»CL6:------------------------------------------------------------------------------- »CL0: Symphony 2001 Party Report »CL6:------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Written by »CL5:Makak »CL6:of »CL5:Madwizards »CL6:& »CL5:Reason »CL1:We used to say that the situation in Poland was very good. »CL6:We had many good parties and our meetings were filled with a friendly atmosphere and had a fantastic climate.»CL1: However, the situation is not as bright as it used to be and even in Poland, one of the most important scene countries, the time span between the parties increases considerately. After Satellite 2000, which was held in November 2000, the first opportunity to at end a real scene party was Symphony 2001, that was held on Sep. 14-16th 2001 in a small Polish town called Trzcianka. (Hey guys, try to spell it!) As always, the journey was long and hard. I am in the unfortunate situation that I live in Northeast Poland, more precisely in »CL7:Bialystok, and although there were some talented sceners in my city in the past, e.g.»CL1: Animal or Ranger, Bialystok is now an almost scene-free area. The only Amiga sceners who live there are Emers of Appendix, Codi of Appendix, and I. I guess I do not have to tell you what this means! »CL8:Even though Poland is not a big country, I always have to travel a lot to get to a party. This time was no exception.»CL1: I was travelling on my own, so I decided to take another train and meet Noxis of Mawi, Hakon of Whelpz, Cahir of Whelpz, and Fenek of Arise in Olsztyn. The trip was long - it took 13 hours by different trains. We did not want to booze on the train, so we arrived in Trzcianka without any troubles. We were quite surprised when we realized that there were about 30 other sceners on "our" train, whom we had not yet meet. Anyway , in this numerous team, we reached the party place. It was really hard to find the party hall, but finally, after a 1-hour walk around the town, we entered the party hall. The building housed one of the biggest Discos in the city, so it was the perfect place for the scene party. In addition, the surroundings were wonderful - forest, lake, camping houses - everything an ordinary scener needs. »CL7:The hall was nice and had a bar with very low prices (only 3 PLN, about 1.50 DM, for good beer!), a nice room to sleep in (the bars kitchen), and tables in the main party hall.»CL1: Those who had more money could sleep in the camping houses, which were very nice and cheap. The organizers had done a very good job here, and in the beginning, everything looked fantastic... The party started as usual, there were not that many people yet, since we were the first to arrive, except for those who had been there since Thursday to help organize the meeting, of course. Walking through the party hall, I met my mates one by one. »CL6:I had to talk with everyone for a while, drink a beer, or just have a hug.»CL1: We spent most of the time outside the hall, boozing, near the entrance. Somehow, it became a bit boring, but soon someone was struck with a good idea. We saw Silents car outside the hall and began abusing a rather drunk Azzaro: "Hey, you would not jump on top of that car, would you?". After all Azzaro said: "Would I not?", climbed on top of the car and started jumping on it. Then he intended to from the roof onto the bonnet, but being rather drunk, he did not have full control of his balancing skills and hit the windscreen instead of the bonnet. He was a bit confused, so he took a branch from the nearest tree, and put it BEHIND the wiper! Not surprisingly »CLB:Silent was rather unhappy when he saw the damage Azzaro had caused his car.»CL1: Therefore , we made a quick collection, and donated money for the new windscreen to Silent. It is now a very famous story in the Polish scene; notice that at Delirium, the next party, a wild demo appeared with Azzaro on a bonnet... The rest of the day went with constant boozing. Many people appeared, Jimi'che had to leave and the organizers were showing various scene productions on bigscreen. After some hours, I decided to go to sleep. Usually I do not sleep on parties, as I find that two days are too short a period to be missing even a little bit of the action by sleeping. This time the party lasted 3 days so I decided to take a short nap. »CL7:I was awoken by a horrible noise, caused by the organizers, who were showing Taxi 2 on the bigscreen.»CL1: It could have been nice, if it was not for the fact that the huge thing standing next to my sleeping bag turned out to be a giant loudspeaker. In silence, I cursed the organizers and started next day of party. Many new people like Lothar, Juen, Embeat, Piolek, and Stazi, appeared and as usual, we had to talk for a while. Then the first crazy compos started. »CL8:Azzaro and Borys had prepared about 70 crazy competitions! About half of them were carried out.»CL1: I cannot remember all the competitions, so I am basing this on Azzaros article for the next Excess. We tried to hit a monitor with a rock, we arranged a modem-throw, firefighters' compo (»CLB:when we found an old fire extinguisher we decided to test if it was operational»CL1:), a hazard compo, the unnecessary thing on the party, where the organizers were chosen as winners ;). Many of the competitions failed due to various reasons. The shopping cart compo failed, because there was no supermarket to steal the carts. The 2000 peso compo, where one should get 2000 Columbian peso from anywhere, failed due to lack of that kind of money in both banks and exchange points. »CL7:Because the party was held just after the attacks on WTC, we also planned to make an "Osama Bin Laden compo".»CL1: The intension was to create two towers from empty beer cans and then destroy them by throwing paper planes into them. Unfortunately, this compo failed because there were no can beers in the bar only plastic mugs.... Since many of these compos failed, we arranged many new compos. There was the "flatron compo" (who can make a monitor as flat as possible by kicking), the "GSM compo" (destroying a public phone until only the microphone is working) that was won by Grogon/PSL, the "Injury compo" (won by Qix/Nah-Kolor after falling into the lake, cutting his hand with glass and hitting his teeth). Many may say that these compos are stupid and have nothing in common with the so-called "scene". In my opinion, they are always welcome at the parties, because they make people feel relaxed and full of scene motivation... Soon it became dark, meaning that it was time for the serious competitions. »CL8:We were expecting many nice releases, as there had not been any parties in Poland since Satellite 2000.»CL1: Of course , there had been the Abstract and Addict anniversary, but those were small PC events, which only few Amiga sceners had visited. The music was rather nice, in fact so nice that many people started to dance on the scene. I was there as well and I had a lot of fun. »CL6:It is sad, that some people got mad at us, supposedly because they were not having as much fun as we, and started to shout "get off the scene".»CL1: Although that slogan is great, it is sad that some people get furious with others just because they are having more fun. After the music compo, the gfx compo was held. Most of the pictures were nice, but there was too much new-wave 24bit, huge resolution pictures, and too less good, old low- res 8bit pictures. The pictures that are shown get worse and worse at each party. Where did all those graphicians, like Dzordan or Ra, go? Finally, the intro compo started. The Amiga compo had two productions, an intro by Decree, and a short intro by Appendix. Decrees production was nice, and Appendix' was just an announcement of Psychol pack, which Flapjack should have on the scene, after a few years of silence. »CL8:We were very surprised that Mavey did not show anything, when I asked him about it a day earlier, I did not think that he was serious, when he told me he did not have anything.»CL1: That is too bad; we all hope it is caused by the work he is putting into a new, stunning demo for PowerPC and 3D gfx cards. Last, but not least, it was time for the demo compo. First, the PC productions were shown. I do not like those demos much. Although they look great with 3D-acceleration, they have no individual character. The same 3D scenes, music ripped from commercial songs (Grogon noticed stolen music in two demos, and suspected a third soundtrack to be ripped as well). Then came the most important compo, the Amiga demo compo. There were four entries in this category. »CL7: "Dog Star Descends" from Amnesty was the first big production coded by Crust.»CL1: I can still remember his crappy intro from Satellite 2000, and was perhaps expecting something similar, but this was a »CL8:stunning piece of work.»CL1: Even though the demo was not as good as e.g. the productions of Mavey or Kierownik, it would be great if every new coders debut looked like this! The demo was filled with a dark atmosphere, it is hard to tell, and you simply have to watch it! The second demo was a rather crazy production by a group called WFMS. It was made as a joke, so best if we do not talk about it. Now it was time for the best two entries in this compo. »CL8:The first was a demo made in cooperation between Encore and Nah-Kolor.»CL1: Those who has seen some of Encores productions, was not surprised. The demo looked exactly like all of Encores other productions meaning both good and bad things, still too dark objects, and a dark atmosphere. Then something appeared which shocked people. After the warm up at Assembly, where "Cool Bazzar" was placed as no. 11, Mawi showed something stunning. "Cruel Karma »CL1:Forms", a demo running on PowerPC and 3D gfx cards, Permedia2 and probably most of the Voodoo family, beat all others without a doubt and most of us agreed that it had also beaten the PC demos, thanks to its great design. »CL8:Kierownik showed some completely new effects, MP3 music & 640x480 hi/true- colour resolution. Every scener MUST see this demo. »CL1:Although I was not a great enthusiast of "Mawis School of Design", I have made an exception with this demo. Azzaros design combined with 24-bit gfx and hi resolution looks really nice. It is enough to say that something unusual happened, people demanded that the demo was shown one more time just after the compo. This does not happen often. The last time something like this happened, to my knowledge, was at the Intel Outside party. Kierownik showed us that he is now one of the best coders in the scene; only Mavey and Diamond can compete with him in Poland. Time passed nice and slowly, but eventually we had to leave Trzcianka and go back home. »CL8:The party was good and there were not too many PC lamers.»CL1: Although it was mainly a PC party, only good & active guys from the PC scene were present and »CL8:not some 12-year-old "internet-swapper".»CL1: Everyone, who attended the meeting in Trzcianka should be satisfied, and those, who stayed at home should regret their decision. »CL6:I have written this party report for "Eurochart" to encourage all the Western sceners to visit a Polish party.»CL1: It is definitely worth the couple of zloty, you will have to spend on travelling and entrance fees. I hope to attend the meeting in Trzcianka next year, and to see all you Western sceners in Poland. »CLB: CYONCP - this time Satellite 2002! »PIC:5.iff»