˙˙00˙ ˙00˙01˙03˙01Icing '95 Proved The Swedish Scene Sympathetic˙00 ˙ ˙˙˙02Lerum, Sweden (OR): ˙01Icing - another dull and boring Swedish party, most sceners probably thought when they heard of the multimedia festival to be held in Lerum, Sweden. However, having witnessed the festival, one must conclude that it was exactly what The Swedish Scene needed. ˙ ˙00 ˙ ˙03˙02TOBIAS "ELECTRON" JANSSON / CITRON. ˙02˙01˙01˙00˙ When did you last visit a party where nobody, yes actually nobody, complained on the organizers being arrogant and unengaged and the presence of too many (local) lamers - or other classic drawbacks? When was the last time you visited a party with action 24 hours a day, where everybody was friendly and where the atmosphere was the best possible four days in a row; where no neo-Nazis or other lousy beings dressed in military clothes showed up - in Sweden? Icing was organized by ˙02Sardonyx˙01, ˙02GOTO 10 ˙01and ˙02Noice ˙01and took place between the 15th and the 18th of June in an ice hall in the small village of Lerum, 25 minutes of travelling from the metropolis of Gothenburg. Oepir Risti had a look at the arrangements the night before the day the party was to open (Thanks for getting me drive to Lerum in the middle of the night with a certain Blizzard card, DuffE! /e-) and it all looked very neat; what else party has boasted potted plants - may be they were plastic - on the stage? ˙˙02˙Many People Present˙ ˙00 ˙˙01Quite a few sceners showed up. The organizers counted approximately 250 paying visitors, but something between 250 and 300 would probably be a more appropriate number. Considering the circumstance that the festival took place in Sweden and the fact that the groups behind it aren't (read: previoulsy weren't) that well known, almost 300 visitors is pretty good. The better part of the Swedish groups were present - at least those mainly situated in the western and southern parts of our oblong country: ˙02C-Lous˙01, ˙02Beatless˙01, ˙02Duplo˙01, ˙02Phenomena˙01, ˙02Fake˙01, ˙02Giants˙01, ˙02Balance˙01, ˙02IFFTIC ˙01(Yeah! /e-) ˙02Keso ˙01:-), ˙02Nosebleed ˙01;->, ˙02Phenomena ˙01(PC) and ˙02Omicron ˙01(PC). ˙˙02˙Schedule Problems ˙˙ ˙00˙01On the second festival day, the organizers faced the first severe problems as they realized that all deadlines had been put too early; many fellows actually worked and couldn't possibly arrive before Friday night. This was a hard strike as the whole schedule had to be remade and most events postponed. ˙˙02˙Surprise Competitions˙ ˙00 ˙˙01Things like these could have turned just any party into total chaos and made the atmosphere reach the bottom; there are few things on a party that are more irritating than to get vague or no answers at all when you ask an organizer for e.g. deadlines. The Icing organizers, however, managed to show the visitors a new schedule in a rather short period of time and, most important, also managed to keep the good atmosphere - much thanks to all surprise competitions that were arranged. ˙02DuffE / Sardonyx ˙01did his best in bringing the audience a bunch of about 20 of the most far out competitions The Scene has ever seen - what about "Best Bamse Redraw", "Best Remix of the National Hymn of Iceland" (not considering the fact that noone had as much as heard this hymn. . . ) and "Best Picture that Represents a Sofa"?. Among the more seriously aimed surprise competitions could be found "Best Realtime on Big Screen Module", "Best Realtime on Big Screen Picture" and "Best Picture Using the Default Palette of DPaint IV". Remarkable is that a lot of people actually engaged themselves in the surprise compos. The organizers did not receive one or two contributions in each cathegory, but a whole bunch of disks - great! (The surprise-compos were great as, at least, the math-compo, where I took the first place, rendered me 1.5 litres of Coke. /S.Duvan) ˙˙02˙Table Hockey Contest˙ ˙00 ˙˙01A party in June entitled "Icing" - can that be something? The name hints the fact that the event took place in an ice hall. However, the organizers thought that there should be another 'link' and brought a table hockey game. Some other guy brought a camcorder and the game could start. Face-off. The puck went like a rocket between the highly professional and deeply motivated players. The audience sighed when they - on the big screen - watched the puck pass just outside the posts of the goals; the matches were tight. Who was to win? (Read more about this very special event in the "Last Words" article.) ˙˙02˙Scene Jeopardy˙ ˙00 ˙˙01Another happening that lifted Icing above the usual party was the Scene Jeopardy. ˙02Liket / GOTO 10 ˙01 was the man behind the technical part. He had developed a smart system (on PC) that boasted the same abilities as real Jeopardy in all important matters. Even the features 'Bonus' and 'Double Chance' were included. DuffE acted compere and did that in a magnificent way; he managed to resemble the Swedish Mr. Jeopardy ˙02Magnus Härenstam ˙01himself pretty well; he realized the necessity in telling the competitors that the answers must be given in question form! First out was the PC Scene Jeopardy. Unfortunately, everything that could go wrong, went wrong. The program bugged, many of the 'answers' were too vaguely put - "The person who first was an artist but later became a coder" is, for instance, not to be considered a very good 'answer'. . . - and the technical part was not entirely OK as it is a good thing if the judge can hear what the competitors say. . . Anyway, Liket worked faster than ever - realtime bug fixing on big screen is something admirable - and the PC Scene Jeopardy could eventually be run through. Teething troubles are bound to take place with the introduction of a project of this size! However, when it was time for the Amiga Scene Jeopardy, the better part of the problems had been fixed. With slight help from a certain person and proof-read questions everything went smoothly. Too bad that the competitors weren't very well-oriented in scene matters; all sceners just should know that ˙02Virtual Dreams˙01' "˙02Chaosland˙01" won the intro competition at The Party III and that ˙02Uno ˙01was ˙02Facet˙01's predecessor on the graphics throne in the Eurochart! After the second round two of the three rivals had ended up with big negative scores! The thus only person left was ˙02DJ Cat / Keso ˙01who can entitle himself winner of the Amiga Scene Jeopardy at Icing '95 with a score of 950. Prizemoney was given in 'öres' (100öre = 1SEK). DJ Cat consequenly made himself a fortune; he received 9.50SEK! The Table Hockey Contest and especially the Scene Jeopardy says quite a lot about the party and the organizers in general. The two events somehow reflect the orgainzers' nice attitude and original ideas - and, as to Jeopardy, the ambition to carry things through, even if they appear hard to challenge in the very beginning. ˙˙02˙'Serious' Competitions˙ ˙00 ˙˙01Of course Icing featured the 'classic' and serious competitions as well. As a whole these competions held an average class - few really good contributions, but also few crap releases; most things were seriously aimed. There's not much to say about the music competitions; much techno - as always, nowadays. As yours truly is known to be tone deaf he is not to analyze these competitions any further. It only has to be said that "˙02Cat-jammin'˙01" by ˙02Mittag-Leffler / Nosebleed ˙01was one of the absolutely best contributions. A more emotional, well-arranged tune would be truly difficult to find! (Who said this guy bought me? By the way, rumour has it that this fellow is not the fellow he is known to other fellows as!?! /e-). Anyway, ˙02Mr. Mygg / C-Lous ˙01with his "˙02Dalslands Rytmer˙01" made it to the first place in the 4 channel competition. "I composed the tune in two hours", Mr. Mygg concluded, having received 1000SEK in prize money - money that he, in spite of his swift composing, deserves as his tune sounded more 'experienced' than most others. Though, everybody appeared to miss ˙02Lizardking ˙01in the competition! The quality of the graphics competition was higher than expected and it was also the competition with most contributions, 17. There were pictures from at least two of the best Swedish artists at the moment, namely ˙02MRK / Jewels ˙01and ˙02Frame / C-Lous˙01. MRK caught the first place - in a rather superior manner - with Frame as runner-up. "No raytraced, scanned or redrawn pictures will be accepted", the invitation text howled and the person voted third, ˙02Desoto / Epsilon Design ˙01was consequently disqualified in favour of the person voted number four! The fact that the disqulification wasn't carried out before the prize ceremony made the situation a bit awkward - especially for the fellow who actually received the third price, 300SEK. . . The demo competition was a disappointment. Very few contributions - of which the bulk were coded in AMOS - that all held a low standard. One the other hand, the 64k intro competition was of next to international quality. As good as all contributions were enjoyable and seriously aimed. ˙02Origo / C-Lous ˙01brought the first placer "˙02FreeBased˙01" that boasted e.g. some texture mapped, Gouraud shaded vectors and, in some passagages, splendid design. Even ˙02Cuddley ˙01and ˙02Rubber ˙01/ ˙02Rage ˙01released something serious in this competition; their intro "Graedde?" was actually worth watching and reached the second place. It appeares that these guys eventually have matured a little. Have they maybe celebrated their 15th birthdays recently? Worth to mention is finally also ˙02Duplo's ˙01"˙02Bitwrestler˙01" and ˙02Beatless˙01' "˙02Summer˙01" which was voted third and fourth. ˙˙02˙Other Remarkable Happenings ˙ ˙00 ˙˙01There's a handful of both funny and tragic happenings that one or two festival visitors might have missed. One should always save the funniest and nicest things to the last, so we'd better start with the tragic ones. Until one hour before the party was to close there'd been no thefts at all (maybe except a cable that was reported missing. . . ). But man is a dark figure, an evil creature; when the bulk of the visitors had left and less than an hour of the festival remained it was discovered that the harddisk of ˙02Zalo / Sardonyx ˙01 had been stolen! Zalo was the man behind the Scala presentation at Icing and he'd been working non stop to bring the audience the latest party information. The HD contained not only all party contributions -from all the competitions, including the surprise ones - but also his very promising Digital Highway BBS and a lot of his graphics. To steal an HD is not only stealing valuable property but stealing a lot of work that is often irretrievable for the owner but most often worthless for the thief! Why do these things always have to happen? Now to some more cheerful things. Having arrived at the festival one couldn't help noticing the cosy light that flowed from the ceiling. The organizers had rigged up Christmas tree illuminations in all the colours of the rainbow and switched off the ordinary lightning. The man behind this was a fellow called ˙02Dr. Gunther ˙01 who, as rigging up the Christmas tree illuminations was the one thing he cared for except to copy GIF pictures non stop during the whole party, was awarded with a membership in ˙02Keso ˙01for his being the laziest and absolutely worst organizer! The fact that Doom is a disease that ought to be exterminated became even more obvious when some organizers whose names will remain secret, played this said game on the party network that was set up to make communication between the organizers run smoothly. The network broke down and made things even worse for the already highly stressed staff! - Where's the keys to the organizers' room?, one organizer asked another. - I saw them last ˙02inside ˙01the room, the first organizer replied. - But. . .the door is locked!, the second organizer concluded. And the door was actually locked with the keys inside. . . A few persons caught a glimpse of the now infamous party visitor who, in his sleep, went around and knocked over chairs and tried to open locked doors! The organizers were lucky that he didn't succeed with the latter - who knows what a sleepwalker might take to doing? When the staff returned the day after the party had closed to make a final check if everything was cleaned up OK, they discovered a huge red C-Lous logo on the ground. In their consternation they thought that it had been sprayed and that they would have to pay to clean it away. Though, a closer scrutinization of the logo showed that it was painted using ketchup! Finally, DuffE wants to announce that he's got one fellows' sleeping-bag and pillow at home and that the owner of these articles is welcome to phone him if he likes his things back! (DuffE, voice: 031 - 7020940.) ˙˙02˙Conclusion˙ ˙00 ˙˙01Icing '95 was, as the perceiving reader might have understood by now, a really nice party in the eyes of your humble Oepir Risti editor. This might have to do - at least a litte - with his knowing some of the organizers pretty well. However, it's still a matter of fact that noone Oepir Risti talked to disliked the party; most people had, on the contrary, a lot of positive things to say. Though, it's important to make clear that Icing '95 wasn't perfect in any way. It actually lacked a lot of qualities as e.g. a trustworthy schedule. To handle a, say, The Party this way would, for instance, never have worked as people want straight answears and correct information directly. No, not much was actually that well planned. The greatness of Icing '95 rather lies in the fact that the organizers actually seemed to care about the visitors - their guests - and wasn't all interested in money alone. The proceeds for Icing '95 is actually reported to have ended up just above zero after the paying of a bunch of broken chairs - broken because of the chairs' holding a lousy quality, not as a result of vandalism as would have been the case on just any other party! Icing '96 is already being planned; Oepir Risti wishes the organizers all luck! Be there! Why not throw away a couple of party greetings while we are at it; who said this report shouldn't be personal? ˙02Yogi / IFFTIC: ˙01You appeared to like the seriousness of Oepir Risti and its creators! 'Litteraturhistoria' was the funniest, deepest and most profitable subject in school - that's a fact! Traders are lame ˙02:-)˙00! ˙02Ant / Black Fishy: ˙01Great Jeopardy achievement! I cannot grasp your identity; what was this confused realtime drawing on the big screen all about? And the 'xx-listan'? I'll write you! (Or maybe I have already done so as you're reading this. . . ) ˙02Origo / Clous: ˙01You are the new Dr.Skull! We'll rip Ra's Fairlight logo some day! ˙02DuffE / Sardonyx: ˙01Icing was simply a great party! (There's nothing more to say.) ˙02Hype / Sardonyx: ˙01Module-selector number one! You liked the tune by Mittag-Leffler, didn't you? Drive you and the boys to South Sealand? I'll think about it; I'm afraid that would mean just too much computing this summer! ˙02Liket / GOTO 10: ˙01We made it! Amiga Jeopardy appeared highly enjoyable! I hope you'll make Scene Jeopardy a tradition; your great system deserves to be used more than once! ˙02Slash / Citron.: ˙01You didn't get your Action Replay back! Keep jammin'! ˙02Syntax / Sardonyx: ˙01Vi drar en modul! ˙02Frame / C-Lous: ˙01I liked your frog! Why not draw some more (full screen) pictures? Good luck with No Sense! How about some graphics swapping? ˙02Mr.Mygg / C-Lous: ˙01You have the coolest handle in the scene! No doubt. ˙02Drowsy / Sardonyx: ˙01Hope you'll bring a giant package of 300 buns to the next party too! ˙02MRK / Jewels: ˙01Your graphics is great! I like those faces of yours painted using a browny palette - looks like oil paintings. Why not write me for some graphics swapping? (I haven't got your address.) ˙02Zalo / Sardonyx: ˙01I really feel sorry for you; I can't imagine anything that would be more cynical to steal than a harddrive. ˙02Note / Beatless: ˙01I won't join your and Ant's red scene movement. . . And do not do away with Christmas! ˙02McPudel / Beatless: ˙01Let's swap! (But don't expect any speed whatsoever. . . ) ˙02Fender / Beatless: ˙01Greet Andreas Friis, the great handball player, from me! (I have ten disks of yours that you had 'left' in the ice hall of Stenkullen. . . Write me and you'll get them back. (I haven't got your address since S.Duvan saved some clipart over your Oepir Risti advert!) ˙01