So its taken almost a week for me to finally get back to full normal operating capacity after the amazing weekend in Nottingham for #EVE_NT's 5th Event at the Antenna Media Centre. It was such a joy to get together with old friends and meet so many new ones.
Festivities kicked off earlier than scheduled on the Friday afternoon with people arriving before the opening of the doors. By the time 20:00 rolled round the party was already getting into full swing and people were having such a great time we didn't even manage the pub quiz and everyone pretty much ignored the movie! As space friends mingled and caught up while also meeting a lot of new commers to the event while enjoying a drink (or twelve). Indeed the staff at the venue were completely unprepared for the vast amount of POS fuel, (a drink which was rumoured to have been invented by CCP Falcon at EVE London) as the ravenous thirst of EVE players drank the supply of ingredients for the green cocktail both nights in a row!
It was also quite easy to see who the serious tournament competitors were as they all slipped away as a reasonable 1am to make sure they got a decent nights sleep for the competition, others carried out until the early hours of Saturday morning! Over 180 people made it to the event and began streaming through the doors at 11am. As people entered the venue they all got their 1 free beer token, 100m ISK in EVE Bet credit and one of this years fantastic t-shirts inspired by the exclusive IGC Victory Skin given out as prizes in the #EVE_NT Collides tournament earlier this year. If you was one of the first 100 people to the event you also had a PLEX thrown in as well!
At midday all those who had entered into the event tournament were drawn and paired up with their partners to decide who was going home with all the swag that had been provided by our fantastic sponsors.  Almost Ł3,000 of PC equipment, and nicknacks in all along with a tonne of PLEX and free beer and there was no shortage of entries. After seven hours of gruelling 2v2 PvP action the winners were eventually decided. You can see the full broadcast of that below along with a CSM vs CCP grudge match right at the end in the twitch stream below.
Watch live video from on www.twitch.tv
So who were the winners? Well it might come as absolutely no surprise but the pairing of Rhilod feron-drake and MIRA fought off all opposition in five rounds to claim victory. Behind them in 2nd place was CPT Whiteeye and PAPA Sotken, and semi-finalist winners were Arenthor Doran, Alroyz, christopher nolm, and finally BOOBERLLA GATERAUX. Congratulations to them and we hope they all enjoyed the fantastic swag they won.
But that wasn't the only competition of the day: Our now traditional EVE: Valkyrie room gave visitors a chance at trying Top Gun style VR dogfighing action with a chance to grabs some great prizes. 1st Prize was a whole bunch of PLEX, a signed EVE: Valkyrie comic, a golden joystick, a rare Valkyrie T-shirt. While the room had a constant stream of visitors coming and going all day trying to crack that top score the one who managed to bag 1st prize was Covert Sam!
But along with the mayhem there were also lots of presentations going on, including General Stargazer presenting on EVE: Valkyrie, CCP Goliath and CCP Claymore presenting on some of the upcoming changes to the in game Character Sheets and a discussion around quality assurance in EVE Online. But the most memorable of them all, RocketX presenting on capital hunting in a Pikachu Onesie! (You can see a picture of him in this in the gallery at the bottom of the page!)
Behind the scenes we also had the studio in full swing with 5 sessions being run on various topics. You can see the opening session below.

Other sessions included:

• ">CSM Panel (Feat. Jin'taan & Gorski Car) talking about CSM activites and the recent summit


• ">CCP Goliath Interview on Quality Assurance in EVE Online


• ">CCP Claymore Interview on the upcoming Alpha Clones release in November 


• ">Tournament Staff Interview (Feat. Bei Artjay & Suitonia) talking about the Alliance Tournament and EVE_NT Championship


• ">EVE_NT: Nottingham Event Recap with Niden, Tiberius Stargazer, CCP Claymore, and Nashh Kadavr

As mentioned by everyone in the final session of the #EVE_NT TV it was a fantastic event that ran on well into the night. But legend has it that the CCP staff were still stalking the streets of Nottingham almost well into the early hours of the morning.
To finish off the weekend bleary eyed nerds congregated at the [ALT] Gaming Lounge  in central Nottingham to try and work off their hangovers by playing Smash Bro's, SSX, Mario Cart, Pokemon Arena, and for those not quite so hungover a go on some new HTC Vives the venue recently purchased.
It was a fantastic weekend and we here at the EVE_NT team was so glad to see so many old and new faces. We are now gearing up for our tournament season kicking off with the Alliance Tournament coverage this weekend before getting started on the EVE_NT Championship. Once that is all over we will be looking to start working on plans for EVE_NT going on into 2017, so keep your eyes out for news on the next event and we hope to see you all there!

#EVE_NT was a jam! What an incredibly well organised and executed event. Thanks for having us, everyone! Getting back home is gonna be rough

? CCP Goliath (@CCP_Goliath) September 25, 2016

[gallery type="slideshow" size="full" link="file" ids="2956,2957,2958,2959,2960,2961,2962,2963,2964,2965,2966,2967,2968,2969,2970,2971,2972,2973,2974,2975,2976,2977,2978,2979,2980,2981,2982,2983,2984,2985,2986,2987,2988,2989,2990,2991,2992,2993,2994,2995,2996,2997,2998,2999,3000,3001,3024,3023,3022,3021,3020,3019,3018,3017,3016,3015,3010,3011,3012,3013,3014,3009,3008,3007,3006,3005,3004,3025,3030,3031" orderby="rand"]
Pictures by Dan Bowles, Elinari, General Stargazer, Hannah, Drechlas, Niden, RocketX, Simon Kelly, Slippers, and Sutionia, mostly stolen from Twitter #EVE_NT