The bus makes it’s last turn after a long..long journey across The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. There it is, right in front of you, the entrance with the big letters of “Elmia” above it. A few minuts later the baggage has been packed out of the bus and you sort out your own stuff and walk towards the big spinningdoors of the entrance.

Once you are inside you see a long row of check-in counters. If you look over the heads of the other visitors (yes, Dutch people are tall so they can look over everyone that is attending Dreamhack) you see a hall with several escalators that go one floor down.

You are being greeted in Swedish at the check-in counter, but if you start talking English, the guys behind the counter look a bit weird towards you, but then they realise that we are some of the foreign people that will attend the event. Handing over your check-in value to the, now normally looking, guy and you get a ribbon in return that will be attached to each other by a second guy which has a special tool for it.
After setting up your stuff at your place in the esportshall, your legs are starting to tingle, because you want to explore the area, wondering why this event has made it to the Guinness World Book of Records.

Going down the escalator of which above a few signs are visible: Hall A, Hall B etc etc. Once you are one floor down you see at the left side a wall of microwaves where you can warm up your own meal.. smart system! Something for the Benelux? Walking further towards the first Hall you notice the sign “PressArea” which go one floor up by stairs. This is something later to see.

When you are going through the doors of the first Hall you notice how big it is, eventhough it is one of the smallest Halls, as big as The party LAN area. At the left you see a huge projection screen where is being projected on of what is going on in the Main Hall. Walking towards the other side of the area you see that there is parked a tank.. a tank? Yes, a tank!

Ah! It is the conventionhall and the army is present to recruit the young gamers with their perfect eye – hand coordination of all the gaming. Walking a bit further you almost fall over the small fence of the Blizzard stand, from this point you got a bit of an overview of the standholders.. MSI on the left, Coolermaster on the right next to Monster Energy etc etc, a convention hall about the size of the gaming area during the “Het Multimedia Event” in The Netherlands. After walking around a bit you walk further towards the Main Hall. After walking across the huge Norton Antivirus stand you see the entrance.

You walk through the doors of the Hall, but you are still not there! After walking down a small corridor you see some escalators that go a floor down. You watch how you place your feet on the escalator to not fall down from it or such and then you look up (or down, it is how you look at it) and wow, amazed by the hall with the size of a soccer field filled with computers that stand on a dressed up tables. You did not expect to see this at all, wow. Full of astonishing you walk around, on the left the huge mainstage, in the middle some sponsorstands or such and on the right the foodcourt and a few chillingarea’s.
After walking around for some time you take a left turn and you walk to a somewhat big corridor, on the left is an exit where you can see that a lot of people are smoking outside, but you take the right turn and walk up the stairs towards the convention hall again. Walking through the other hall and going up the escalators towards the esportshall. Once you are on the right floor again you notice a sign.. DreamArena, well, time to check it out then! Walking down the corridor you see on the right side some ESL presentors that are making recordings for ESL TV. Walking further down the corridor you take a left turn and walk in an area as big as a cinema. All the way down on the stage there are several teams competing each other while the hall is filled with people watching and cheering to the game while they sit back in the relaxing cinemachairs and watching the huge screen behind the players.

Still amazed by the size of this event you walk back to your place to internet/game some, but especially because you have to process everything you have just seen. A LANparty where you can get lost, who would have thought of that? Dreamhack Winter 2009 was awesome, how will Dreamhack Summer 2010 be?