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LOCATION & DATE The party place is, once again, Fallingbostel. Situated between Hamburg and Hannover, this small town offers us the best-suited hall in northern Germany. Most of you already know this hall from earlier mekka & symposia and although space could be a problem this year, we hope it will be sufficient one more time. The party starts on Good Friday (2nd April, 1999) at 12:00 CET and ends on Easter Monday (5th April, 1999) at 12:00 CET. The familiar address is: Heidmarkhalle An der Heidmarkhalle 1 29683 Fallingbostel (GERMANY) The entrance fee amounts to 60 DM (30 Euro). We don't accept currencies other than DM. We don't have single-day visitor tickets. Girls and Mat/Ozone get in for free. There is no table reservation, and no possibility of paying in advance. Money which is left is spent on the repair of damages to the hall and on competition prizes (in this very order, so please behave :D). If you bring your own computer equipment (this does not cost extra, of course), bring your own power connectors! TRAVEL INFORMATION If you're going to come by car, you reach Fallingbostel through the highway A7 - Fallingbostel is announced. We have a map (in English or German) which guides you from the highway exit to the party place. When coming by train, you have to use some major train to either Hamburg or Hannover (whichever is nearer to you), and change for Fallingbostel there (Deutsche Bahn info page). Once you've arrived in Fallingbostel, you can make use of the free 24h Bus Shuttle service we will set up like last year. You must contact us in advance, so that you will be picked up (please tell about number of people and time of arrival). If you're coming without equipment, you can also take the walk (half an hour); watch out for the Bahnhof in the center of our map. Last, but not least, there are bus trips from various countries; some of them may have a free place left for you (mail us if you want to be listed here as well): Cytron/Depth organizes a bus for all the Danes; there is a homepage in Danish. Unlock/Padua took over the organization of the traditional bus trip from Switzerland (it also picks up visitor from southern Germany) -- there's a homepage as well. FACILITIES & FEATURES Just some action to make sure you won't get bored... Lots of competitions for Amiga, PC and C64 -- and some platform-independent ones such as a Graphics competition and various music competitions. Just like last year, we don't have competitions for Atari and Acorn systems; feel free to participate in the Wild compo with productions for these machines. Competitions presented on a big screen sized 6x4 m^2, including powerful sound equipment -- yes, the sound will be loud if you are sitting at the first table row. No, we will not turn the volume down. Choose your fate in advance by sitting down at the front of the hall if you want loud sound (note that you don't need your own stereo to make even more noise), or by taking place at the remote side of the hall if you are in need of a quiet place (note that some guy next to you will be pissed if you turn up your own stereo too much). Also, having some wax to put into your ears when you want to sleep is really fantastic. Place for 1200 visitors plus equipment; enough power for everyone -- nothing to say here; this should be sufficient if the current expansion rate doesn't change. Oh yes, please do not bring equipment you don't really need. This has two advantages: You can't lose it, and it can't bring the power down. More details on the subject of electricity in the General Rules. A warm sleeping hall -- In this year, the sleeping hall will be smaller, but we will spend some more money on it to make it comfortably warm (of course you can sleep in the main hall as well). If you want to, you can also stay at the local youth hostel, which is located about 500m from the party place (you probably need a member card): Jugendherberge Fallingbostel DJH Landesverband Hannover e.V. Liethweg 1 29683 Fallingbostel Phone: +49 5162 2274 Info on hotels is available from the Fallingbostel homepage. A stable party network! -- the mekka & symposium 2k-1 is a party, not an Internet access provider :-) Some kind of Internet connection will be there, but it is not our primary concern. Other than that, the local network will be even more stable than last year; you will also be able to vote and contribute via network (paper voting will still be possible, of course). We will have a 100MBit network, though not every table will have its own 100MBit hub. But you can bring your own hub/switch; in that case you will get full 100MBit. There will be a big fileserver with a complete Hornet mirror. Quake and other network game packets will be filtered. Network configuration uses DHCP. For more questions, mail our network master MoM. Food supply -- there's a city nearby, with shops and bars; and we have 24h drinks & snacks available on the party. Of course you may and should also bring your own food and drinks, as it will be less expensive this way. A snack-bar providing fries, hamburgers etc. will be in front of the building, almost 24h a day (this is the same guy from last year). Clean toilets -- yes, last year's cleaning personnel :-). Some shower hours will also be held, but in general there aren't any public showers. Live music performances, traditional entertainment provided by Steeler, cool party t-shirts! -- let's see what we will offer this year... ...and the unique Mekka & Symposium party feeling! TIME TABLE Finally there is an official time table; competitions start earlier on Saturday this year, and some deadlines are a bit earlier as well. Note that this version does not cover special events such as live acts. Fri 12:00 Opening Fri 16:00 Opening Ceremony Sat 08:00 * DEADLINE: C64 Music, Ray-Traced & Pixel Sat 12:00 C64 Music Sat 12:00 * DEADLINE: ProTracker Module & Music Competition, PC 64K Sat 14:00 Ray-Traced Graphics Sat 15:00 * DEADLINE: PlayStation, Wild, ANSI, Amiga 40K Sat 18:00 ProTracker Module Sat 20:00 Pixel Graphics Sat 21:00 Amiga 40K Intro Sat 22:00 PC 64K Intro Sat 23:00 ANSI Sat 24:00 Wild Sun 08:00 * DEADLINE: 4K Intros, C64 Graphics, Game 32K Sun 11:00 Amiga 4K Intro Sun 12:00 C64 Graphics Sun 14:00 PlayStation Demo Sun 15:00 * DEADLINE: Demo Competitions Sun 15:00 PC 4K Intro Sun 16:00 Music Sun 18:00 C64 4K Intro Sun 19:00 Game 32K Sun 21:00 PC Demo Sun 23:30 Amiga Demo Mon 02:00 C64 Demo Mon 05:00 Voting deadline Mon 10:00 Prize giving, closing ceremony Mon 12:00 End of the party

-	ms.demo.org/99/features.html -- last update on 03-mar-99 -- rawstyle@ms.demo.org