[embedding-shape]

> because you're stuck together for the night. You can't just sit out a game/map if you don't like it, you can't just hop on a different voice channel and play another game with other people.

Probably depends on the size, but even our tiny LANs we had some groups preferring some games, other's preferring others, and plenty of other activities others were doing throughout the LAN. The group that managed the LAN I was familiar with was really into medieval costumes, events and roleplaying, so bunch of chainmail making, clothes making and what not going on at the same time while others play BFV or Starcraft, or people sleeping under the tables.

[Semaphor]

Same here, even for smaller LANs people sometimes sat games out, sometimes watching, sometimes doing something else.

[bombcar]

There's two LAN parties - the small group of friends (4 to 10, say) where you'd mostly be playing the same game, but as it progressed people would drop off or split up (we ended up with one small group playing a Heroes III comp-stomp on hotseat, another watching someone playing HalfLife).

Then there's the larger parties that are closer to gaming conventions, which have so many people that you basically have to have multiple gaming sessions, if not multiple games.