Party report from Amiga Halloween Conference

Published in: Zine #08
Written by: Omega of Dual Crew
Date: 15. January 1991
 
Interview
This party started at 12 o'clock and I and my friend Tip/Phenomena came there at about half past three after being picked up by a really nice guy called Dolby/Aurora at the railwaystation. On the way to the school, where the party took place, Dolby told us some rooms were closed. Why, they didn't know... We were also informed that it wasn't exactly plenty of room for all those freaks coming over there.

Arriving at the school it actually seemed to be quite a lack of people, so we found a place quite fast to set our things up. Allthough we shared it with Razor 1911 and Fairlight it wasn't that crowded at all. So far so good! As I'm a musician I started by noisetracking a bit, but I soon found out that a stereo wouldn't have been so bad bringing. It wasn't too easy with all that noise and talk all around so I quit rather short afterwards. Too bad really, since there was a music competition. Well, more about that later.

Some of us wanted to get some food and started looking for a snackbar or something like that. All I can say is that it wasn't easy. No one really knew that thing. I asked one of the organisers for a shop or a pizzeria. Well, I have heard something about a little shop in that direction, he said and waved his arm in the air. About 400 meters, he continued. After some wandering around we finally found a place where we could buy something to eat. And we could phone for free too. Nice owner, I'd say. Well, there's not much more to say about the first day. Not much happened except that we all agreed in this party being lame so far.

As time went by the following day rumours about the music competition went. Some people said that the Noisetrackermodule was to run in Noisetracker with 1 Mb, some told us it should be only 512 Kb and some said CLI-loading was the rule. Some musicians were a bit irritated about the bad information in that matter and didn't know whether they could compete at all. As an organiser came on Sunday morning and told us the rules it was all quite cool.

The promised videocorner with new, cool films wasn't much sight of at first, but in the far end of the corridor I suddenly found a room with a video and two televisions connected. This was late on Saturday afternoon and I'm quite certain the videocorner wasn't there earlier than that...

Were there places to sleep on? Nope, some folks lay on the floor in a very little hall, which could have fit at the most 7-8 persons. These places were the only ones with silence. So, it was full on all three levels of the building.

On Saturday night the organizers announced that the prices would not be the promised ones, by setting up ONE A4-paper on ONE wall. Well, I suppose the news spread fast anyway. The demo competition prize increased by 1000 SKR. That means 4000 SKR. Well, that's not bad either, but I do think they should have stood up for what they had said. Both GFX- and MUSIC-competitionprizes were 500 SKR, against the earlier 1000 SKR. I don't think there were any 2nd prices in any of the categories even though they had said it would be, but I may be mistaking. Where, when and how would the voting now take place. It wasn't announced until a few hours before deadline that either.

Being up all Friday and Saturday made me a bit tired, so when deadline arrived I still was asleep and I woke up a little while after the winners had been decided. The voting, by the way, was made in the way that they put the demos, GFX and musics onto disks, which they spread then. After checking it all out you sent them a note with the groups' vote on it. Quite boring as I had expected a big screen and a neat stereo connected. Wishfull thinking, I guess.

When I woke up from my sleep my first question was "WHO WON??" Everyone said Phenomena and that was actually quite expected, since it was a very, very original idea in the coding. For those who have seen it, you must think I'm totally gone right now and I suppose I am, writing all that crap about original ideas, since the demo contained filled vectors. The musiccompetition was won by Firefox/Phenomena, also rather expected, and at last the graphicscompetition, which made a guy called Lorre 500 SKR richer. A fantastic picture in high-res.

Well, finally I must congratulate the organizers Powerlords and Aurora for making this real lame party come true. Thank you very much indeed. Whoops, this turned out to be a little bit longer than I had expected. I guess you guys have to leave some of the text out. Why not start with the three last lines, eh??