Sledge Hammer 13 (English)/Sledge Hammer 13E (Disk 2 of 2).adf/destiny.txt/destiny.txt

Text File | 1994-07-14 | 11KB | 320 lines

Destiny


           Communion Party


           - by Tango of Balance


Before  this  starts I know there have
been  a  lot  of  published reports so
far,  but I think one tries to see the
event from the point of the organisers
rather    than    those   people   who
attended....   Some  people thought it
was  a  complete fuck up, a few people
liked  it,  it's a long time since the
party  happened  so  by now it's about
time a real report was printed without
any  of  the slagging that people have
been doing....

This  party  has  been well advertised
beforehand  and the guys behind it had
put  a  lot  of  effort into making it
something  special  and  had  a lot of
ideas  they  wanted to incorporate and
they   did  so  pretty  well  and  the
details sent out to people before.

Before  the  party  started,  a lot of
effort went into publicising the party
and  they  sent out specially prepared
brochures  to people and they sent out
over 100 of them to various people and
took  time  and effort to give all the
information people would need, as well
as  a  photo of the building the party
would  be held in so they knew what to
look  for  when  they  arrived.  After
this  had  been  done  [2 weeks later]
they  released  an  intro with all the
details  for people who had missed out
on the paper information.  Good design
and all the facts made it a lot better
than  most previous party invites from
people.

               + + + +

On  the  day, we arrived about 10:30am
(the  party  was  meant  to  start  at
10:00am) to find no more than about 40
people  there already, but that wasn't
particularly   worrying  because  they
were only half an hour into the party.
The  guys  on the door were using a PC
to  keep  track  of who'd paid for the
ticket, who was in the party, and gave
out wrist bands to people as they went
in in case they went out and came back
later.   A nice system and better than
previous   parties  where  you  simply
showed  the ticket, because they could
keep  close  count on who was actually
there.   Unfortunately  due to a fault
with the PC, this system was abandoned
in  the  early  afternoon of the first
day.   People arriving after that were
unchecked because the party organisers
were  stretched  to the limit and many
people  got  into  the  party  without
paying   at   all,  nice  for  some  I
guess....

The  drinks  at  the party were a VERY
good price, being only 45p for a small
bottle of beer.  As a result, a lot of
beer   was  bought,  but  some  people
proved  themselves  unable  to control
themselves  and  immature by consuming
large  amounts  and annoying everyone.
Congratulations  to  Glitch/Nerve Axis
who   drank  enough  to  kill  several
people and behaved better than others.
Evil  C/NVX made a complete asshole of
himself  and  so  did  several  others
(Telemach   especially).   Apart  from
this,  most  people were sensible with
the    drink.    Denzil   handled   it
especially   well   after   about   20
bottles!

No  food  was served because no proper
facilities  were  available (Fairlight
brought  a  toaster  with  them??)  so
people  went to the shops nearly (good
placing,  no  more than 5 minutes walk
to any shop needed).  Mostly junk food
was  scattered  everywhere.   The fact
there  was  no litter facilities was a
small problem so several tables became
designated rubbish zones and gradually
filled  up with crap for the course of
the  party.   This  was  handled  well
though,  because  every now and then a
large   bin  bag  of  decriptions  was
passed around and filled.

@IPpanicC









Power  cuts?   There was only one, and
that  was  fixed easily so considering
the  number  of  computers  and  other
equipment running, that was good.  The
sound  systems werre small, apart from
the Defekt and Destiny ones which were
100W  and 400W respectively and the PA
was  running  through  the  latter, so
hearing  was  no  problem, but hearing
each   other  while  it  was  on,  was
another   matter!    The   system   of
information    was    POOR....     the
competitions  were  on,  then off, on,
then  off,  etc etc...  it became VERY
annoying  for  all  those people who'd
tried  to finish demos in time for the
competitions.

Films  and  videos  weren't  displayed
until  late  in  the  evening  and the
mention  of 8 televisions was a little
bit   wrong.    A   rather   expensive
projector  was set up on the stage and
showed  various  things  on  the other
side  of  the hall.  Pornos, Manga and
Robocop  III(?)  were shown.  The only
person  making  a  fool  of himself in
this  time  was  Aquafresh/Defekt  who
decided  he'd  run  up in front of the
screen  and  pretend  to  pull himself
off.   Thankfully this only lasted for
a  few  seconds  before  his  arm  got
tired!

The  back  rooms  containing  all  the
Destiny  equipment  and  sound systems
were  frequently  inhabited by strange
individuals   making   requests.   The
first  such  one  was Paradroid/Lemon.
who wanted to finish Rink-A-Dink so he
could  get  some  sleep (having missed
out   for  about  the  last  4  days).
Nuke/Lemon.   got  his CD thing set up
in  the back while everyone sang along
to  the  Inspector  Gadget  theme tune
(and  we're  meant to be adults??) but
that  was fun and stupid so we enjoyed
it.

The competitions were started with the
music   competition,   but  due  to  a
problem there were no real vote forms,
so Sop was working to get some printed
in  the  back room, but eventually the
compeitions  were cancelled due to the
ensuing chaos.

Someone  stole  a  key  to  a door and
caused several problems, including £80
compensation  to  the  owners  of  the
hall.  More prize money wasted because
someone  was bastard enough to ruin it
for  others.   By  now,  releases were
happening   and   although   ALL   the
competitions  were  cancelled,  Defekt
still  released the 40K party intro, a
small   chip  intro  and  a  packmenu.
Voodoo  released the Charts #3, a chip
intro   and   a  rave  intro.   Lemon.
didn't  release  the trackmo on Sunday
simply   because   Paradroid   despite
everything needed sleep, but it should
be  out  by  now.   Destiny released a
slideshow   and   a  few  other  small
releases  were  out.  The 40K intro by
Virtual  Dreams  for  release  at  the
party,  was never released even though
it   was   brought   by  FLT,  but  no
competition   means  no  release  from
them.   A shame really, because it was
meant to be really sexy as well.
The   Anthrox  musicdisk  [Sploosh  1½
weeks]  wasn't  released  because  the
music  wasn't  finished  yet.  A shame
really,  because looking at it the GFX
are  more sexy than the first Sploosh.
No  other party releases, no GFX comps
or   anything  so  people  kept  their
stuff.

Glitch/Nerve  Axis  fell  asleep,  and
while  he  was  asleep,  some complete
bastard  took his hard drive, external
drive  and  disks and disappeared.  No
one  knows  who it was, but whoever it
was,  was  a complete bastard and just
ruins  everything the scene is for and
makes  it  miserable from there.  Cars
and  bags  were  searched, but nothing
turned  up.   My  sympathy goes out to
Glitch  and anyone who feels sympathy,
or  pity  should send a small donation
to  him  or  at least send a letter of
support.   The  guy  lost over £500 of
hardware  and  suffered a lot from it.
This  sort  of  thing can ruin a party
and  put  a  lot  of  distrust between
people.   Whoever did it, is extremely
sad  and  really  doesn't  deserve  to
live,  because  Mick  will  have to do
something   about   it   himself,  but
whatever happens he's lost a lot.

This  really  screwed  the  party  up,
because  Tantalus/Destiny  was  really
compelled  to inform the police.  They
arrived  shortly  and  said they would
come  back  the  next  morning to talk
about  every  thing.  Because of this,
the  party  was  wrapped  up  at about
10:00am  Sunday  morning  which  was a
little  bit  of  a  shame because even
though   there  was  no  competitions¸
everyone  was  really friendly and the
videos   gave  everyone  something  to
watch  and everything settled down and
the  drunks  went to sleep or sat down
so  it  was  all  organised.   By this
time,  the party had gone from slow to
bad  to good, but come daylight of the
second day, people started to leave at
incredible speed.

Destiny were left cleaning off all the
Fairlight & Tango (ehehe) stickers off
walls, floors, people and tables while
others  were  scrubbing  graffiti  off
walls   (the   writing,  not  the  ATX
member).   A sad fact that some people
have  to  ruin it for others, but that
will always happen.
A  lot  was  promised  at  this  party
[bouncy   castle,   internal  TV,  big
prizes,  cheap  beer,  disk  throwing,
inflatable  hammers etc etc], but very
little of it was delivered which was a
shame  because  there  has  been  very
little  in  the  way  of  parties this
year.    The  bouncy  castle  actually
arrived  the  next day after about 95%
of  the  people at the party had left,
so it was turned away....

I'm not going to rate it against other
parties,  but  the party itself wasn't
too  hot because of people ruining it,
but  for  meeting  people  and various
other occupations it was fun.  A shame
the  party  didn't go on till the time
it    was    meant    to,   but   it's
understandable  with  what's happened.
More  fun  than the Digital '92 party,
but  organisation  wasn't good at all.
I  enjoyed  it  even  if  Data  of LSD
didn't  (SHUT  UP!).   I hope everyone
takes  notes  on this party and others
before  they  get  theirs done because
there's a lot to be learnt.

Beore  anyone  thinks  Destiny  made a
profit  from this, they didn't.  Costs
for   damage  done,  loss  of  deposit
because of damage and a small donation
for Glitch and other things means that
they   LOST   several  hundred  pound.
Several  people not paying (some Nerve
Axis and Fairlight) meant another loss
of   money,  so  little  more  to  say
really.   I feel sorry for Destiny and
all  the  effort  they  put in.  A few
members  got no sleep (hey Termy, long
blinking?)  but  a  couple  of  people
ruined  it.   A  shame,  as  I've said
before.

The only UK party worthwhile this year
will   probably  be  the  Digital  [it
wasn't  if you're interested], if it's
better  than  last  year's effort, but
don't  underrate  this  party for fun.
Perhaps if future parties didn't worry
about  competitions  and  concentrated
more  on  fun and people then it would
really   successful.    Far  too  many
people  these  days  are obsessed with
the  money  won  from  things and as a
result  unless  there's a competition,
little is released.  Perhaps we should
return  to  the old days of friendship
and actually liking what we do instead
of becoming wares obsessed.