Dooms Day 1994 Party Report by Andy of Essence The Dooms Day Party, organized by DCS, Skid Row, Zig Zag Corp and World of Twist, was the first party in the Southern part of Germany since a long number of years. Unfortunately, unlike the organisers had originally predicted, the party was no exceptional success; only 350 sceners did storm the nearby of Karlsruhe, instead of the expected 700 visitors. The celebration place was signed in a quite good way, so it wasn't a problem to find the party hall, in the little city of Ettlingenweiler. The hall was as big as the one from the Sun n Fun 2 party, held in the Spring of 1993, in Hellenthal. The official opening time was at 15:15; Only 100 visitors were queuing in front of the entrance doors at that time. Towards the entrance, two huge security guards , were literally examining all visitors; everyone's body was harshly scrutinised and checked for unwanted hidden materials. The entrance fee for this event, which only lasted for 13 hours was 20 DM; quite high, in many's opinion, but the organizers didn't manage to make any big profit out of this party. ROM dared to ask the party organisers, for a rough schedule of the incurred costs; The hall (including all tables and chairs) costed 3600 DM. The audios (rental charge) costed 600 DM. The videos (rental charge) costed 1200 DM. Other expenses (food, drinks and competition prizes) amounted to 6600 DM Organising the Dooms Day amounted to about 12000 DM , but the organizers only gathered about 7000 DM from the entrance fees, and the income from the selling of drinks and food. A strict rule stated that it was not allowed to take any own food and drinks into the party hall, but fortunately, it was no problem to take some small foodstuff through the entrance, without being caught or seen! At about 17:00, we counted 200 visitors inside the hall and a few of the 12 organizers started to have some visions for committing suicide! Many of the visitors were just hanging around, without any computers, just sitting there and drinking beer; It really looked everything but a computer event! Some older people (40 to 60 years old) were present, but all they were seen doing was just walking around. In another corner, few Snes owners were gambling with their Super Wild Cards. Towards 18:00, the hall was still quite empty, and so the organizers thought of pumping up the volume; Perhaps a few local neighbours would have noticed the event and fill up more hall space! The lights were dimmed down, and the volume was turned up even more. Trance music ruled supreme, alternating with some bombarding Heavy sounds. The few coloured lights, rented by the organizers, were put to good use. Towards the evening, it was finally time for the graphics competition, which was directly followed by the music competition, and the Demo event. Only 11 pictures took part in the graphics competition and the quality was not even good enough to depict in here. 36 modules were handed over for the music competition, and fortunately enough, some really good pieces were played. All in all, only 6 demos took part in the main competition. The tool competition only featured 4 entries and the game competition had only 1 competitor Demo Competition The first prize was won by Rebels, with Switchback , a 2 disk Aga Trackmo. Rebels only won two bottles of champagne, instead of the promised money prize of 1000 DM, because their contribution only ran on a 68030 equipped Amiga! All A1200 owners don't have to worry too much though, since Rebels have already released Switchback 1.2, a 68020 version of their best demo yet. The second prize was won by Haujobb, with Jammin, an Aga Dentro. Haujobb won 500 DM. The third prize was won by Trackers, with Letmaelk 2, a file dentro. Trackers won 200 DM. Other contributions were Gimme Alcohol from Bonzai, Revelation from Shrimps Design and the More Members Intro from Birdhouse Projects. Graphics Competition Syncros won the first prize of 100 DM, with Planet E. Jms of Dcs won the second prize of 50 DM, with Muz63. Andre of Alpha Flight won 10 free beers, with Guardian! Music Competition The first place was grabbed by Laxical of Scoopex & Chrylian of Drd, who competed with Iron Wheels. Laxical and Chrylian won 200 DM. The second place was grabbed by Dreamer of Shoot, who competed with Real Kaoz. Dreamer won 100 DM. Chromag of Rebels won the thirst prize of 50 DM with the module, Chromag Unplugged. Tool Competition The first place was won by Crazy Copper of Defect with Art Pro. Crazy Cooper took home one bottle of champagne! The second place was won by Flake of Trsi with his Virus Workshop 4.2. Flake drank 10 free beers! The third place was won by Zytech of Exterminators with Dxsf. Zytech drank 5 free beers. The fourth place was won by Knackosoft of Trsi with Dir-Cutter & Dir-Deleter. Unfortunately, he took nothing home! Game Competition The only competitors were Bonzai, who won 10 free beers for their hard work. The C64 and the SNes competitions were cancelled, for the simple reason that no productions were handed over to the organisers. The competitions ended towards 4:00 and the organizers forced the whole lot of visitors out of the hall! According to the invitation, the party should have lasted until 12:00, but as always, we have been cheated by eight hours! All in all, we can say that the Dooms Day party, was a small but funny meeting, which was worth to visit if one lived around the south of Germany. Unfortunately, it would be useless to make any comparisons with other larger scene events, but I still hope, that next year there'll be another summer party, here in Germany.