symphony 2003 report

finally i made it to my first foreign party since wired'96. the train (with scicco/scarab and me) arrived at 9:40am at poznan (poland). after a first orientation we exchanged some euro and decided to take a taxi to the party location. it was quite early and so there weren't that much people in the 'eskulap musi_club'. we learned also the lesson that there are always not very much computers at polish parties. the most people are uploading their stuff in advance or bring it on cd and so no computer at the partyplace. anyway, also some other foreigners like tomcat, nosfe, melwyn or a_lee_n found their way to the partyplace. later even r.a.y/scarab reached the partyplace. he had to leave our train in frankfurt/oder because he had no valid passport. but the german bgs gave him a temporary passport and so he could follow us with a later train. even this always drunken guy from the breakpoint party (bronix) is here and he was again already very drunk. i had some nice talk with frequent/ephidrena and a_lee_n showed me on his gba again the winning console demo from the breakpoint party (phloam). the network is actually not really existent, but according to flapjack it will come. during the afternoon the organizers showed several amiga demos on the big screen. the contrast of the picture could be better. the security at the entrance is very strict when it's about bringing alcohol into the party hall, so many people are boozing their stuff outside. on the evening scarab finished their amiga demo for the compo. after fixing some technical problems quite many demos from the mindcandy dvd were shown on the big screen. on the 2nd level a dj (tm dag) was making some quite ok music. later on the evening i met pyromaniac outside, his look changed drastic since mekka 2001. he looks now like some hawaii baywatch boy ;). back in the hall several people were dancing, awaiting the mp3 music compo which started right now while i'm typing. all other compos are moved to saturday, also my demoshow.

batteries not included: the second day began with a 'nice' power cutoff that lasted for full 6 hours. anyway, this happened not only in the party building but in the whole surrounding area. luckily for the organizer computers and the beamer there was quite fast a power generator available. in this time without 'power for the masses' the gfx compos were held (with some nice entries). my machine didn't liked the power from this generator that much and so I had to move the windows part of my demoshow to the afternoon. two polish tv teams made interviews with flapjack at the party. there was also an pegasos presentation, but the presenters didn't spoke one word english. after my successful show some interviews from the mindcandy dvd were played, followed by more amiga demos. the organizers gave also free beer two times this day and were in general open for all questions and suggestions. on the later evening the tracked and chip music compo were held, atleast the last chiptune rocked (only entry numbers displayed). zito/m00ds told me that the next issue of jurassic pack will be released in august. he and also ghandy + unlock from the pain mag are actually very disappointed because everybody is consuming, but no one writes articles. it's up to you to change this (i wrote articles for both mags). on the big screen we could see 'planet potion' from a real ppc amiga, it's so much better than any available video!

after some more ppc demos the animation compo began. just 3 entries, but they were all of a high quality. the following pc 64k compo (also 3 entries) was dominated by black maiden with their evoke Zoo3 invitation, but also rush made a nice intro. the pc democompo had several quite good demos, but the best chances for the top 3 have probably floppy (dream equation 2, again a scientific demo), marsmellow and nah-kolor. the demos in the amiga compo weren't that spectacular, but encore and scarab made some quite good stuff. the wild compo at the end had a really high trash factor, not very much more to say (the last video was bronix puking at breakpoint 2003) ;). after this compo i found some really nice animations in the small party network, after the download it was time for some hours sleep. back awake i still didn't found any party releases on the net. shortly after 10:30 the price giving began. for the results you should check your local scene.org server or ojuice. black maiden won the combined intro compo with their evoke invitation. i was taking the price ('dynamo' software package from native instruments) because i'm actually the only german person with contact to black maiden at the party place. floppy won the pc democompo. scarab made the 2nd place in the amiga compo. symphony 2003 was even with its flaws a really nice party with the true scene atmosphere, the organizers were always helpful when you had a problem. and the party people were not more drunk than at any other party (according to tomcat bronix wasn't the most drunk person this time ;)). with only about 15 computers it was also more a meeting than a copy 'n leech party and there was not any problem with theft. the compos were running mostly fine without bigger problems. so, thank you to flapjack, silentriot and the other organizers.