mekka & symposium Miscellaneous

Who are you?

 Planning the whole thing:

...and we rely on about 20 other nice sceners to help us during the party!

Why?

 Before 1995, the usual German scene parties used to suck (a lot). We changed that and brought back the old spirit. Now that we're so known, we can't just stop, can we? ;)

What is the
demo scene?
ms97 picture

Oh, this is quite difficult to explain. You remember the colorful C64 intros which crackers put in front of the games to tell you who brought it to you? These guys were the roots of the demo-scene. This is what the organizers of the "Somewhere In Holland" scene party wrote on their Web page in 1995:

This article was written for people who do not really understand what we mean when we say 'scene'.

The computer-scene can be compared with the music-scene. There are groups of artists who are all doing different things, like making computer GRAPHICS, either a logo, fonts, entire screens or even animations. Then there are artists who make computer MUSIC. PROGRAMMERS are often called coders. They make programs meant for one type of computersystem. Such a program could be an application to make computerlife a lot easier. And when these different artists come together they can make a demonstration or DEMO. A demo from a group in the computerscene can be compared with a video for a band in the musicscene. Demos feature great calculated effects, graphics and SUPERB music! Sometimes those demos are used to get a job at a softwarehouse. But for many years now, they are mostly made for FUN AND FAME!! Even when you are not very talented or you don't have enough patience to be a computerartist you can always become a so called TRADER. Those are people who exchange or swap software like demos, either via snail mail, or a modem... A lot of known groups have their own Bulletin Board System(s) (BBS), which normally contain a lot of recent software and messages. Just like in the music-scene most people in this scene are using NICKNAMES. It is really easy to recognise scene people. They turn up at a party heavily loaded with food (mostly junkfood), drinks (Coca-Cola, coffee or beer, equipment (computers, Stereos, Synthesizers, microwave ovens, even fryingpans and refrigerators!) They didn't sleep for a while because of deadlines.. Well, I think you've got quite a good picture of scenepeople by now..

Parties

Demos are getting better and better, graphics and music get excellent. At a sudden time people started making charts for single artists and groups. Finally, of course, there are events like SIH'95 which are called PARTIES. A party is an event in a big hall where groups and single artists come together to exchange demos, ideas, knowledge, software, computermagazines, tricks, news, routines and many other things. People are talking about subjects such as Internet, the future.. Yes, even about non-computer-related subjects... They form new groups or expand their group with some new people. They meet old friends who they've met via mails or previous parties. They make a lot of new friends.. They get their big, once in a lifetime chance to meet their most favourite computerartist!! Rare hardware is brought by the visitors, the real freaks, like old systems, the newest in technology, Virtual Reality, all kinds of operating systems, you just name it, it's there!! It won't surprise you that there will be some people present looking for new talents to work for their label.

Competitions

At such events it's customary to organize Competitions. To stimulate people to do their very best, prizes are given for the best Graphics, Musics and Demos. All people present at the party can make their votes for the productions. The competions are usually the climax of a party. After that people will copy the productions from the competition and then they are heading for home... One important thing on the party is the BIG SCREEN. This is where most of the action is. Anything will be shown, like graphics, demos, homevideos, the newest movies (MANGA!) and musicvideos. Besides that the screen is also used as an information medium. It shows all coming events, missing things, results for the competitions and a lot more.. It has a central place in the hall so everybody will be able to see it..

Parties continue AT NIGHT, but for the ones who still lead a normal life there is always a sleepinghall. Still a lot of people are found sleeping on their keyboards...

Most people come from Europe, but some are even coming over from the other side of the world!! I think you've got the picture by now... A party is quite an INTERNATIONAL event!!

In the last two years, I used to put my own version of this explanation on the WWW page, but it never got close to this description. So I'm giving you this text, which inspired me a lot - it's Copyright © 1995 Bernold Geurts (Tycoon/Reality, Somewhere In Holland organization).

History?

 Steeler/Phantasm, as one of the original founders of the Symposium (which is now the Amiga/C64 part of MS), will try to tell you the story of our party-series.
My job for Symposium especially nowadays is misc organising and all the Entertainment Stuff. That means that I am the guy that was responsible for all the games, shows, speeches, funcompos and stuff you consumed at this party. But now for the story:

At the time Symposium was founded I lived in the south of Hamburg and one of my Computer-friends was Gandalf/phantasm who lived right beside my place. (probably you remember him winning the WildCompetition on TheParty 1996 with the ROFLY anim?).

Around 1985-87 Gandalf had a mailbox with a Black-Stuff area called TheBlackBox. Hi job as sysop and me as a cosysop of this mailbox were our first steps in the local Net-Scene. I can imagine my C64 300bd modem glowing when connecting to his board running EuroMail on a `nearly` unexpanded A2000 with a 40mb HD. Fun times... It was not a SCENE ONLY board so we even were a link to all the LL`s (local-lamers) in and around Hamburg. BTW. this board closed his doors forever some month ago!

But the board got stronger. In 1992 we thought about doing a local usermeeting because our userlist and the mailbox were growing dramatically. So why not doing someting where we can have the possibility to get in contact with all our users? We managed to get hold of a place in a catholic church where about 50-60 people were able to put up their equipment. We named that thing "BlackBoxSymposium" without a year in name cause we didn`t even thought about doing it again in another year!

This meeting was a neat success, but it was without competitions and other scenish things like that. Just boozing for a whole day was our aim. So later on the users asked when we were celebrating the next symposium. So we thought about it and set up the party 2 more times at the same location.

In 1993 we got contact with a party called the 680xx party, held in a sportshall near our place. It was well organised by Sanity, Complex, Supplex, White Status. So we saw a REAL Scene-Party for the first time and thought about doing something a bit bigger as our scene-involvement couldn`t be ignored anymore :)

The third time of Symposium was BBX-Symposium`1995 with about 300 guests. Most of the organisers of the 680xx party where on this first REAL Symposium- Scene party which was our breakthrough in Party-happenings and so we got in contact.

But the party was still held in this awful catholic church... It was the time of gothic-scene so we thought about moving places as soon as possible and rent something INDEPENDENT. Some orgas of 680xx- convention (as there should be mentioned Decca, Sire, Chaos, Thyroxine) wanted to join organisation for the next event. They had made the experience of doing a big party and we had made the experience of fishing sponsors for the prices. So we fit perfectly! :)

All the talks and meeting were held at the so called SCALA-Meeting (Sanity- Complex- Avena-Lego & Andere) to organise Symposium 1996. Scala was getting our headquarter. It is a loose meeting organised by Chaos/Sanity (now active for FEB - Free Electric Band) that is still hold irregulary.

Symposium`1996 was born. We had a nice celebrity hall, great atmosphere and the best visitors you can dream off for a party. It was a real scene-spirit-event. But there was one thing that troubled us a bit:

One week before Symposium 1996 took place there was a PC-scene party-event in exactly the same hall. Believe it or not: We didn`t know about that until 6 weeks before the party. So everything was arranged already and we really didn`t want to do a party with the PC-Scene. As you probably might have guessed this party was called "Mekka", organised by a guy called Hardball/Amable. He nearly did all the stuff for this 300 people-party on his own and it is said that this Mekka`96 wasn`t a bad party at all (for Pc`s especially I guess!) So Gandalf and Hardball had a discussion before both parties started but they disliked each other so much that cooperation seemed to be impossible. ;)

But after the parties were both successfull (the one for the PC and the other for Amiga) Hardball and Gandalf sniffed each other again. And believe it or not... After our first agression against this `pc- nerds` we felt that they were nice... Yes... "N-I-C-E-!". We even felt that cooperation was possible (resistence is not furtile!- hi Hew!). So Scala was used as our headquarter again, Mekka joined Symposium (Hardball would say Mekka swallowed Symposium) and everything for a next big suprise party was organised.

So for the facts: Mekka/Symposium`1997 was born. The organiser-team works together and are getting big friends. Silly-con-Vention (another party in germany) didn`t ask us again to join them.

Are you crazy?

 Yes, of course.
ms.demo.org - Mekka & Symposium 1998.