LAN, but let’s have fun with it.

What are your thoughts on this LAN being a celebration of the North American scene rather than something with other regions in it?

Part of having a little more polish and a fan experience is the invite system. Yes, qualifiers are cool, but once again we kind of get that with Fragadelphia already and I’m trying to do new things. I’m not trying to one-up Fragadelphia, I’m not trying to be in that lane. I want to be in a different lane.

I do have a vision where if I were to run another, hypothetically, this is not an announcement, I do have ideas in my head that would include other regions. The main focus would still be North America. That’s kind of how I want to build things, maybe this was a little tribute to Beyond the Summit and we expand on that and give a nice little tribute to North American ESL Pro League.

Are you open to hosting another fl0m LAN after your experience this weekend?

I’m a little tired, but yeah even while being pretty exhausted right now, if I can run another one I will. I’ve told everybody the entire time, the bigger I get, the more I do, the more I’m going to try to do. Hopefully now, with this event, people start to believe me a little bit more when I say those types of things.