A-Head 01 Aars Party Report
From C64 Diskmag Wiki
---------------------------------------- party report from'the party 1992 part ii,the final' by diabolo ---------------------------------------- welcome reader to the report from the aars x-mas party which was arranged by camelot on the c64 in cold denmark. the party start was set on the 27th of december 0800 cet. we (benno/trance,rrr/ oxyron and me) already arrived at 0730 at the conference centre after we had driven in our car during the night. we were astonished that there were already quite many cars on the parkiing place half an hour before the official beginning. it was very cold outside and we were lucky when we discovered that one could already enter the warm(!) hall. we went torwards the place where you had to pay the entrence money. there was a very long row of people waiting. it took us 2+1/2 hours(!)to get to the desk where we had to pay the entrence fee. after having paid we got a white- orange band round our wrist which should make it easier for the organizers to see if people had paid or not. furthermore a 3.5 votedisc was handed out which allowed us to vote for the various competitions on an amiga. unfortunately an error occured on these discs but it was repared after giving the discs back to an organizer. a little sheet with a timetable of the competitions and other things was available at the information desc. after having fetched our equipment out of my car and installing it,we had a look through the halls. in hall 1 was the information where you also could deposit your contribution for the compos later on, a little computer shop with discs etc, a cafeteria, a snackbar and ofcourse the 600x550 cm large screen on which mtv,compos,information and live- pictures,which were shot in the halls, were displayed. this carpeted hall was resrved for amigas and pc's. on the reserved tables were sheets on which groupnames were written. the same had been done in hall 2 which was planned to be the c64 hall. but more than half of the hall was occupied by amigas and pc's later on. at the edge of hall 2 was the main entrence. both,hall 1 and 2, were divided into parts by moveable partition walls. on the edges of some tables were plastic bags which were used as dustliners. later on the first day both halls were filled and all space the halls offered was needed to accommodate all people. the third hall was t`e sleeping hall where you could sleep on the ground. one bad thing was that it was strictly forbidden to sleep in the other halls. it made no sense to me why i should not sleep on my chair in front of my equipment. two times some organizers forced me to sleep in hall 3; but without success. later,rrr told me, they threatened to cancel the compos or the party if people were going on with sleeping in the halls. the halls were always clean as the hired personal did their job. only in the three (!) toilets was a little mews because the bin for the used papertowels was too small so that there was soon a hill of th3se. i only discovered two (!) showers,one for men,one for women which could luckily be used by everybody. nevertheless there was always a row of people in front of the showers and people had to wait 1+1/2 hours to have a shower. we builed up our computer in the middle of hall 2. at the same table was the oxyron crew busily finishing their demoparts. people and groups that i personally saw at the party are: oxyron (tts,graham,axis,slide,rrr,kirk, pri,...) trance (benno,asmodis,luka,...) antic (incubus,zyron,...) padua (syndrom,bulldog,...) spirit (ans,bulldog,...) smash design (tardox,ivan,...) varsity nitro/rebels and some more. around 1 o'clock in the morning was a little techno concert which i unfortunately missed just as the game competition. the amiga graphics compo was really great. alltogether there were about 50 pics. some pictures they showed were just brilliant and close to perfection. in my opinion the picture with some flying dragons as theme was the best. but there were many more good pictures, many of the good ones were showing two fighting humans in former times. one picture was supposed to be a joke and it made everybody laugh. it was a flying bird that could have been drawn by a child of 5 years and it got loud applause. the music compo was not that good as the musics sounded all the same. the projectionists printed that about 250 musics were handed in for the sound compo and only 34 were chosen to be played. the amount of musics were probably a joke because i don't think that 250 musicians were present at the party. the fast-intro-compo was one of the most amusing parts of all competitions. some were really simple. just a logo and a scroller looking like a standard intro on the c64 but below the amiga standard. one intro that looked quite good in the beginning did selfdestruction as the line routine which was supposed to look quite well wrote the datas in the bitmap of the logo. but i don't want to slag on all intros as i'm not sure how much time they groups had to finish their intros, the'normal'intro-compo was astonishing. some intros looked like demoparts with excellent coding. the'intro'from rebels was one of the best. but also some others whose names i can't remember had the same quality. one featured raytracing, another 3d-views out of a vehicle driving through a city. i can't say anyting about the amiga demo-compo because we were alredy on our way back to germany when it started. the pc demo-compo was quite good if i consider that the scene on pc is not that large yet. most of the demos contained standard effects like dycps, multiplexing and techtech. only some contained filled vector cubes which were not as good as on amiga or c64 if i look at coma light 8. but i liked most of the demos. the c64 graphics compo had some really nice pictures,totally about 25. the best ones were from ans/spirit, ivan/smash design and some more. in my view the winning pic was the picture from a gfx-artist from vision,showing a vamp carrying a lady in front of a castle in the moonlight. in the music competition 14 sounds took part. the music from devilock/x-rated had a good rythm but was not diversified enough to have the number one spot. personally i think that the tune from steel/scs/origo was the best one. at 5 o'clock in the morning the c64 demo-compo was held. totally about 11 groups took part like noice,varsity, trance,oxyron,visual reality,smash design,starion,dunex and some more. the best demo was undoubted coma light 8 from oxyron. the demos from visual reality and starion were good,too. but both did not get spread. starion did not spread it because it seems to become fashion to keep one's demo after the compo. visual reality did not link their demo in time so that they showed the parts seperately with a monitor. perhaps people awaited more demos from some elite groups but the demo-compo and the graphics+music competition were of a high standard. finally i can say that the party was a success. the organization was good, the sound equipment and the big screen made the compos a real enjoyment and the quantity of wares that were released was ok.