REPORT FROM THE GATHERING 1994

The Gathering 1994 - The story so far


Since this issue was released before the competitions started on The
Gathering 1994, this report will only deal with what's happened the
first 4 days of the party.

By Cesium

After  already  having held two parties
of  the  similar kind before, you could
expect  that the organizing crew of The
Gathering series knew what they were up
to.  It didn't seem so.
   During   the   developement  of  the
party,  a lot of events has proved that
the organizers have failed, or showed a
big  weakness  on several major points.
First  blunt  out,  was  regarding  the
concert   with   Travolta,   read   the
seperate article about that.


Power breakdowns - A pain in the ass!
"Anyone  who visited The Gathering 1993
knows  that  the  electrical  system of
Skedsmohallen  did not manage all those
devices.   This  is  also  one  of  the
reasons  we  have  chosen  another hall
this   year.   Since  420  Amperes  was
inadequate  at  The  Gathering 1993, we
now have a total of 1400A".

This   is   what   was  stated  in  the
invitation  form,  which by the way was
shipped out very late.  The Big problem
during  the  party,  was  the dozens of
power  breakdowns.  It's a partyfreak's
worst  nightmare  to loose the power to
the   machine  after  a  long  time  of
coding,  pixeling  or composing without
saving  it.   When  this had happened a
couple  of times, we prepared ourselves
and  saved our work every 10 minutes or
so.
   The  worst  thing about this though,
was  that  a lot of people were sitting
without power for hours!  We in Balance
also  lost a lot of time on this, so if
this  mag  wasn't released on the party
afterall,  you  know  the  reason  why.
(Well,  this  wouldn't  be  the  -only-
reason  I  guess,  but we have to blame
someone!  :-)
   We'll just give you all the negative
points  out  first, and then get to the
positive    ones    (if   any)   later.



The     party    and    the    sleeping
possibilities  was  so  special that we
did a seperate article on this.

Now where the F... Is Rykkinhallen?!
Ranx  also  told  me that there weren't
put  any  signs  along the main road to
the  hall,  so  people  had a hard time
finding  the  partyplace!   There was a
map  in  the official invitation, but I
guess  not everybody had this, or found
Rykkinhallen with this help only.

Catering firm?
After  the last year's Gathering, a lot
of    people   complained   about   the
cafeteria  in  Skedsmohallen where they
only  served  pizza,  pizza  and  pizza
again.   You  all know how your stomach
feels after 5 days of junkfood only.
   This is something which CRS promised
to  do  something about this year.  The
invitation  stated  that a professional
catering  firm  was  hired  which would
offer  different main courses every day
and healthy food at a reasonable price.
   Do  you  think  breakfast  incl.   3
slices of bread, a single piece of ham,
cheese  &  jam,  and a cup of millk for
30,- Nkr is reasonable?  We don't.  The
other  prices  were  very expensive to.
Besides, the pizza and hot dogs weren't
actually  the best we've ever tasted...
We  might  seem very negative from this
point,  but if you for instance compare
the  Gathering 94 with the Party 3, the
difference is tremendous.

Internet access for PC users
and BBS access for everybody!
OK,  let's  move  over  to the positive
things about the party!


Powertech   Computers/Øystein  Homelien
and the organizers arranged so that all
PC  users  with a nullmodem-cable could
get  a  direct  connect to Internet for
free!

SSD   run  the  Falling  BBS,  and  had
brought  it  with  them  to  the party.
Powered up especially for the party, it
offered   a  total  of  8  nodes  (more
could've been installed) - one incoming
line,  and  the rest for the sysops and
users  at the party.  One could just go
up  to SSD and ask to be connected, and
they'd put a long nullmodem-cable up to
your  computer.   Unfortunately  we  in
Balance were sitting in the far end off
the  main BBS system, so the wires were
too short to reach us.
   The  phone  number  to the party BBS
was  spread  extremely late, I only got
it  4-5  days before the party started.
I wrote it online at Omaha Thunder, but
all  the  people  in  the  scene  ain't
connected here of course.  (yet!)
   There   was   a   special  Gathering
conference  on  the  board and a lot of
guys  were  online at the same time, so
it  must've been interesting for people
who called in from remote.
   The  party BBS offered some internet
conferences as well, but I guess that's
something    which    wasn't   put   up
especially for the party. (?)

Lots of features - Lots of fun
The  Gathering  had  many  features  to
offer.   One  of them, was handled by a
Swedish  VR  company.   For the cost of
40,-  Nkr,  one  could try out a simple
Virtual Reality game for 2-3 mins.  Not
much,  but  fun enough for me who tried
it for the first time.
   A  great deal of arcades were put up
for  the  game  freaks present.  All of
the  arcades  were  new  and  of a high
quality,  so  it  was not like the ones
you  might  find at the local snack-bar
or something.
   My   own  favorite,  the  air-hockey
machine,  was  of course there too, and
my  friends  and  I had a great time on
this, though it's VERY expensive in the
long run.
   The video-room showed many new films
and  some  elder classics, and this was
very  nice  indeed.  The showing of the
movies  was  delayed for 2 hours in the
beginning   because   of   an   aerobic
excercise,  and  the  light  inside the
room   kept  going  in  and  off  which
interferred  a  bit,  but  I  guess one
cannot   expect   everything   to   run
smoothly  in  the  beginnig.  One thing
though:     The    arrangers    weren't
consequent  in  their  handling  of the
identification requirements.  When some
of  the  "hardest" films with a 18-year
limit,  they demanded everybody to show
their  ID.  This was NOT done when some
other  "normal"  18-year  limit  movies
were shown.
   There  were  more  than one group of
people  who  wanted to do local-TV from
the  Gathering.   We hardly watched any
of  it  because  we  were too busy with
Upstream, so I won't say anything about
its  quality.   I  only know that there
was only ONE group who had the official
rights to do a party TV, and the others
were denied to transmit theirs.

Almost no releases
It's  maybe  not so surprising, but the
fact  is  that  there has been NO party
releases  whatsoever  yet,  with only 1
day  left  out  of  5.   Everybody  has
prepared  demos  and  artwork  for  the
compos,  but  no  one  has  thought  of
entertaining  the  poor  party  animals
BEFORE this!  It's actually very boring
to sit on a party which lasts this long
and  not  having  any new production to
watch.   We'll change this by releasing
Upstream,  and  I  know both Stone Arts
(Headline) and Cadaver (Agression) will
release  a  new  issue  during the last
day.

- And the winner is...
As  this  report  was  done  before the
competitions,  I'm afraid we can't give
you any details about these events, but
we'll  get back to you with reviews and
interviews  with  the organizers in the
next issue.



THE GATHERING 1994

Travolta's concert cancelled


On  the party, The Bek  (feat. Travolta / Ex. Spaceballs)  was going to play
live-techno  on  stage   for  the    people present. Because of a very lousy
effort  by the party organizers, Travolta and his crew went home in protest.

By Cesium

D'Fence  and  I  (Cesium)  was going to
direct   the   show,   which   would've
contained                    big-screen
video-entertainment,    live   dansers,
smoke, lasers and great sounds.
   Travolta had made the music during a
period of approximately 3-4 months.  He
and the dansers had prepared themselves
and  rehearsed the last month with this
concert as their big and only goal.  We
had  been  editing  and  collecting the
different videoclips and we were really
excited about this.
   Shady  /  CRS (Vegard Skjefstad) was
going  to  be a technical organizer and
responsible  for  getting the necessary
equipment - a.o 3 videorecorders, stage
for  the  concert,  videomixer and some
other  stuff.   We  had  discussed this
before    the    party   started,   and
everything seemed to be just OK.

CONCERT? - WHO CARES?
Travolta  and  his  team arrived at the
partyplace  two  (2)  days ahead of the
party,  just  to  test  out the concert
equipment,  the speakers, the stage and
do some final rehearsals.
   D'Fence,  Coca  and I arrived Monday
mid-day to test the video-equipment and
the rest of the sceneshow-effects.
   When  we  arrived,  Travolta and the
others had connected their machines and
were working with various preparations.
A short time after, we had to move down
to  another corner of the hall, because
they   were   placing   the  air-hockey
machine right where we were sitting.
   After  only  some minutes on our new
place,  some  of  the  organizers  from
Exile  came  up to us and demanded that
we  disconnected  the equipment and got
out  of the building immediately!  It's
true  that  standard  people  were  not
allowed   to   enter   the  hall  until
midninght  at  Monday  (Tuesday 00:00),
but Travolta needed the time to set the
soundmixer he'd borrowed and adjust his
music.
   This   was  typical  for  the  whole
party.   Some  of  the  organizers were
walking around like small kings who "of
course"  knew  best  whatever  the case
was.   There was also a really bad lack
of     communication     between    the
organizers.   One  moment they said one
thing,   afterwards   they   said   the
opposite.
   Our  deal  with  the organizers, and
the  only  reason  for  us  coming this
early,  was  that  we  should  get  the
equipment  early  before  everbody  was
getting  inside  the  hall,  so that we
could  rehearse in silence. The concert
was going to take place between Tuesday
and   Wednesday.   Time  went  by,  and
nothing  happened.   We talked with the
organizers   SEVERAL  times,  but  they
either  said  that  they  were too busy
with other things, or that the gear was
"on its way".
   At 14:00 Tuesday, the partyplace was
crowded  with  people, we had gotten no
video-equipment,  there  were  NO STAGE
whatsoever  and  no  response  from the
organizers.   Travolta  and  his  group
members    were    VERY    pissed   and
disappointed,  packed  their  gear  and
went  home  with first plane in protest
to  what happened.  The main reason why
D'Fence  went  to The Gathering at all,
was because of this concert, so he went
home  together  with  The  Bek.  As you
might   have  guessed,  I  stayed,  but
afterall I had a mag to finish too.

SHAME ON YOU, CRUSADERS!
What could've turned out to be a really
high lift to the party (it's been QUITE
boring  around here the last days), was
neglected  by the organizers.  I'm very
sad  on  behalf  of  Travolta  who  had
deserved  the  concert for all the work
he's put in this.
   At  last I can just mention that The
Bek  is  not  a  demoscene group, but a
music  group,  delivering pure hardcore
techno  and  ambient  sounds.   Perhaps
you'll  hear  music  by The Bek on some
raves around the country, but I think I
can  say one thing for sure:  You won't
see Travolta in the scene anymore!

STILL, YOU WANT TO HEAR THE SOUNDS?
The  Bek  has  made  a  demotape  which
they're now offering for sale!
  It  cost 75,- Nkr and is a -must- for
fans of the genre!

Get in touch with me for ordering it:
                                      ¡

Cesium / Balance
Constitutionen's V. 12
N-4085 Hundvåg
NORWAY

Norwegians   can  pay  the  money  into
bank-account:  3201.14.28206 to get P&P
for free.