Last October 21, 2022, The Grand Lason 2022, was a great hype for mechanical keyboard enthusiasts where the much-awaited world’s biggest mechanical keyboard event which was organized by Zion Studios PH held at Metrotent, Pasig City happened. It was the first time having it here in the Philippines having over 2,603 tickets sold including the walk-in and the day before selling of tickets beating the former World’s Largest Mech Meetup which was only attended by 712 persons.
According to our interview from one of the event’s organizer, Jazz Simbulan said that The Grand Lason event was originally planned and scheduled last October 2021. But due to high covid cases and the campaign days of election in the Philippines, it was rescheduled. Their goal is just to be the biggest mechanical keyboard meetup in the Philippines plainly without any interactive activities and competitions, but it seemed that along the way of waiting, they came up with a much more engaging event plan for everyone which came up really good.
Event Partner Brands
Asus Republic of Gamers, CableMod, Rakk Gears, and Fantech Philippines, the major brands known in the Mechanical Keyboard scene also participated on the said event. Also, it was joined by Gosu Gaming Gears, Iron Meets Wood, Hobby Dynamics and many other known stores of mechanical keyboard that brought excitement to everyone on the event.
Besides tons of different known brands, stores and esports organizations present there, it elated the momentum as Tier One Entertainment and Oasis Gaming also participated on the said mechanical keyboard convention. Thus, making it sure that all attendees will definitely enjoy everything offered on the venue.
Grand Lason Activities
Of course, this mechanical keyboard event will not be complete without the much-awaited WPM contest – a competition among the fastest person when it comes to their typing skills where they will showcase what they got at the event. Aside from this, they also had a group competition where each team were tasked to build a Zion Zen67 within 40 minutes. Each model built by the participating groups were rated by the audience depending on how it was built and which has the best-sounding keyboard.
As one of the highlights of the event, the Grand Lason also hosted for the search in Best Mechanical Keyboard contest among the people who attended the event for they were given the opportunity also to exhibit their personal keyboard collections and customized keyboard set up. Different judges came from Keyboard Addicts PH, Mechanical Keyboard Warriors PH and Cebu Mechanical Keyboard Enthusiasts – the mechanical keyboard communities and rated how the each exhibited mech keyboards were built in style, feels and sounds.
Simultaneously at the event, there were also tons of items that were given away all throughout from the participating brands making the event really enticing and fun for everyone.
Event’s Special Guest
The Grand Lason organizers made sure that the attendees will enjoy this much awaited mechanical keyboard event for they invited different famous personalities known in the mechanical keyboard scene. Aside from Eri Neeman as their special guest for the day, Juanito “Quiccs” Maiquez also joined the event as he showcased his mechanical keyboard collaboration work the Quiccs x Mammoth75 mechanical keyboard, Quiccs x Kulermats desk mat, Quiccs x Wuque Studio Keycaps, Quiccs x Cablemod cable, and Quiccs Teq63 Toy.
In addition to this momentous event, MechMerlin, a famous YouTuber who flew from United States added up the excitement to the people at the event.
What to Expect Next Year?
We had the chance to interview the organizer of the Grand Lason event and took the opportunity to ask some questions about the things the mechanical keyboard enthusiast would like to know.
Despite the different challenges encountered by the TGL event such as the inclement weather that might affect the number of attendees on the day, still, they emphasized that their priority is the safety of all attendees, the boards, and guest as they even hired bouncers to ensure security at all times on the mechanical keyboard display areas.
Alongside with these unavoidable circumstances, they were not actually expecting much attendees that day. Reason why they were very ecstatic when they suddenly run out of wristband tickets as early as 2 o’clock in the afternoon and they have to provide immediately for additional ones.
But, despite all of these, the Grand Lason Event was a great success according to Zion Studio PH. Everyone who were part of the event from the brand partners, the attendees, the mechanical keyboard community, were their source of motivation that elated their gratefulness. According to them, even the international brands that saw the post video of the event were now actually planning to come in the Philippines.
And with these feedbacks, they confirmed with confidence and affirmation that this event – The Grand Lason – will already be an annual mechanical keyboard event and they were grateful of the support of the community for the success of this convention. This is also served as a challenge for them to beat their own record on 2023’s “The Grand Lason R2”.
If you would like to check out on the updates about next year’s The Grand Lason Event, make sure to follow their Facebook page at Zion Studio PH so you won’t miss out the soon to happen events they’d be organizing. Thanks to Zion Studio PH for sharing their photos for this article. If you like to see more of their pictures, click here.
