What do you get when you gather 830 people and their PCs together in one place, throw in some of the best computer games around, add sleep deprivation and a constant supply of pizza and Red Bull? The answer is insomnia 14, Britain's biggest local area network (LAN) party. Courtesy of organisers Multiplay UK, this regular three-day event brings together hundreds of gamers to hook up their PCs to a high-speed offline network and compete in games such as Counter-Strike and Quake III.

"I think gamers in the UK were getting fed up waiting for fast connections which is why they set up LANs," explains Steve Randall, who runs his own small LAN parties as a hobby. "So that got them out of their rooms playing faster games and getting a better overall gaming experience." Although networks are now providing faster connections for home use, Randall points out that this hasn't driven people back to solitary gaming because in the time it took for providers to launch these services, LAN parties had become well established. In his opinion, players are "no longer doing it just for the connection speed, now it's because they like getting away for a fun weekend and meeting like-minded people."

It's easy to see what draws players to the insomnia LANs, which have been held four times a year since March 1999. Everywhere you look there are flickering monitors, frantic shouting and cheers from the hundreds of people who have each paid £60. Agitated men run around with loops of cable, while players tinker with machines with all the care and concern of a mechanic fine-tuning a Ferrari 355.

This continues long into the night, and the local Domino's pizza is kept busy, delivering straight to the players' desks. When people sleep, it's usually in the colony of tents pitched around the site, or on the floor next to their PCs.

The man in the middle of this is Craig Fletcher, the managing director of Multiplay UK, who left a medical degree to start running LAN parties. "There are much easier ways of making money than this, but I like seeing the guys here enjoying themselves," claims Fletcher. "No gaming experience compares with having a person sat right next to you. A lot of the people only know their clan mates online, and here they get to meet them face to face."

One of the clans that regularly gets together at these events is the WWW (What Women Want) clan, run by 19-year-old Liz Burnett, who plays under the name Mamacita, after the feisty female wrestler. Despite the fact that more women are playing games online, only a few were participating in i14.

"A lot of people, especially women, don't like roughing it, then there's the travel and packing up your computer," explains Burnett, and the air is indeed decidedly testosterone filled. "It's still a very male-dominated event, but there are always more women coming, so it won't be too long before we're rivalling the men."

Many of the games played at i14 are just friendlies that allow players to sharpen their skills, but the stakes are being raised with the introduction of small tournaments where players could win cash prizes, including a Rainbow Six: Raven Shield tournament with a top prize of £1,500. The idea of having cash prizes instead of hardware prizes - as most of the top players have all the hardware they need - is a deliberate attempt by Multiplay to kick-start professional gaming in this country.

The reality of gaming becoming a spectator sport has only emerged in the past few years, and although it's taking off in America and Korea, the UK is still lagging behind. "Companies don't seem as willing to put up the money in this country,"says Fletcher, who believes that gaming needs strong sponsorship if it is to emerge as a professional sport.

"Just look at the amount of money that's being spent on other sports, and gaming is effectively a sport now, even if people don't choose to recognise it as such. Companies will eventually wake up to this, but whether they miss the boat or not is up to them."

Here's hoping that companies do pick up on this growing trend in multi-player gaming, because not only is LAN gaming free from abuse and cheating, but events such as i14 are helping players break away from the stigma of gaming being for lonely geeks. They are extremely sociable events where gamers can mix, learn from other gamers, and not feel awkward or embarrassed about their favourite hobby. After all, one day it might be you cheering them on.