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  party report - mekka/symposium 1998 (held 10-13th april) by beryl/deranged
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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 hnsel 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