Preview
Germanies largest Scene-event so far reviewed in a report.
No party's perfect.
Yet some are closer to perfection than
others...
It was a rather cold, quite windy and grey day, this 6th April 1996. Not
so a damned good omen for yet another attempt to have a proper Scene-based
party in Germany. There have been massive tries before. A lot of parties,
the same amount of utter flops. German Scene parties always ended up in a
big mess with the audience lusting for terror, the organisers at the end of
their Scenish career - sometimes also their economical 'Out!' as the
partyplaces normally looked like a herd of rhinocerosses had a soccer match
in them.
Where was the party place?
Although being described quite well in the forefield of the party, the
Veranstaltungszentrum Hittfeld wasn't so easy to find. Especially
problematic when coming by train as there were NO signs at all. For
example me, I had to be guided by a friendly native and his dog the 3 km by
feet. Oh, before I forget about it: Where was the promised shuttle?
"Next year we will have real aluminium streetsigns for this. It will cost
us money that we don't have again, but this year we had paper signs stucked
at they have all gone in the wind",
an organiser sullenly explained to me.
The hall and environment
The outside of the hall was quite attracting and modern. A small lake
nearby with ducks as foodsupply looked very tempting.
After having tried to trade down the enterance fee (comment: "We don't
have any exchange money left, please pay in fit." - "I only have two DM
20,- notes here."; "That will pretty do!") and having the obligatory
plastic rope tied to my jeans, I entered the also very attractive and
modern inner of the Veranstaltungszentrum.
My first impression was the emptyness in there. After having had a look on
the desks I saw estimated 500 people - only - a figure which lateron got
verified by the organisers.
Although this means that only 50% of the expected number of people
have actually showed up, the hall still was much too hot. Not to
say how it would have been if 1000 or more people would have crammed in.
Another minuspoint surely the constant low lighting. If it wasn't dark
totally, they dimmed down the lights to very low in order to enable people
to watch the video presentations and movies ('Plan Nine From Outerspace'
underneath!). A good idea in the first place, headache forciating on the
long term.
Very good indeed was the work of the cleaning personnel. I didn't wanted
to dinner in the toilets, yet I guess one wouldn't have gotten coli-
intoxicated automatically. Too bad I haven't seen any showers. Also the
hall itself was cleaned every now and then so that from the
hygienic point of view, there was nothing to mutter about - at
least not under regard of having 500 people trying to give a good mess
afterall.
The foodsupply was rather sporadic (Pizza in the midday and from 18.00 to
20.00 only), yet there were a lot of good restaurants and also a gasoline
station where one could get liquids etc. nearby - who wants to live from
small fatty pieces pizza for DM 4,-?
Facilities
Now we come to real pro stuff: The light equipment was real advanced and
the big screen wasn't only huge but also of real good quality. Too bad
that somehow the hall still seemed to be a little too light so some
competitions appeared to be a little pale. Deadly for dark effects...
The sound was - for unknown reason - quite noisy; real garage sound. I
guess here this hasn't been a problem of the equipment as it looked quite
promising, but of the equalizing. Someone was sitting on his ears
seemingly.
The videoequipment (including VLab Motion) has been sponsored by
3M. All releases have been brought to videotape and
cutted so that the competitions could been shown without loading breaks,
virusattacks etc. A very good idea which can nothing but advised
further to other organising crews so that loading breaks like at
The Party V are history, especially on the background that no loss in
visual quality was to be made out.
For all interested, there has been a small Internet-Cafe
with free surfing and chatting - if one was able to catch one of the five
places.
Boni, Skonti and Concerts
The organisers were in a good mood which might also result from the fact
that there were 20 officials overall to host (and sometimes throw out) the
audience.
Normally rather embarrassing attempts to attract the audience, like having
a quiz about 'Hitchhiking Through The Galaxy' or
to puzzle a torn-to- pieces-keyboard together again,
turned out to be real entertaining. A witty host and goodwilled
participants made it possible, where Jesus/AFL has to named as unvoluntary
highlight for being extremly pointless.
In the nights we were given a splendid lasershow by a
Danish team, who especially in the third night tried to battle the demos
from the competitions with breathtaking effects.
Often criticised, yet from the quality better than said to be was the
concert from Noisedrift. They gave experimental
housemusic much alike the early Prodigy, although with too simple
arrangements. The breakbeats were - against popular believe - not sampled
but programmed on 909 manually! For the interested their Equipment:
Casio CZ-1000,
Roland XP-50,
MidiPro Keyboard
S-2000 Sampler
A1200
In the early morning (clock 8:00 a.m.) a friendly voice (with a sadist
subtone) from the speakers made the sleepy crowd awake - no one could cry
for having missed the compos by sleeping.
Curiosities for all and gratis
Seldomly, the organisers and the audience had so many reasons to have a
good laugh together on no ones specifics cost.
I just recall all the strange requests over the speakers:
"Ehrmm, has somone a gluetape for us?
And what about a scissor?"
The absolute highlight however undoubtfully was the mysterical
Sea-Competition. Organiser Crash of Polka Bros. speaks
out about the background of this event:
"We were just sitting outside having an ice and thought about having a
competition outside. We were looking at the sea and said to ourselves:
Oh, we have such a cool lake here - something must be done to get the guys
for a dive. We took some shirt and software and so it went."
The point actually was that a empty Coke-bottle was thrown into the lake
and the winner would be, who would bring the bottle back to the organisers.
Dog-owners know this game under the name of aportion.
What happened? After the first easy throws, leading to just some wet feet,
the last throw was a big one, directly into he heart of the lake. What no
one would have held possible, two guys threw themselves into the
muddy water and fought to get the bottle. Their amazing prices:
One Party T-shirt, one Porno-CD(!) and one game. This is
not much to make someone look like the nr.one sausage, isn't it? A really
genius idea anyway...
Coming to an end...
What remains is the impression of a widely successful partystrategie by the
organisers. The Symposium was, to keep it short, the best
party I have ever been to. We had everything one cold have
wished. The smaller bugs sides the organising team (antiquaric
voting-system by votesheets, delays by having given themselves only one
hour to listen to all modules) were quite foregivable and weight nill in
comparison to the otherwise brilliant organising. Yet if you believe this
is my opinion or even that I get paid to this... Just have a look on the
nets.
In case there will be another one, be sure to meet me there.