Symposium; Logbook 2
SYMPOSIUM'97; PARTY LOGBOOK 2
by Notman/Iris

To point it out, I'm going to do this party report in my usual style.
Realtime.  So, it might get pretty weird at times.  Please bear over
with this fact and enjoy the show.


We were some dudes from Iris, who wanted to go to the SymMekka'97, so
we hired Adonis/Iris to drive us there.  The rest is Darkhawk/Iris
and myself, Notman/Iris and Decoy/Passion&Puzzle completed the round.
Four guys loaded into a Fiat Uno.  Well, we survived the trip and who
cares about getting home alive?

I first thought that they wouldn't be able to gather many Sceners
down here in Germany, as The Gathering is taking place at the same
time.  Somehow, they managed to wake the interest of about 1000
people, or somewhere about that count, so that has impressed me.
There are being shown cool things on the main screen, Wild Demos, and
the likes.  Right now I'm gathering myself, to cope with all the
impressions I've received as cool input.  It's hard to describe this
feeling.  No, I'm not drunk, although it is allowed to drink beer and
the likes in here.

It's something else.

Maybe it's just the usual feeling that occurs in the beginning of
most parties.  You walk around, checking everything out and found
also two BeBox'es.  Hmm, very cool design, I must say.  A shame this
machine went down the drain so fast.  The partyplace itself was no
problem to find at all.  They had put signs up along the route from
the motor highway, so we had no problems.  The hall looks like a
gymnastics-hall or something, and it's cozy enough for this kind of
event.  The temperature is just right, and the ambience is ok.  They
will get a problem during daytime with the main screen, as the
daylight comes to a conflict here, due to some annoying overhead
windows.  Well, maybe somebody should get up on the roof and put
something over these windows?  We will see.  There is a liveact
coming up in a few minutes, so I'll leave you here.  It's Skyphos/ATW
controlling the keyboards, so I'll have to see how he's doing.

I missed the concert.  I fell asleep and Darkhawk had tried to wake
me, but he didn't succeed.  He says I was awake, but I can't remember
that.  No, I was NOT drunk, but I must have been sleep-walking or
something.  Hm, I heard it was kinda cool, the concert.  Skyphos was
apparantly using OctaMED Soundstudio to control his keyboards.
Bummer!  I was hoping to learn something from watching him performing
on the stage, as I've got the necessary MIDI equipment back home, but
I guess I'll have to wait for another day to learn something about
MIDI on the Amiga.

Yesterday (today it's saturday) I saw the Eurochart #29, which is
going to be released today at noon.  It looked very good to me.  The
graphics and the entire design looks very nice.  I don't know how
Static Bytes was running the Eurochart, but Depth is certainly doing
a better job of it than I would have expected from them.

BUT! (ANGER PART COMING UP)

I have just returned from the wild compo.  Well, I will try to
control myself here.  First I'll start to mention some knuckleheads
sitting in from of the main screen, drinking beer and making a very
big mess up there.  I have a feeling about who it was, but I will not
mention any names.  I thought they behaved like shit and that's it.
Stay away from Scene parties, you idiots!  If you want to go "saufen"
(=boozing) then just go to the local pub somewhere, and stop
bothering the rest of us, trying to have a good party here.  Ok,
enough guts spilled here.

About the entries in the wild compo, well...  Some were just alright,
but the majority was absolutely not worth showing on the main screen.
The crowd hissed and boo-ed and were shouting "lamers" at some
entries.  In this case, I think that criticism was ok.  There was one
entry, no two entries, who could rightfully call themselves Wild
demos.  The first one was also the first entry in the compo, a
MegaDemo made on an Apple GS II.  Personally, I've not heard about
that machine before, but somehow it impressed me anyway.  They
started the demo by mentioning some of the specifications of this
computer, and as the demo was launched, most of the Sceners were
amazed with the things the Apple-people had made of it.  There was as
nice Doom-engine, and some very nice graphics aswell.  Only the sound
quality was not very good.  The loudspeakers cracked and made a fuzz,
but I bet it was a bad connection and not the computer itself.  The
other entry worth mentioning, was a raytraced demo from In-Sect.  It
wouldn't have been worth noticing if it had been released at The
Party, for instance, but in this particular competition it was the
best entry.  In my opinion.  So, now I am looking forward to the next
compo coming up.  It's the 64 KB intro compo, so maybe I will miss it
anyway.
  
I was wrong.  The graphics competition came before the 64 KB intro.
There were some outstanding entries in the compo, and I must say that
Unreal/Pulse is just as good as a graphician as he is at making music
(Remember Scorpik's winning module from TP 5?).  It looked like most
of the entries were to be taken seriously, only a few ones could be
described as "lame".

Ok, the C64 graphics have just been shown and they looked like very
high quality pictures to me, but I was sitting 50 meters away from
the main screen, and from that distance it's hard to tell if a
picture is really good or just plain good.  Hmm, the ANSI gfx didn't
seem to catch my interest so I went for a little nap during the
compo.  I should not have done that, apparently, because
Darkhawk/Iris told me that it was really good.  The 4-channel compo
is due in a few minutes, so I will have to go now.

And that was the 4-channel compo.  Not many highlights in that one
either, but I enjoyed the module from Virgill.  I think he will win.
My module was selected and it sounded great on the loudspeakers.
Some of the modules were like the entries in the wild compo.  Not
good.

Ehm,...  excuse for being a bit...  Well, it's because there's a
porn-movie running on the table in front of us, so it's hard to
concentrate on writing some serious stuff in this report.  Funny,
there's always somebody bringing a video and a TV for watching
porno-movies, and the only ones who don't look at the show, are often
the ones who brought the equipment, ehehe.  Yesterday they even
showed Animal-Porno on the screen.  It was...  different?

The next competition was the multichannel, and I had thought they
could make more out of their 4+ Channel Trackers.  Well, some of the
modules were quite ok, but generally I was so bored I had to walk
away.  I missed the C-64 SID compo.  Ok, I was sitting the usual 50
metres away, so I didn't really miss it by that much, but with all
the people around you playing techno very loud, it's hard to hear
anything from the compos, really.

Next up was the sequel to the Sea-Surprise competition from last
year.  This year they had brought SuperSoaker Waterguns for the
combatants.  Which I missed, but I saw someone at the Depth table who
had won 4 CD's, which the organizers here were selling for an amount
of about 70 DM.

Then there was the combined 4k Intro Cometition.  Well, it was not
combined, as it was split up in PC/Amiga/C-64 parts, but they were
shown right after eachother.  The PC compo was first and I was
personally impressed by the effects and the music.  Of course the PC
people have the advantage of soundcards with MIDI (probably other
advantages, too), but the effects were good enough to impress me.
The Amiga 4K intro compo showed four entries, and I think Ambrosia's
was the best one by far.  Moon/Abyss will probably take the 2nd prize
if nothing goes wrong.  The C-64 4K intro compo followed and I was
again watching a competition from my seat, 50 metres from the main
screen.  It looked good, I was clapping my hands as everybody else
were.

AS TIME PASSES BY

Then followed a "funny" little event, where they asked for some
Sceners to come to the stage.  Sceners, who thought they were
experienced.  They were going to play a little game, a little quiz,
where they had to answer some questions.  Three possible answers were
shown on the screen and they had to jump in front of the answer they
thought was the right one.  So, everybody expected a tough
competition, but somehow almost everyone managed to know the right
answers (Maybe they just followed the main stream?).  The prizes were
T-shirts.  There was one guy, who had pointed out a wrong answer to
one of the questions, so he was the only real loser.  He was awarded
with a "Symposium '97" t-shirt (or was it '96??), while everybody
else just got a t-shirt from The Party 1996...

Coming up are the intros, all the intros.  I think the 64 KB PC
intros are the first ones to be shown.  Missed the intros...whadda
loser!

Hehe, I just thought about a "funny" little incident that happened
during the multichannel compo.  Some dude had been tagging the
windows over the entrance,and as the organizers tried to remove it
again, the person trying to remove it fell down from the ladder.  I
don't know who it was, but it was most likely the guy who had been
spraying it onto the windows.  No harm done, he survived.  (I think
so.  The ambulance came.)
   
It's been 8 hours or so since I last wrote something in this article,
because a lot of things have happened during that time.  There was a
liveact from a group called Noisedrift, which I believe was here last
year,too.  They started pretty slow and then their shown escalated to
end with the best track.  People looked kind of bored with their
music.  Maybe they should have chosen a set of more spectacular tunes
to catch the attention of the Sceners.  Some of the lame, drunk
people in front of the stage started to harrass them, by shouting
nasty things in between the tunes.  Lame.  After their set had come
to an end, they showed us the machine controlling the 6 synthesizers
they were using.  Yes, it was an Amiga 1200.  Happy days.
 
THE DEMO COMPOS

Finally! 
The C-64s started the show and showed the almost usual impressive
stuff, but some effects looked new.  The PCs took over the show and
we saw the usual objects all over the place.  Fast, but not very
spectacular.

As for the Amiga Demos that followed.  Well, some effects looked new,
but most of the demos featured large objects and they mostly looked
like repros of the PC Demos.  Hmm, a bit boring, but I look forward
to see the demos again, on my own monitor, to catch all the details,
which are hard to notice on the big screen.  I'm almost certain, they
won't fail to impress me once again.  A couple of demos looked a tad
original, namely the demos from Elven 11 and Arsenic.  Parsec/Elven
11 was featured in like 3 or 4 demos!  He's a musician, yes.  Quite
cool music from him, I think.  After the demo compos I went for a
little nap, just to be fully rested for the prize giving ceremony.
And it's due in a couple of minutes from now, so...

THE WIPE OUT

Finally it came to an end, The Symposium '97.  You can probably read
everywhere about the winners of the compos.  However, I WAS right
about the prophecies I made earlier on.  Virgill/ATW won the 4
channel compo (although his module WAS kind of boring, really) and
Ambrosia DID win the 4K compo, with Moon/Abyss coming up 2nd.  The
only thing left to do in this report, is to make a review of the
whole event.

It was a good party, from my point of view.  My module was selected
and played.  (I was finally placed as nr.10, my best international
result so far) The demos were ok.  Facilties were ok, too, although I
never tried the showers, and the toilets became very dirty, as usual.
The only two negative things about the party was the fact, that some
things were stolen during the last night.  A PC and a CD-burner, I
think.  The other aspect to comment is the drunk Germans sitting in
front of the stage.  Occasionally they were funny, but my opinion of
fun does not comply to puking on the floor, shouting all the time,
and generally behaving like bums.

Maybe the organizers should be more strict with alcohol next year.  A
precaution like this, would be a shame for all the Sceners who can
control themselves.  It's sad to see, that so few people maybe will
have such a big, negative effect on so many.

Generally it was a good party,like said before, with many good
productions and a nice atmosphere.  I will probably be here the next
year aswell, if I have the time.

See you at Symposium'98!