                       SYMPOSIUM-MEKKA'97 PARTY report
                  by lORD / iMPULSe^aBSOLUTe!^cRIMSOnJiHAd
            Place: Fallingbostel/Germany  Date: 28-31, march, 1997

  We really disappointed in the biggest scene event in Tp5, with the friends
we visited it together. Wanted a party just to do what it's meaning means
and not to feel like in prison. Last year Symposium did it for us.
It was the best foreign party i ever visited! Not because of the number
of visitors (600 - this year a bit more perhaps), but i could felt that the
organizers were sceners and not those typical money hungry sharks.
This case there was no way for us to miss this year Symposium either.
 The partyplace was a big hall in a small german village north of Hannover.
Was easy to find it though first it seemed we won't be able to reach the
place when our favoured russian wonder, LADA Samara got a puncture in a
fucking ice-rain at 150 km/h speed on a german highway. Though I know, it'd
had been nice death to die in way to the party, somehow we survived and
arrived there.
The entrance fee (40 DM) didn't hit me that much (compared to the 65 DM TP6)
though in Hungary you get 50! bottles of beer for it. We started bringing in
our stuffs. My friend told to bring 2-3 bottles only first, just to be sure,
but i didn't want to train my leg and jump out for a new bottle each hour,
so rather risked and brought a whole bin of beer (12 litres) in. When we
opened the entrance, I thought they'd kill me for the bottles. but what
happened?! People at the entrance just wondered on the bottles (perhaps they
never saw 1 liter homemade beerbottles yet), but didn't say anything (except
a huuuuuuuh) or even didn't ask for any of our 'bread' as duty either.
I knew that certain minute, the organizer staff didn't change to the last
year, for sure.
 The first day went very fast. Opening ceremony at 20h (of course all the
speeches were spoken in English during the whole partytime, now - big
advantage to the last year), a concert at midnight (there were concerts
each nights! - 3 altogether - the best one was the one by NoiseDrift on
sunday - even i could have listened to it - i hate tekkno like hell) and
videos or something by night. At 2 o'clock the internet cafe closed down
and all the party aslept (that suxx a bit).
 All the compos were held from saturday evening-monday morning. It was a
great idea to separate them and not crunching those into one infinite night.
Big advantage also most of the compos were held in time (without usual major
lame PC config fuckups), because the contributions were shown from video!
 The party staff was the most friendly one i've ever met. They knew what
partying means, didn't forbid us drinking, reacted positivily for everything,
helped in everything (e.g we - Impulse - wanted to release an intro at the
party, but there was a kind of mistake in the limit - was shown on the
bigscreen 'ALL 64KB INTROS' and we told this size to the coder on irc -
but the limit for Amiga was 40kb (and only the pc was 64kb) as we got knew
later, and after we managed to get the intro from our coder through the
internet - with the organizers help again! - and we couldn't reach our coder
to modify it back to 40kb - take out the music or something - they didn't
send us to hell, they allowed us to compete without music, because it
would have fit to 40k without it. i don't think the organizers would have
reacted the same e.g at tp6, too! - thx for you RawStyle and the others!)
 The prizes for the compos were much higher then anybody expected i think.
E.g Amiga demo: 800 DM + CyberVision card (another 500 DM)
    Amiga intro:400 DM + Retina ? card (another ??? DM)
    C64 demo: 400 DM!!! + a power cartridge
    musics, graphics: 400 DM
I was really happy we didn't get at last a lame soundblaster/pc hardware or
so for our Amiga intro (2nd place)
Facilities: Perhaps first time in the history of the parties i visited i was
            able to burst down the manure of my body each party-day without
            feeling like on the north-pole because there was not warm, but
            real HOT! water in the shower (24h)
            the toilettes were cleaned quite often and there was no
            trash-diving around the tables either.
            the sleeping-room was not that big, but i always managed to get
            place there (Doc.Martens shoes rule)
There were no major disadvantages except perhaps i expected different music
styles on concerts (e.g i missed a real kicking metal/hard-rock band that
would have activated the scene for headbanging and shouting)
The floor was very cold to sleep even in sleeping-bags, too, though the
sleeping-room was just its opposite.
And it was not that good idea either, to hold the party exactly during the
Easter days, because none of the pubs nor whorehouses were opened (if there
was in such small village, anyway)

                         What shall i end with?!
            Why we need The Parties, if there is SYMPOSIUM, too!!!

PS: don't miss the Scenest'97 either, in 4-6, april, 1997, in Budapest/Hungary
    That's also a party (by Astroidea-Impulse) made for YOU, SCENERS !!!

