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ÄÄ´ This text comes from IMPHOBIA Issue XII - July 1996 ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
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NAID 96 PARTY REPORT
(Yet Another Insanity Trip)
by Phoenix[Hornet]
Here we go again! Well, okay, this
isn't Dan Wright talking about his
journeys up the North American east
coast, but I hope it's just as
captivating :).
NAID (North American Internation
Demo-competition) 1996 took place in
Longueuil, Quebec, Canada on May 31st
through June 2nd. They promised more,
and more we did get!
The four-car convoy that I became
a part of started in Virginia, USA on
Wednesday, the 29th. I can't make an
account of what experiences everyone
had there, but it sure was a surprise
to see 12 demoscene people in my front
yard Thursday evening! They consisted
mostly of the Threesome and
Terraformer groups. After a night of
fine dining at the local Taco Bell,
everyone crashed at a nearby Econo-
Lodge except for a couple people I
managed to fit in my tiny house.
Friday morning, we left the Syracuse
NY area for Montreal. Armed with CB
radios, we kept in contact with each
other's cars in a manner not much
unlike IRC. After a stop or two at gas
stations, always accompanied by
playing German techno on a boombox, we
hit the Canadian border.
Unfortunately, the car I was in (Miss
Saigon/3Some's '90 Ford Escort)
overheated. So it had to be PUSHED
across the border and we were given a
large jug of water coolant (who said
our trip would be flawless?).
After miles and miles of Ontario
smiles, we made it into the Montreal
area. Here is a tip, when in Montreal,
and you're taking Highway 20, never
EVER exit it if you are going through.
My two most regrettable words of the
trip were "exit here", which took us
into some hectic streets downtown in a
city of one million people. Thanks to
maps and the team effort of 13 people,
we made it out and to the College
Edouard-Montpetit in Longueuil, the
site of NAID! We were expecting to
arrive early but our city wanderings
made us get to the party just in time
for opening. :)
I had not been in the partyplace for
over 13 months, but when I stepped
inside it seemed like yesterday I was
there. People met up with MEd, one of
the organizers. I went to get a room
key for the Kosmic classroom. However,
they changed the system on us. While
it only cost $2 to get a "room ticket"
now, we couldn't get keys; rather at
first we had to find a person who had
our keys and they would open it.
Eventually they figured to leave all
the keys with some people at a table,
but still having our own keys would've
been much more handy.
Anyway, we met up with the Hornet
crew, who got there Friday morning.
They had cool black tshirts with an H
and a ring on the back that faintly
resembled an anarchy symbol. Their
room would be eventually filled with
FM, Psychic Monks, and a couple DDD
guys as well, who were making a cool
360deg shooter game. I also met up
with Mellow-D and Lemm, who had
travelled all the way from Belgium and
England to get to NAID.
Many other classrooms filled up fast
Friday night, with such groups as The
Surrounders, Terraformer/ 3Some, Craw
Prod., Hallucination, and Guild, some
of which many people had never heard
of before. Of course, for most people
Friday night at NAID meant
bar-hopping! I stayed around to look
for people and sign the #trax banner,
but went to a local pub with Snowman,
Rimbo, Lemm, and others later on.
The music and intro deadlines were set
Friday at midnight, so people were
rushing to get them in. There was
almost no time to make intros at the
party like last year. While filling
out my compo entry forms in the main
area, I noticed that the room next to
the big screen with tables for people
w/o classrooms was almost empty. I was
expecting to see it packed, although
more people had moved to the
classrooms.
Saturday started with the 100k intro
compo around noon. They made the fatal
mistake of not testing out the entries
beforehand, so the first three crashed
in some way! This made the crowd laugh
but no doubt didn't make the entrant's
days. The two most notable entries
(out of 7 or so) were The Humanoid's
second NAID intro, with a nice
lightsourced picture (see korso100 or
clxsperm for an idea what I'm talking
about) but poor music. The other was
Threesome's last minute entry called
"Dyslexia", an intro that ran
backwards! This had the crowd roaring
and should be seen at least once by
everyone just to believe.
Following a barbeque outside Saturday
afternoon, and an excellent ST3
tracking seminar/lecture put on by
Necros/FM, the music compo started.
There were around 75 entries this
year, but learning from last year,
there was a pre-selection of 20 to
play. So with a few exceptions, the
entries were extremely high quality!
They couldn't get FT2 to run, though,
so most of the entries were played in
Cubic except the IT's which were of
course played in Impulse Tracker. My
entry didn't make the cut, but I can't
complain compared to the tunes that
were played, great stuff.
Saturday night at NAID'96 featured
many live acts on stage. It started
with a local rock band, Wicked Access,
and a guy playing Toccatta in D on his
electric guitar, werd :). The tracked
music group Force Ten then played
their modules live on stage! Of course
accompanied with the rhythm and bass
parts. :) Zapper/F10 jammed along to
the Dope demo on the big screen with
his Ensoniq. After this, Mental
Floss/Kosmic "mixed" some tracks using
2 PC's with Inertia player, and
Balrog/Kosmic, Jaydee, and others DJ'd
until their set was taken over.
Unfortunately, whoever that was played
music straight through the 4k intro
and new effect compos which took place
around 3-4am. There were only around
5-6 entries in each. I fell asleep
before the chipmusic compo (around
5am).
Sunday morning started with some Tim
Horton's muffins and the graphics
compo. The first few entries were
goofed up a bit, but after Ara/Satire
learned how to run CShow it went well
:). Thankfully nothing was scanned
this year, though a couple pics were
rendered (one was a joke by LK/PM).
The pic which would have won didn't
because one of it's artists wasn't
there, but after the party the
organizers decided to give Visigoth/
Lintec/iCE's entry share of first
place.
After a little IRC'ing on the party
network, I went to the free-for-all
compo at around 6, which was probably
the most interesting one. Many
entrants showed off talents, like
singing, rapping, humor, or magic,
while others entered things they
couldn't otherwise, like Amiga demos
and animations, two of which tied for
first place.
After this came the finale: the demo
competition. After seeing the mediocre
(for the most part) intro entries, I'm
sure almost no-one was expecting
nearly 20 demo entries! But it
happened. The first three were
laughable, but then some very
impressive entries were shown! You can
read my NAID'96 demo review article
for the scoop on all this. The large
number of demos delayed the final
judging, which was filled by IOR
asking the crowd questions from the
trivia compo (which was cancelled due
to lack of time and interest) and
showing things like the ASM'95
animation "Pulp" which turned out to
be the biggest hit at NAID, like
"Dope" was last year.
Following the awards ceremony,
everyone packed up for the sad trip
home, knowing this was the best demo
party they've seen (except Jaakko or
IOR maybe :). I was asked by Snowman
in the parking lot outside to join
Hornet, after the 212 or so
intros/demos I've rated for them. :)
Our four-car-trip home was less
eventful, but for the better since we
were all tired.
What can I say? It was a "mad phat
crackhead" event! :) Sadly, the
organizers are unable to put together
another NAID party themselves. Let's
hope that the North American scene is
now strong enough so that we can make
NAID'97 a reality with our own work.