³¼RENDEZVUS '93 PARTY¼ ¼ REPORT¼ ¹ Rendezvous '93 - Arranged by Symbiosis on 30 July to 1 August in Kristiansand, Norway ²Introduction:¹ If you consider the small number of visitors (only 125) and the few contributions to the competitions - It is indeed tempting to call last year's arrangement, Rendezvous '92, a complete failure! This was mainly caused by the lack of information about the party itself. (The invitation-intro, for instance, came much too late.) This year's preparations were obviously much better. Symbiosis had released an intro and in addition several disk- magazines had published the invitation. But, only 300 persons payed the entrance fee on 130 NOK. A bit disappointing perhaps, but there were actually parties simultaneously in Finland, Germany and Denmark; and in Sweden only one week after. ²Kristiansand:¹ Kristiansand, founded by the Danish-Norwegian king Christian IV in 1641, is Norway's fifth largest town with its approx. 70.000 inhabitants. The town itself is situated in the south most part of Norway, and has the region's sea- and airlinks to the Continent. Indeed a smart place to arrange a party if you want people outside Norway to attend. But, due to the earlier mentioned reason - I don't think there was as much as one foreigner at this party! ²Support from Commodore Norway:¹ Commodore Norway seems to be quite active when it comes to sponsor Norwegian parties, and Rendezvous '93 was not an exception. An A1200 was given out, but Commodore had promised an A4000/030 if the organizers would pay 5000 NOK in between. ²The partyplace:¹ The partyplace was a sportshall which easily could have been overcrowded if 200 more people had showed up. Anyway, the possibility of taking a shower was of course very good. The same can not be said about the sleeping- facilities, because you had to sleep in the same hall as the computers. (Too much noise!) The hall was furthermore quite easy to spot, as Symbiosis had been hanging several signs near the roads which lead to the place. There were also signs on the busses which went to the hall. ²Who was there?¹ I think nearly all the best groups in Norway were there. In addition there were a bunch of kids who looked at some porno-movies all the time, played Superfrog and really enjoyed themeselves being away from their parents for a whole weekend... ²Facilities:¹ The promised lazerdisc-room didn't see the light for more than the last 24 hours of the party. (Who attends parties to watch movies anyway?) The promised arcade-machines were never there, but some others were situated in a part of the hall which originally shouldn't be accessable to the attenders. Nobody complained though. A kiosk was selling soda, chips and sausages to expected prices (which means that it was just a bit more expensive than if you had bought the same food at a Norwegian petrol station). It has also to be mentioned that there were no power failures during party, a fact which speaks for itself! ²Problems:¹ Not only scene-freaks were gathered in Badmintonhallen. No, a home for tourists was located in the same hall. During the first night 40 persons left this home due to too much noise. (Indeed understandable!) The day after the organizers were forced to rent the tourist-home to avoid similar problems the forthcoming night. This gave unexpected expences on 5000 NOK, but the organizers did only have to pay half the sum. The pathetic point was, however, that the attenders weren't allowed to use the tourist-home, but that wasn't the organziers fault! (They were quite dissapointed with this fact themselves!) The volume was also to be turned down, as the police were threatining to close the whole partyplace due to complaints from the neighbours. ²Competitions:¹ Should pictures and demos which require AGA be allowed to compete against demos and pictures which don't? Well, this party offered this possibility anyway. The organizers told me that their reason for this decision was to support AGA, so the Amiga could compete against the IBM-PC. ²Demo-competition:¹ The demo-competition was cancelled due to only two competitors. However, all members of the competiting groups were given a free subscription on a Norwegian computermagazine, Databladet. The A1200 was instead moved to the music-competition. A pity, because Talent did with no doubt deserve more attention with its demo. ²Graphics-competition:¹ The graphics-competition was won by Fairfax, who also won last year. He got an original version of Scala MM210 (a multimedia-program which the organizers used to show the graphics and play the music with), worth approx. 4000 NOK. (A quite useless prize, even though it is expensive!) On the second place came BCR, a member of Stone Arts - One of the new and promising Norwegian groups. The third place went to Bridgeclaw. Untill now an unknown graphician, who drew a fantasy-picture without any model (according to a friend of him). ²Music-competition:¹ The music-competition was, like the graphics-competition, supposed to be annonymous. Due to some bugs and lack of support for Powerpacker in Scala, Scott and Jogeir's modules had to be played from the Protracker. This caused a certain degree of chaos, since both of the composers got their names revealed. The competition was won by Jogeir Lilljedahl, who got the A1200. On the second place came Mr. Man, who also got the second place last year. The third place went to Interphace, who competed with a module for the coming Fairfax- slideshow. The most surprising facts were no doubt that Jason, the last year's winner, only got the 10th place and that Scott only got the 9th. ²Intro-competition:¹ Symbiosis hadn't informed about any 40kB intro-competition in the party invitation. Nevertheless this competition became a reality, but only symbohlic prizes were given away. This competition was a close race, but a coder called Base won before Cadaver. (By the way, to find the hiddenpart in the winnerintro - Press the right mousebutton 26 times while the blue vectorspaceship is on the screen!) ²Soccer-competition:¹ ASDF-Team which consisted of Moxy/ Lemon., Morten/ex. Spaceballs, HeadX and Fairfax/Andromeda and Steinar won, and each of the players got a one year subscription on Databladet. ²Conclusion:¹ It seems like Symbiosis has several problems with its parties. But, at least they try to make a good job, and I don't think they made any surplus by arranging Rendezvous '92 nor '93. It was of course sad that the demo- competition was cancelled. The question which I keep asking myself is this: Where are those days when more than ten Norwegian demos could be released at a party of this size? (Lost in the vast amount of useless intros perhaps?) Example: The Imp 666 and No Limits party way back in 1990 didn't have more than 300 attenders either, but more than ten demos were released! OK, enough complaining. All in all this year's Rendezvous was much better than the year before. Furthermore I think that this party wasn't any worse organized than any other. So my conclusion must be that I can safely recommend you to attend Rendezvous '94, if there is going to be any! (The organizers would not promise anything, nor would they deny the possibility!) ³Written by Hydra/Andromeda