It includes a large, paid, bring-your-own-computer (BYOC) LAN party event with a competitive tournament held every year in Dallas, Texas, USA.

As various regular visitors to the channel began expressing a desire to meet and game together in person, Jim "H2H" Elson, a gamer from the Dallas area with ties to the local Dallas-area gaming community, and Yossarian "yossman" Holmberg, a computer consultant from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, came up with the idea of assembling at a hotel.

[citation needed] The first event, in August 1996, was held at a conference room of a La Quinta Inn in Garland, Texas.

[9][10] Attendees who had brought their computers along to the event set up a small, impromptu network, in one of the hotel meeting rooms, playing mostly Quake I and Doom, testing deathmatch skills.

The highlight of this first gathering came on the eve of the last day, when the entire id Software team showed up at the event in a surprise and most-welcome visit, stopping by to chat with the participants.

Together with Anna Kang (then id Software employee, now John Carmack's wife) and a team of volunteers, Mr. Miller & Mr. Horoky set out to build QuakeCon 1999, which became the template for later years.

[citation needed] A change of venue allowed the convention to grow larger than it had ever been before, and, this time, just down the street from id Software headquarters in Mesquite.

[citation needed] 2002 saw the retirement of John Carney, and Brian Davis assumed stewardship of the event as executive director.

Tapper continued to coordinate volunteer activity, while id assumed much more of the pre-event planning through the capable hands of Marty Stratton.

[17][18] Yet another change of venue brought QuakeCon into the record books as the largest LAN party in North America, with over 3000 BYOC attendees.

The event also had a live performances by The Sinus Show, and Tweaker, featuring Chris Vrenna, former Nine Inch Nails drummer.

It was Aaron Ferguson's first complete year as executive director, and the first time at QuakeCon featuring an all girl gamer tournament with major cash prizes.

It was also discussed publicly earlier in the year by id Software executives that the event had a possibility of not being held inside Texas, nearly breaking a 10-year tradition since the convention's start.

It was the first event to include the Nvidia Quickdraw tournaments, which pulled random people from the BYOC area to compete for 1,000 dollars.

(sponsored by Intel) As well as the Activision Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars Team Championships (featuring competitions on both PC and for the first time on Xbox 360), The Alienware Quick-Draw Challenge, and the QuakeCon Ultimate Power Up.

Marcus "djWHEAT" Graham (one of the commentators for this year's tournaments) also expressed his opinions to John Carmack from the shout casting booth saying that the separation "alleviates any hesitation or frustration" for amateur players that want a chance to compete.