evoke 2006 report

after a trip of 7:30 hours (shared car trip + some stations with the s-bahn) i have reached the partyplace at around 17:30. it was a quite long trip with traffic jams and heavy rain showers from time to time. atleast it wasn't raining in cologne on arrival. the party location is for the second year the 'vulkanhalle' and the hall fits quite good for the expected number of visitors. after setting up my machine everything worked well, including the internet access. with 10 minutes delay the opening ceremony with the party theme 'train' began. it started with a short video with trains (of course heading to evoke), railroads and train stations and ended with a short speech. after this it was time for my demoshow with a textmode special (mostly tmdc) and a review of the latest assembly demos. the hall is pretty filled now and the organizers called the visitors not to waste table space. since 23:00 we are listening to .mo and sudio with there music liveset, combined with visuals from well known demos and video stuff (actually i begin to like the set :-)). the atmosphere is relaxed. at a bar you can buy food and drinks. also demoscene.tv should now stream from evoke if everything works (and according to scamp it does). after talking more than 2 hours with sparcus^nostalgia about a variety of issues (not only demoscene) it's time to have a rest.

the morning began with a fresh cup of coffee. the showers are located some hundred meters away in a fitness center. actually there is an intel seminar running for interested people and we are heading for the first competition (ansi/ascii). in fact the ansi/ascii compo had a lot of entries and the overall quality was pretty high. wayfinder has arrived but the planned farbrausch intro had to be cancelled coz lack of time. for 17:00 there is a tablekicker compo near the stage announced. for a project called 'evoke express' a photographer makes photos from sceners. the photos will be used to promote the demoscene. on the early afternoon it was time for the tiny music and a bit later for the theme remix compo. the most original remix was probably the polka version by cTrix & gaiasword :-). the 4k compo at 16:00 featured some quite good entries for example by muhmac^neuro, titan and tbc+loonies, but imo no clear winner yet. the animation compo on the early evening was just unbelievable. the animation 'a rainy day' (7 month work!) by deviance+scoopex was brilliant and also jco made with 'zerfall' again a high quality release. but the most original and funny one was probably 'classic on the run' by moods plateau + kakiarts. outside the hall some local kids tried skateboard tricks but also don had fun with his board. meanwhile some unknown person made an interview with las^0ok (atleast he couldn't tell me who it was). the for 20:15 announced 'gameshow' (fun compo) has a bigger delay or is cancelled for some unknown reason. some sceners are continuing playing at the tablekicker near the bar. the pixel compo on later evening had several very nice entries, check them! meanwhile speckdrumm are making their own party in the self created 'vip lounge'. the (short) 64k compo a few minutes after 23:00 was dominated by kakiarts with their 'riot of flowers' and we still know that rob is jarig.

the wildcompo (alternative platforms) featured some interesting demos especially for the nintendo ds and a kickin' ipod nano demo by kakiarts. mad^bauknecht made a good 32k game for the c64. the most original demo in the (short) demo compo was surely 'die ewigkeit schmerzt' by neuro. it was never so interesting to read TEXT and text is pretty much the content of this demo. be surprised when you get this linux demo running (in the compo ubuntu was used). another good entry came by die üblichen verdächtigen (smash designs) but their demo 'butterfly effect' needs a very long loading time. now all compos are over and the people are enjoying the rest of the party (for example at the speckdrumm 'vip lounge') or just go sleeping. before going to sleep i had a pretty long talk with puenzli^5711 about my demoshow and other things. after some hours sleep more talk, this time with ghandy about several scene issues. now we are heading for the prizegiving. evoke 2006 with no doubt a really nice party with a relaxed atmosphere and some really good releases. thanks to the organizers for their nearly perfect work. the trip back to berlin had to be re-organized very shortly since i have received a call that the car of the original planned trip got broken. luckily i found another shared car trip with plenty of free space and so also crome and his friend have joined the trip.