Back in these days it wasn't all that much about playing LAN games. There was some of that going on but it tended to be more about copying games from each others and working on demos for the demo competitions.

Many of these things started as demo parties, Dreamhack in 1994 was in a cafeteria belonging to the student union of the nearby university. Much less organized, I don't think there was even a network setup at all. Lots of fond memories of staying up all night programming and always losing the demo compos...