GATHERING'94
çedf,888,0f0,aaf,f8f,ff0,fff¹
¾A report from The Gathering 94...
¹As  it  has almost become a tradition
by  now,  also this year The Gathering
was    arranged,    this    year    in
Rykkinnhallen  outside  Oslo,  Norway.
The  dates  for the party were 29.3 to
3.4 94.  Five days of continous fun...

The  party began at 24.00 the 28th (or
the  29th?),  so  me  and  my  friends
arrived  there  a  few  hours  before.
After waiting a while the arrangers at
last  let us in.  There was a bit of a
chaos  in there at that point, because
everyone  were  confused,  and  didn't
really know where they should go.  The
problem  was  that  the  ones  who had
payed  in  advance  should  go  to one
place  to  get  registrated,  and  the
others    to   another   place.    The
organisers    said    everything    in
norwegian, so I can understand that it
was  extra  confusing  for foreigners.
Well,  it  wasn't  that bad, but a bit
better organizing wouldn't hurt...

Safe  in the hall, at last, we powered
up  our  equipment.   The  party place
were  devided  into  two halls, and we
chose  the  first one.  The other hall
was supposed to be a dark, noisy hall,
but  this one in fact were the quitest
one.
The  first  thing  we  got to know was
that  the "dark" hall would be without
electricity  the  first  day.   A very
negative  message,  and it was without
power  for  a pretty long time, longer
than planned.
¶çedf,888,0f0,aaf,f8f,ff0,fff¹The  first day there were no less than
three  fire-alarms,  all  of  them for
test-purposes.   I  guess  the firemen
were very worried, because they didn't
allow  sleeping  in  the  hall either,
wich   was  quite  irritating.   Maybe
understandable,  with so many computer
freaks   placed   in   the  same  hall
together      with      all      their
mega-sega-fire-producing equipment.The
organisers should have talked with the
fire-dudes  before  the party, so that
they would know this.

Electricity was a serious problem also
in  the  "quite"  hall,  with  several
power   cut-offs   wich   were  pretty
annoying,  really.   This  problem was
solved after a while, however.
We  had  a  nice  time  at  the party,
despite  the  fact  that  we  couldn't
sleep in the hall.  This should really
be  checked out before the party.  The
organisers  put  up  a  large  tent to
sleep  in,  but it got filled up fast,
so  sleeping  was  not really possible
until   the   third   day.   The  only
possibillity  was  to  try  to  get  a
little  sleep  until  somebody came to
wake you up.
About   2000   freaks   came   to  The
Gathering    94,    about   what   the
organisers  had  expected.  Many known
groups  were  represented,  Andromeda,
Balance,   Kefrens,   Spaceballs   and
Cryptoburners  among  them.  Of course
there  also were to be found the usual
lamers who gamed their way through the
event,  and  ran  around asking people
which games they had received lately.
¶çedf,888,0f0,aaf,f8f,ff0,fff¹In  one invitation one could read that
there    wouldn't    be    a    normal
voting-system, and that there would be
a  jury  to judge the winners.  In the
paper-invitation one could read that a
voting-disk would be handed out at the
entrance.   What  really  happened was
that  a  votesheet  was  handed  out a
little before the compos.

The  compos  were  OK.   Someone  (not
Some1)  had hung up messages wich told
people    not    to   vote   for   the
module-compo,   and  that  it  sucked.
Personally   I   thing   that  the  20
finale-mods  were great, so great that
I  had  serious problems choosing wich
ones  I  should  vote  for.   This  of
course  is  my  opinion,  I don't know
what  everyone else thought, but I can
not  understand  that  it was that bad
and   that   it   sucked...???!!   The
pictures  were  also  allright,  43 of
them  in  the  finale.   Some  of  the
pictures  were  made for fun, but much
stunning  stuff  to be found there.  I
also  were  very  impressed by all the
great  intros,  especially  Stone Arts
and  Spaceballs'  intros.   Real great
stuff.   The  PC-intros and demos were
OK,  but  a  66  Mhz  PC  couldn't run
average  demos  any faster or smoother
than  an  A500  would  be  able to do.
Well, I hadn't expected anything else.
PC  SUXXX!!!!!!!   Andromeda  released
their  demo  called  "Sequential".  An
amazing   piece   of  work.   Also  to
mention is the Cryptoburners' demo and
the Talent's demo.  Nice...  Of course
there  was  many pretty lame ones, but
¶çedf,888,0f0,aaf,f8f,ff0,fff¹all  in  all  one  can  say  that  the
demo-compo  was  what  one  can expect
from a party like this...

Very  sadly,  a  planned  concert with
Travolta   was  cancelled,  due  to  a
stupid   misunderstanding   from   the
organizers.   A great dissappointment,
especially      for      all     those
Travolta-fans, wich I guess there is a
lot of these days.

The  Gathering  94  was  an event wich
could   have   been  organised  a  lot
better,  at least when it comes to the
power-supplys    and   the   sleeping.
Another thing to mention was the food,
wich  was ridicoulsy expensive.  Apart
from  that the party was enjoyable, so
if  Crusaders  thinks  about  all this
next  time,  I  guess The Gathering 95
will be a very nice party...

Written by Phaze One