mekka-symposium 2001 report

shortly after 11 am i have reached the partyplace, still located in the 'heidmarkhalle' in fallingbostel. this time i wasn't coming alone because rawhed/moojuice productions was my guest for these days. the shuttle from the train station to the partyplace was already waiting at the station. the weather this year was after two very nice years quite bad. in the night from saturday to sunday we had even snow.

a lot of people were already in the hall, but fastly we found a nice place with good view to the big screen. on the first day no compos were held. with the short, but good opening act the 'demoscene olympics' were starting at 9 pm. the opener was followed by a live concert of the group welle:erdball. with a small delay my demoshow with 19 very well known demos from the years 1992 until 2000 was starting and it seems that it was again a success. :). this year the party network was without internet access, but for urgent stuff you could contact the organizers. the party is also running out of space now, it seems to be impossible to have more visitors in the next year without a bigger hall.

on saturday the compos were starting. the amiga 64k-compo was clearly dominated by the kick-ass intro 'option' from potion, but also some of the other intros were quite nice. in the pc 4k-compo we could see several very nice productions, but the best ones were 'juggler 2001' from han solo/tc and 'varus' by noize and fontex. really amazing what they done in just 4k. also the wild compo had some nice entries and the compo was much shorter like in the last year. on the afternoon a harddisk throwing contest was held outside the hall. also the theme for the fast intro compo was announced. this year it was 'olympic fire, 5 olympic donuts, currywurst and a professional advertisement for mekka/symposium 2001'. in a special feature the different versions of the famous demo 'second reality' were shown on the big screen. the pc 64k-compo was moved one day because the number of entries and other reasons. on the evening steeler made a very nice live quiz in the style of 'who wants to be a millionaire'. on this day i must say thank you to fashion for the nice waffel-support :)

one of the first compo highlights on sunday was the console compo in that haujobb were showing an amazing production on the dreamcast console. right before the pc 64k-compo it was time for some chilling with live didgeridoo and electronic music on the stage. the quality level of the pc 64k-compo was quite high with releases from calodox, farbrausch & scoopex, haujobb and several other groups. but at this time it's impossible to say who will win here. also the releases in the c64 4k-compo and the 32k-game-compo were very nice. after that steeler played another round of 'who wants to be a scenionaire', this time with mat/ozone (he got free entrance as always at mekka/symposium). all democompos were delayed by more than two hours because the big number of entries. in the unused time several atari demos and the wild demos from hybris/nemesis were shown on the big screen. the amiga compo had several quite nice entries, the best ones are possibly from the black lotus, loonies and a polish group. the pc democompo was dominated by an amazing demo called 'le petit prince' by kolor. but also inf, haujobb and smash designs were showing nice productions. smash designs made also a very nice c64 demo, but also booze designs and padua were presenting very nice stuff.

on the last day only the fastintro compo was left. this compo was done right before the price giving. then it was time for the facts. the pc 4k-compo was won by han solo/tc, followed by noize & fontex and freestyle. the pc 64k-compo was won by entropy & peci/farbrausch+scoopex, followed by haujobb and mindforce+park. the wild compo was won by crim$on jihad, followed by crest/oxyron and nuance. the c64-democompo was won by booze design, followed by lubber/padua and wasch-design (smash ds). the amiga 64k-compo was won by potion. the amiga democompo was won by tbl, followed by loonies and madwizards. the pc democompo was won by kolor, followed by haujobb and inf. steeler was moderating again the price giving and the nice closing ceremony.
all in all mekka/symposium 2001 was again a very nice party and the atmosphere was much more relaxed than last year. so we all can just hope that the party continues.