SauberSound

Some Memories of Each Party

1991

Around this time I was very much into going to demo parties. Tried to join and participate in a few demoo groups, but never really released anything. For The Party 1991 I brought an amiga hardware mod to reduce cpu clock frequency, a pitch-changing vocoder that Palle help program, and I worked on some music modules.

I was later told that The Party 1991 was mostly Stripe's idea, and he together with several people from Copenhagen met just the day before the party started and were figuring out how to run the party as it progressed.

1992

By coincidence I ran into Stripe during the summer at ROM's. He was already working on The Party 1992 and asked if I could help. He immediately handed me several tasks, including booking the center, getting sponsors, and sending out invitation.

In early December all the organizers had a meeting where we tried to decide what should happen at the party and how to do it. There was nobody particular in charge, and there was a lot to be done. We tried to be democratic about everything, but it was a mess.

I finally divided responsibilities out to everybody, such as demos, music, laser room, sleeping facilities, information desk, voting etc. And I made a very ambitious schedule for all organizers to make sure that all posts were manned during the entire party. Unfortunately it did not work so well. For three reasons, I guess: 1) Everybody had to change position every hour. 2) Too much to do, so it typically became 20 hour work and 4 hour sleep. 3) Many organizers basically just wanted to have a good and relaxing time with their friends.

Visitors came several days early, before we had anything set up, and some before the organizers even. The registration process at entrance was very slow, so it took ages for people to get in, and they had to stand in line inside and outside the halls.

During the party I helped out with sorting the many many contributions into what we could show, and checked that everybody was following the schedule. I managed to copy all contributions to my harddisk, and later uploaded to cdrom.com.

The two toilets became disgusting quickly. Some visitors brought guns, which we had to have the police come and get. The fire department came and demanded that no visitors sleep under tables. If I remember right, the voting system didn't work, so a small jury was established to select winners. And so on... it was nothing but problems that we were not prepared for.

I got no sleep for five days, so I slept 38 hours non-stop when I came home.

We all though this was the final The Party.

1993

After a few months of rest, we met again in May 1993 to plan the next The Party. Having learned a lesson or two about chaos in 1992, it was time to bring things under control. We were five organizeres, Devilstar, Dux, [[Ritzy], Stripe and myself. Aars had met it's limit for how many visitors it could room, so we looked around for other places, and finally settled on Herning Messecenter. Generally everything went very well, and staff in Herning were very professional helpful.

1994

Besides that I had moved to Copenhagen, everything was basically a copy of 1993, except much more of everything: More competitions, more sponsors, more special events, more organizers etc.

And more platforms! We introduced PC competitions. Since no organizers had expertice with PC's, we outsourced! A local PC group was the contact point, and we gave them some outlines for how to run things. We then lost contact to them, but in the meantime they had teamed up with Assembly and came were strong and very prepared to run the PC competitions. Since we had already sent out invitations with competition rules and generally have different target audience, there were some disagreement, but in the end they did things their way.

1995

I was travelling in USA, and was not involved in The Party 1995.

1996

I had moved to San Francisco. But somehow managed to stay in touch with The Party. Most of what I did was internet related. I took care of the website. I wrote GIM for managing organizers. I wrote TheScene?; a table reservation system, contribution upload system, voting system etc.

And I decided to go visit, and just help out with whatever I could.

I ran all the online services on my laptop. When the power disappeared, my laptop was the only thing still running. DemoLab was a bit jealous.

1997

Not involved in planning the party event. But still very involved with internet systems.

1998

On the condition that I would get full control over all aspects, except economy, I agreed to produce The Party 1998 for what had at that time become The Party KK. The team of main organizers were Dicey, Menzor, Ritzy, Stripe and Thrawn. Topgun acted as my deputy.

Being far away, contact was a little challenging. We had weekly meetings on irc, where we reported about things we worked on, new problems that arose, and delegated new duties. All duties were strictly divided into catogeries, so it was obvious which person was in charge for everything.

1999

I was offered same job again in 1999. Since I had spend so much of my life with The Party, it was tempting to continue on. But having taken The Party as far as I possibly could, and having probably learned as much as I could about leadership and online collaboration within the constraints of The Party, it was time to move on the new challenges, and I respectfully declined to participate anymore in The Party.

Instead I worked with some other people on TheScene? and Linker to provide online services for The Party, other parties and party visitors.

2005

The Party as a demo party events stopped soon after 2000. For some organizers, there was hope of one day to make money out of The Party. Realizing that there are no money in demo events, flirting with the game industry started. It never really worked out. The Party was sold to some Norwegieans, but they never paid.

Seeing that The Party was dead and had no chance of going forward, I contacted the owners. We agreed that I in principle could take over the domain name and run the website.

I lost contact to the owners again. Stripe managed to renew domain.

2006

After a year of struggle, the domain finally was handed over to me. I established a temporary website and contacted all organizers that I could reach about helping building up a new website. A few offers of help, but nothing really came out of it.

Stripe found the old webserver, and handed over the content.

2007

I have recovered what I can from the databases and made wiki webpages out of it. The content is now available to the community to take it from here. I'll keep hosting the domain and the content. Hopefully people willing to manage content will appear.

One Year as A Main Organizer

Early Phase

Planning The Party events started typically in May, where we quickly needed to decide venue, competitions, prices, target goal for number of visitors, budget etc. All this so that the invitation could be written and sent out.

Planning

From about Augst we could start looking at details, such as table reservation, sponsors, PR work, getting organizers, rental of tables, chairs, AV equipment, lights, power, working with authorities etc.

December

December is crunch time. Here we really have to get results of our work. Nothing can delayed anymore. Problems that cannot be fixed need work-arounds. Organizers have to be instructed. Schedules have to be produced. There is no free time for a main organizer in December, and taking many days off from work was necessary for me.

Party Time

Just before and during Christmas I would program InfoChannel?, Competition presentations and Vote Counting with Multimus. Multimus would run these system through out the events.

Early morning on dec 25 we get the bus to pick up organizers and drive to the hall to do setup. Most organizers would come that day, but some not until following day, where many visitors would arrive also.

Post duties

Immediately when the party finishes, I check that money are counted and accounted for, that all contributions and results are accounted for. When visitors leave halls have be cleaned up, which is pretty tough work. During January I would organize all results and contributions, and make available online.