__After what seemed a bloody long bus-ride, and a non eventful boat-trip, we finally arrived in Aars. It took us a little while, arguing about whether we should go to a motel or not before we managed to haul our equipment inside the party-place. After much doo-dah, and jackety jack with the fellows trying to organize this event, we found ourselves a non-reserved table.
__What was pretty weird actually, was that the organizers had decided not to open hall 3 until the next day, and hall 1, and much of hall 2 had already been reserved. As for the other facilities upon arriving, we were not allowed to sleep inside the hall. That would have been alright if they had opened the sleeping hall, which they didn't. We couldn't even take a shower, cause they hadn't opened the showers either. So we were stuck there, tired and sweaty. Well, that's not really enough to topple me over, not when it comes to computer parties anyway. One can always survive the odd day and night without a shower and some days worth without sleep. And... We did, at least almost. Towards the official opening hours of the party, I managed to fall asleep underneath the table and when I woke up there were people all around. They had opened hall 3 which started filling up, and, joy oh joy, one was able to go shower.
__The passing of days sort of went into a vague thing after that. It might have something to do with the fact that one could actually buy spirits, beer and what have you, for a very resonable price at Danish gas stations, not to mention Danish grocery stores.
__I recall going for a wee sightseeing through Aars, together with Tecon / PJZ and Morbid / PJZ. Actually... There is not much worth seeing in Aars. I'm pretty sure, if Aars had been in America, you'd have found it somewhere down south, and there'd be lots of weird looking people there, playing banjos (Insert dueling banjos theme from Deliverance here. -Ed.)
__What struck me after this little stroll, was the quality of the air inside the halls - Or rather, the lack of quality. Having smelled fresh Aars air for a couple of hours, the air inside the halls hit me like a brick. It was probably worst in hall one, and got better and better the further in you got. Mind you, I use "better" as a relative term. Probably a wonder that no one passed out.
__I spent most of the time walking around talking to people and friends, and even though there were a lot of Quakers, IRC addicts, and other unnamable people present, there was actually a lot of cool scene people there too. I got to meet a lot of friends I've only talked to through internet, and people I didn't know at all. This I think, is probably the reason to go to The Party, because I did detect a rather commercialized organizer staff. I have never been to TP before, and this being my first time, I have to admit, it reminded me a lot of The Gathering, which also is a nice place to meet people, but nothing more.
__Power break. Yep. It had to happen. Although very annoying, it was also one of the funniest power-breakdowns I've encountered. This is due to the fact, that we didn't just bring down the power at the party place, we brought down the power in the whole of Aars, blowing a fuse at the local power plant. It surely was an experience, walking through the pitch-black halls, only having a couple of hundred cigarette glows guiding the way. The organizers had their share of work, walking around reminding people that it was not allowed to smoke inside the party halls. We finally made our way outside, which was even darker. Although now, it was now no problem finding booze and spew parties - Just go towards any light car in the parking lot.
__Well, nothing short of commercialism, and power breaks, it was time for the competitions. I won't dive into describing every release here, cause frankly, I do not remember many of them. The only thing that I do remember very well, is the "official" party joke. In a lot of the demos and intros, there were references and puns on the earlier mentioned power break and the party's slogan: Batteries not included.
__The competitions were all run on a big screen in hall 1 and was by far the best big screen I have encountered at any party so far. This was a screen that deserved to be called a big screen (Something you'd be likely to see in descent sized cinemas. -Ed.) and it had a very clear picture. The sound system was ok, but nothing special.
__As usual, there was the expected string of delays. The delays didn't last too long though and I guess the reason for most of them was the power break. As far as I know they didn't encounter too many problems with the productions either, although some productions would not run on their machines. (Like TRSI's huge demo for the Amiga competition. -Ed.)
__For some reason, the organizers obviously didn't anticipate many people actually wanting to watch the competitions. The area set of for people viewing the competitions was very small. Barely room enough for a few rows of chairs. Any other people wanting to watch had to be seated in the rows of hall 1. Which was a rather vexing experience. Having to sit besides Quakers, people downloading porno and playing their god damned Mp3's way too loud. And of course, if you didn't get room in front of the big screen and had to sit in the rows, be sure some tall fuck had to come stand in front of you. I'm just glad afro hair due's are out this year.
__The competitions went along with lots of nice productions, and lots of not so nice productions. But all in all a very enjoyable show. What about the competitions that startled me was the c64 graphics show. It is pretty amazing to see what some folks can do with this old, loveable machine. Sadly enough our bus had to leave before I could see the c64 demo compo though...
__It has to be mentioned that it took the organizers nearly 3 weeks to put out the official results. And then without any names nor titles. Only points and entry numbers. Really sad!
