============================================================================== party report - mekka/symposium 1998 (held 10-13th april) by beryl/deranged ============================================================================== originally, this text was intended to be released inside cream #5, but i have decided to release it as a standalone file, because the release of the next cream is so far away :) of course, you can read it also in the next cream, but for the impatient (as me) here it is already now. as a bonus you'll find some pictures of the party taken by dentoe^sdi in the current directory. this text is written in english, as i have noticed, that many of my foreign contacts are interested in cream and its texts, but they are not able to read german, so i made a beginning. i hope, you understand everything, since i do not speak english as my native language. first of all, you have to know, that the mekka '98 was my first scene party, so i don't have the possibility to compare the party to other parties. as i'm not 18, yet, my problem was: how to get to fallingbostel... by train would be 1) expensive and 2) it would be nearly impossible for me to carry my pc, as i had to went there alone. originally my friend (and groupmate) tristan wanted to come, too, but his parents didn't allow it, he's only 15 and blabla. some- times parents can be annoying. fortunately, my parents weren't, they even agreed to drive me by car to fallingbostel, so the biggest problem was solved. before the party i was quite excited, since i didn't know what was to come. the reasons for me to go there were mainly to meet the people i swap with, to get the latest stuff :) and to became part of the demoscene. as i arrived in fallingbostel, i immediately noticed the ms98-signs that leaded to the party place. i found it at once. the party was already going on as i arrived ca. two hours after the doors had opened. lots of people were already inside, unpacking their equipment or already sitting in front of their computers, others were having a snack at the frittenbude that was placed in front of the hall. i entered and paid the fee, which was 50dm, not too expensive, as i think. i got a kind of bracelet, which one had to show, if you wanted to reenter the hall. there i stood in the big hall, alone, all the weird people walking past. i looked around a bit and noticed e605^sdi, which i already saw on a picture. (so i knew, how he looked like) since the table behind him was still vacant, i decided to sit down there. to watch the huge bigscreen, i had to turn around, but i did not mind, as most of the people were standing during the compos. e605 introduced to me a few people, as zippy^sdi^sr?, coctail^obn, magic van lam^d4z and the other guys from sdi and d4z. a few minutes (hours?) later dentoe^sdi (one of my favourite contacts) arrived. i tried to get connected to the net, which was not very hard, as i sat directly next to the hub, where i could plug in my cable. as i never made experiences with networks, that have a server before, i started to browse through the workgroups first. really interesting stuff available en masse. so i downloaded one (or more) file(s) here and there and i have to admit, that the net was very fast. ok, later as more and more people came, it slowed down a little, sometimes it was even as slow as internet, but only very seldom. one thing was very striking to me: only very few people really shared their demos and the other scenestuff. the biggest part of the available stuff were mp3s and pictures. as i got connected to the server (with the help of some dutch guys, which had seated themselves next to me), i discovered many interesting things, to my surprise you could even download the full version of starcraft, which even was not released in germany at this time. it was the razor 1911 edition :) i made some screenshots of the contents of the ser- ver and of the workgroups, which you can have a look at, as i included them in the archive. if you read this text inside cream look around at the bonus (or similar) directory. the next day, the sdi guys friendly invited me to drive with them to town to buy a few things to eat and drink. they were all very friendly. thanks again. i used the possibility to allow my pc a litte pause. actually, it was already quite hot. and since my machine was not the only one, the atmosphere in the hall was also quite warm. as the deadline from the multichannel compo got nearer, i finished the info file and made a poor diz and handed them together with tristan's module "the initiative" to the organizers. as this was our first release, we did not ex- pect, that it would pass the preselection. actually it didn't, either ;) but i think, it was worth a release, if you don't have it yet, contact me and get it. the preselection of the multichannel modules was one thing, which i did not like. on the one hand, it's necessary to avoid to bore the sceners to death by playing 60 (or more) modules and most of them with bad quality, but i think 20 modules should have been played, as you were anyway annoyed (or pleased) coz everybody was playing the music, he liked and turned up the vol. to the maximum. slowly, i got a little bit tired, but i was so excited, that i couldn't sleep. finally i did, for two hours (from 2-4 o'clock). i packed out my sleeping bag and throwed myself under the table, as i didn't want to walk to the sleeping tent. you could download so much stuff, i didn't take too long until my harddisk was full. so i decided (or better: i was forced) to burn a cd. i started the burning and went outside to eat sth and phone tristan. as i came back and wanted to put my monitor back on again (coz i wanted to see, how far my cd was ready), almost exactly, as i put my finger on the switch, the current (g: strom) broke down. you could hear my scream all across the hall ;) later, as i tried it for the second time, the same thing happened and only by my third try i managed it finally. this sucked a bit, but of course it was not planned by the organizers (or was it - to amuse the people ? ;). in the evening (with a little delay) the c64 music compo, the graphics compo and the wild compo were held. the c64 music compo was the first time, i heard music made by c64. as i never had one, i was quite surprised and didn't ex- pect that you could make such nice muzak with it. even more surprised i was, as i saw all the nice pictures, that were shown during the graphics compo. my favourite was h„nsel und gretel, which won the compo later, too. at 1 o'clock (or was it later ;), the c64 graphics compo was held, but i preferred to lay myself into my sleeping bag. the next morning, the module compo was held. some nice tunes, but the most didn't quite made me feel the rhythm ;) at noon, the 4k compo started, to be honest: i'm not friend of 4k's, either. of course i was already looking for- ward to the demo competition, but i still had to wait half a day ;) in the afternoon, there was finally the xm compo. of course, i paid a special atten- tion, still in hope, they would play our module, as i listened to the first (not so welldone) modules. but, as you already know, i waited without success and so i went out again to phone tristan about our success. then, the game- compo was held, yeah some nice games (regarding the 32k limit), but i think, there should be a (real) game compo too, without size limitation (or perhaps 10mb or so), although the demoscene normally doesn't produce such games and spread them for free, then, but perhaps this would make some more people come to mekka. on the other hand, i was quite satisfied with the number of atten- ders. there was not too much space left unused („h, actually almost no space) so, if more people would have come, it probably would have turned out, to be too narrow. since the deadline for the demo compo got nearer, many people got more hectic, as the members of d4z, who unfortunately didn't manage it, to finish the demo early enough. mein mitgefhl nochmal an dieser stelle. some- where in between, there also was the fast compo, in which you had to make sth that had to do sth with steelers dicken eiern... it was very funny and i was (again) very surprised, as i saw an amiga fast-intro. if it hadn't read the announcement, where the system was indicated, i wouldn't have thought, that this would be an amiga demo. by the way, it was my favourite. it was also the one, that won the compo. but back to now ;) it was about time for the amiga and pc 40/64k intros. yo, some really nice things, but i was still looking forward to the pc demo compo. in between there were always some videos or some extra compos running, such as "who is the fastest in putting the keys back into a keyboard" or "the most freaked out scener at mekka 98". this compo was won by mat/ozone, an amiga- scener from spain, who looked really weird. his machine consisted only of a monitor, a keyboard and the mainboard lying without a case on the table ;) an interesting guy... i thought, now it would be time to get one of the cool t-shirts, and just, as i returned to my place, it was announced, that only few ones were left. finally, the pc-demo compo started, unfortuntely i was already so tired, i could hardly keep my eyes open. but of course, i watched all the demos. the winner-demo (the fulcrum by matrix) was the most fascinating. the most funny was the harry-stephan demo and also a good idea was the "we are family" demo, made by haujobb. btw: we are family was the motto of the party. although the demo compos of amiga and c64 were still to come (and now, i must admit, that i'm angry with myself, not to see them), but i was so tired, i slept till 8 o'clock in the morning. as i woke up, i didn't know at all, what the time was but dentoe made me aware, that i had missed the vote-deadline. actually i did not mind, too much. unfortunately, i had to leave at ten o'clock, but i made my parents wait, until the prize giving ceremony was finished (to my surprise , the sdi demo made the 6th place. congratulations, again). all in all, the party was (in my opinion) a real success, i was tired, but happy as i drove home, of course after having leeched all the releases... see you at mekka 1999