No modern LAN party discussion is complete without reference to kentonv's houses:

https://kentonshouse.com/

https://lanparty.house/

I love this technically, but part of the magic was all setting up trestle tables, sitting in someone’s garage / outbuilding, and it all being a bit raw.

I vividly remember cutting a hole in the side of a Shuttle XPC case to fit the fan of a GPU someone had bought over for me at one. That was all part of the experience for me.