(c) Peter Sobolev
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d e m o p a r t y r e p o r t
p a r t o n e
Полный ваpиант - с фотогpафиями, доступен на
http://www.enlight.ru/ib
Уже давно хотелось увидеть своими глазами demo party в ее
оpигинальном - заpубежном ваpианте, однако все как-то не
складывалось. Смешно сказать, за пpошедшие несколько лет мы сами
тpи pаза оpганизовывали demo party в России, пpи этом ни pазу неHaving visited, so to speak, “at the origins”. Quite unexpected this year
The idea came to visit Assembly'99. Fortunately, it is being carried out
(since 1992) in Finland - from St. Petersburg in total
some 400 km. We planned to go by car, with StarGuest
(which is quite symbolic - in 1996 and 1997 we were together
organized by ENLiGHT).
I will not go into details of the trip itself and
strange features of Finnish road junctions :) After
short, although rather nervous, rushing around the city, about
at 11 a.m. on August 6, a building finally rose in front of us
Hartwall Areena, where all the action was supposed to take place
lasting three days. The building was
a large, oval-shaped indoor stadium, similar to the St. Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex
(Sports and Concert Complex). To the side stood two impressive
the size of a satellite communication dish with the inscription "Sonera".
Having parked on the third level of the parking lot, we went out and saw
many cars and minibuses. Their doors were
open and dozens (if not hundreds) were hastily unloaded from there
monitors, system units, speakers, bags, boxes. All
placed on carts (often human height) and
was taken inside. What was happening foreshadowed the beginning of something
grandiose. The space near the parking lot was also crowdedcarts and people, most of them 16-26 years old. Often
one could watch computers and equipment carry them
parents :) Having passed through the crowd we went down to the central
entrance. People were running back and forth at the doors, two stood at the edges
jeep with giant cans loaded on them - advertising
Red Bull drink. Upon entering, we saw a counter and a man in
blue T-shirt selling tickets. Later it turned out that everything
the organizers wore T-shirts of different colors - depending
from status:
Reds - General organization (infodesk, compos)
Blue - Security
Greens - Ensuring the network works
Dark blue - Main organizers
In exchange for $40 (240FIM) they put orange ones on our wrists
ribbons with the inscription "ASSEMBLY'99 TICKET" (and so that you can remove
it was impossible without tearing them), they gave a schedule and a plan of the building, and
also a piece of paper with a password. Approaching the REGISTRATION TERMINAL counter
(where two computers were installed) and after defending a small
queue, we registered. To do this, on both machines (under
Win9x) MSIE was launched and a page with two buttons was loaded
"Login" and "Sign-Up". After entering the password from the issued piece of paper and
By clicking on Sign-Up, you had to fill out a questionnaire with a series of questions
like "Name, Handle, e-mail, postal address, how many times have you been to
Assembly" etc.After filling out the form, we received a new password - his
should have been entered when voting. Having finished this somewhat
a tedious procedure (by the way, the keyboard was Finnish, I would
I was looking for the "@" symbol on it forever, if someone hadn't told me :) we
We headed further - towards the largest crowd of people. B
in the wide corridor that surrounded the central hall hung
Sponsor advertising (upside down :), were located by Carrols,
Pizza, SEGA RALLY slot machines, a table with some DJ,
bar counter, with a dozen computers, the screen on which is always on
Toys from Remedy/Futuremark and several tables were spinning. Nearby
sold books on game and graphics programming, web design,
tutorials on various graphics packages. The prices were
standard - $30-$70. From the corridor through one of the entrances
Covered by a screen, we went into the hall. The hall was the size of a decent
stadium. In a circle there were places for
spectators. In the center, below, there were tables filled
computers and equipment, people scurried around them. Part of the displays
was already glowing, in some places music was playing (then it seemed to us that
loud, how wrong we were :). Directly opposite the entrance through
which we entered, on the opposite side of the hall, hung a large
screen. The image was projected onto it from hanging under
ceiling of the projector. By all signs it was clearthat's nothing yet
It hasn’t started, everything is just getting ready. The inscriptions changed on the screen
announcing registration for Quake compo, Outdoor compo, etc.
The stands were practically empty. Making sure it's on schedule
nothing significant is expected before 23:00 (outdoor compos
in cloudy weather there was no enthusiasm, but Quake I personally
I can’t stand it) we decided to walk around the city, look around and
get some sleep. I won’t talk about Helsinki here, it’s
(most likely) a topic for #h# another conversation
http://www.enlight.ru/camera. By the way, the "official" place
overnight stays - sleeping hall inside the building - not too much for us
I liked it, it was quite stuffy there. It was decided to sleep in
car, parked in the forest :) - environmentally friendly and calm, and
I only had to drive 10-20 km from the demo party site.
Z-Z-z-z...
At twelve o'clock in the morning, pretty numb (at night it was about
7 degrees Celsius), we again approached the already familiar building
Hartwall Areena and parked (there are almost no people in the parking lot
it was) went inside.
The hall was miraculously transformed. The overhead light was turned off
and a breathtaking spectacle opened up to us - below, below us,
Hundreds of screens and light bulbs glowed, like the lights of a big city.
The landscape of the “city” was enlivened by bright flashes of rotating yellow andblue flashing lights, from time to time a spotlight beam ran across the hall,
highlighting clusters of computers, spinning on the walls
Assembly'99 emblem created by another spotlight - letter "A"
with an asterisk. Everything was shaking from the noise and hoots of many rumbling
at the same time speakers. There were advertising posters around the perimeter
sponsors - Sonera, Toptronics, IOmega and others.
There are no signs of Commodore 64 compo on the screen
observed, only the inscription “DO NOT RUN SYGATE SERVERS!” flickered.
Sygate servers acts as a DHCP servers and caused network
problems". It was about 23:30 and we went to the infodesk to
find out if anything was transferred. We were told that the Commodore 64
compo went according to schedule. Wondering how it is c64 graphics, music
and demo compo completed it in half an hour and, feeling sad, we went downstairs
see what the “city” of computers looks like up close.
The rows of tables were densely packed with all kinds of equipment and
illuminated only by the light of monitors, and occasionally encountered
exotic lamps such as flashing lights, garlands and illuminated
advertising. People tried to escape from the stuffiness with fans,
the roar of the speakers - headphones. The latter was especially relevant
every 3-4 meters one could see a stand
audio equipment and a couple of speakers - from small to giant.
It is clear that in order to hear something from your speakersneed
so that their power is greater than that of their neighbor. Arms race :)
Computers in some places were located on two floors, and there were some
skeletons holding light bulbs, once I even noticed
microwave oven. By the way - the power limit was 300 W
into place, in connection with which it was periodically announced
inadmissibility of overloads, and messages like
"Blockouts in some tables were caused by overloading the
outlets Remember that 300W is maximum power per computer place"
or "Microwave oven and refrigerators will kill the electricity from
the whole f*cking block." Officially, all refrigerators and
coffee makers (which people, like computers, brought with
yourself) could have been turned on somewhere in the corridor. Free seats for
there were no tables anymore, unfortunately we couldn’t find
220 V and ethernet sockets, where you could attach with
laptop. and infodesk couldn’t help us either.
A very unusual and pleasant factor was the complete (at least
least we have not seen) the absence of drunks or drinkers at least
beer. Security at the entrance was selectively (and quite often) checked
bags - they asked to open them and rummaged around inside. We saw how they even
They opened plastic bottles of Coca-Cola and sniffed the contents.
Contrast with our parties (where there was always no opportunity
provide professionalsecurity) in this sense was very
bright. It is hardly worth referring here to national
features, since there are no big differences in this sense
observed. For example, in the city itself in two days we saw how
at least three drunk people, which is extremely low density
The population of Helsinki is clearly no less than ours.
The c64 compo we missed were the last ones that day and we
let's go get some sleep. The next day promised to be full
impressions.
Z-Z-z-z...
The next morning we were back on site. The day started at 11
morning with Tiny music compo. Having signed up for the scheduled 16:00
seminar by Remedy, we went to the hall to listen to music.
Actually, there were three music competitions - tiny, mp3 and
multichannel. Graphics and Raytrace were inserted between them
compo, which is right - listening to so much music in a row is enough
tiring. While playing modules, the organizers
demanded silence from those sitting at computers - noise
the numerous speakers fell silent and the hall was filled with music.
It was played by some player depicting on the screen
curves - rotating, spreading, replacing each other
in a whimsical way to the beat of the music. probably, to a large extent
degrees, music was assessed precisely in combination withthis
image, but staring at a blank screen for 3 hours would be easy
boring. Music competitions turned out to be the only ones where the level
the work was head and shoulders above our Russian parties.
Nude images prevailed on Graphics compo
nature, inevitably met with stormy applause from those gathered
(this, however, did not prevent another from getting first place
quite interesting work).
After listening to the music and looking at the pictures, we went out to
corridor and began to walk along it waiting for the start of the seminar
Remedy at Golden Cafe (in the same building). Music was playing in the corridor
behind the fence some DJ was manipulating a record. Nearby
several people played SEGA RALLY and Quake, and a little further from
DVD player + video projector showed films
(Armageddon, Terminator 2, something else). there were tables nearby
and smoke swirled, illuminated by a red spotlight - it worked
impromptu bar. Near Infodesk (where, by the way, they sold
T-shirts with Assembly symbols) a propaganda point was set up
two people advertised DreamHack demo party, which should
was soon to take place in Sweden. 2 free tickets were drawn.
I decided to watch the people.
As noted above, the visitors to Assembly'99 were
predominantly young people aged 16-26 years. Absolute
the majority are Finns (which is forit came as a surprise to me
it seemed that there would be a lot of foreigners). The girls met
only together with the guys and in approximately the same ratio,
like at our demo parties. We are not Russian citizens either
met, with the exception of two locals who spoke
Russian Any obvious signs of the presence of a serious
I didn’t notice any television or journalists, but there were a lot
amateur video cameras, cameras, sometimes came across
digital cameras.
e n d o f p a r t o n e
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