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- <f1><c000> <link=asm.scr>ASSEMBLY 2K3 REPORT</l> <f0>
- --------------------------------------------------------- -- --- -
- by Felice
-
- photo by Diamondie / Numedia Cyclops
-
-
- As most of you in the scene will probably be aware, I was
- extremely fortunate to have been able to visit Finland again
- during August of 2003 for a well-earned 2 week break. Things had
- really started to turn round for the better at work and, as it had
- been a long year, a break was needed.
-
- Now you will probably have also been aware of previous reports to
- large parties, such as Mekka and also Symposium '96, back in 1996.
- While Symp '96 was the first party for me I guess it holds a fair
- amount of memories, however, Mekka did nothing of the sort. It
- allowed me to experience the worst excesses of the demo-scene at
- large, fortunately this experience was not to be repeated at
- Assembly.
-
- And so it was that on the morning of Monday, 3rd August 2003, I
- flew out to Amsterdam en route to Helsinki. Staying in Amsterdam
- overnight was good, though unremarkable. I managed to pick up on
- DVD a film that I had been looking for for a while - yep, one of
- Joanna Pacula's new films.
-
- Tuesday afternoon saw me at Schiphol airport, waiting for the
- flight to Helsinki. As was planned all along, I had my laptop with
- me, along with the new wireless card that I had also picked up a
- little while ago. Connecting up the laptop to Schiphol's rather
- cool wireless network was good, with an excellent connection rate,
- faster than my comparable ADSL speed here at home. This went on
- for a couple of hours or so, but the cost rate (around 10euro for
- 24h use) was a good one. It was a bit of a shame to see that
- not many people were making use of the wireless network yet, but I
- guess that was due to the time of day, when most business
- travellers had got away.
-
- I got to Helsinki at around 10.30pm, meeting up once again with Q-
- Funk at the airport after collecting my hold bag from the
- carousel. After greetings were exchanged, we made the now-familiar
- walk outside to get the airport bus into the city centre. We next
- picked up a second bus that left just outside the Swiss theatre,
- that took us to the new area where Q-Funk was living now, in the
- new shared flat with his then girlfriend, Leila, and his new
- housemate. For those of you who are confused, Q-Funk moved out of
- the place he shared with Mark, the alky guy who was described well
- in the articles written for Alt Party III & IV.
-
- It was great to be introduced for the first time to the quite
- pretty Leila, she seemed pleased to see me as well. She'd cooked
- us some spaghetti, which we downed graciously, then, after a bit
- of general chit-chat and talk, we settled down for the night.
- Noone in the room to fart, snore or any other odd nocturnal noises
- mind ! (Asteroid!)
-
- Wednesday dawned, and, after getting up and sorting a few things
- out, Q-Funk and I left and caught the bus and train over to
- Hartwall Areena, where Assembly 2003 would be held. Assembly was a
- first-time party for both of us, yet we had been pleased to be
- invited in as reporters, helping out in the TV studio area. I'd
- had some rough ideas on producing a TV show about the Atari scene
- (duly done, more about that later) and also Q-Funk had been
- recruited to help out with that, plus other TV related stuff that
- appeared at the party. One of the TV shows he was involved in
- presenting, as a reporter, was just how people would get from the
- airport to the partyplace itself. It, along with most other stuff,
- is available for download at the assembly.org server. At the time
- of writing this report the Atari scene TV show has yet to be put
- on, but hopefully that won't be too long now.
-
- Wednesday afternoon came and went, turning to early evening, by
- which time we were called to a huge organiser's meeting. There
- were over 300 organisers there in total, doing various jobs. we
- recognised some from the TV studio; others were involved with the
- front desk, yet others were involved with the security, etc. Some
- other lucky people managed to get positions organised within the
- actual TV broadcast area, which was a really cool area to visit
- right up in the heavens of Hartwall Areena. The meeting itself
- largely consisted of the general basics, with the theme being
- 'Respect'. This also had to be given to all the people who were
- attending the party itself as visitors - which, I'm happy to
- report, all did show respect to all the different systems that
- were shown on the big screen and on the cable & satellite TV
- broadcasting networks outside.
-
- Thursday dawned a little while later, and, at precisely 12pm, the
- main doors were opened and the first visitors started to come in.
- Now, ever since the famous protest carried out by several Altparty
- people and organisers back in 2001, Assembly also had an area that
- was set out as 'oldskool'. Tickets for the party itself were
- around half the price, but the total fun was still there. Many
- people who are familiar to myself, CiH, Asteroid, Baggio and other
- people here in the Atari scene also arrived. These included:-
- Setok, Partycle, Twilighte, DBug/NeXT, Nosfe, Lobotomy, Temmi-Hoo,
- Diamondie (Maija Haavisto - one of an increasing and welcome
- number of girl sceners), Hot, Yessa, Rasputina and others who I
- had a nodding acquaintance with. Oops, mustn't forget the mega-
- mighty Viznut, yes, he of the Vic20 demo fame at previous
- and future Altparties.
-
- It was nice to meet up with the guys again. Several people asked
- about CiH, wondering why he wasn't there when I was :) But I told
- them that he was definitely there in spirit, if not in the flesh.
- Nosfe was being his usual funny self during the party, at one
- stage he was snoring quite loudly next to one of the organisers
- sleeping areas, of which these were around the building. Viznut
- was working on his new demo, which was shown during the oldskool
- compos later on. Setok seemed to be in pretty high spirits and
- people generally seemed to be very happy. There were actually a
- couple of people there from FiT, with a Falcon and a laptop
- running Steem, but as far as I know there were no releases from
- them as yet, not for the Atari scene anyways. We will have to see
- what happens here, I guess.
-
- The main hall was where most of the action took place. The big
- screen was here, showing various pre-recorded programmes and
- stuff. The famous 'Kill all audio and lights' animations were also
- shown at important times, such as for the start of competitions.
- Again, almost everyone obeyed the instructions and sat back to
- watch the show.
-
- We managed to get some recent Falcon and ST demos shown on the big
- screen during the party; classic demos such as Lost Blubb, Sono,
- Mindbomb and others. A showing of Dildo Fatwa's EIL#3 release was
- also played, this received a lot of clapping, laughing and general
- cheering, along with the other Atari stuff that was also shown.
- Even though a lot of the guys there were on PC or other formats,
- they certainly seemed, at the very least, to be appreciative of
- us, which I guess was a nice thing.
-
- The Falcon demos that we showed were all those that had been
- recorded as AVI files that are available to download from
- scene.org. Unfortunately it was impossible to show anything
- recent, but having learnt some lessons here I will ensure to
- record some of the new ones into the same format, so they can be
- shown at future Assembly parties.
-
- The TV programme which I was planning to make went ahead as
- planned. We sat, the three of us, myself, Q-Funk and DBug. DBug
- was interviewed and we also showed one or two classic demos from
- the past. Recording itself was a slightly nervous situation but
- this eased as time went on. The resulting show was processed by
- other people in the studio, then got shown quite early on the
- Sunday morning.
-
- Being an organiser at Assembly was certainly an honour. As well as
- getting free entry for ourselves, we also had free one-day and 4-
- day tickets for our friends as well. One of our one-day tickets
- was used to allow Diamondie's sister, Roosa, to visit, which she
- appreciated. Similarly, one of our 4-day tickets was taken over to
- Partycle, who was pleased to see us and was also pleased to get in
- for nothing :) Well, after all, he had helped us out over the
- years with Altparty that it was time to give him something back :)
- We also got, as organisers, entry at any time to a sauna upstairs
- in the heavens. This was really good - top class, and an ideal
- place also to get a shower away from the visitors. Though they
- were not left out, a sauna and 24h shower facility was provided
- for them so they had no need to worry. We also got separate
- organiser sleeping areas that had various background 'white noise'
- sounds going on, despite this it was still possible to sleep.
-
- Being at Assembly has certainly restored my faith in the big
- parties once again. There were no real excesses of Mekka style
- seen here - one of the party rules, which would, I think, have
- left Mekka people wondering what they could do otherwise, was
- simple - 'No porn'. People also generally stuck to that.
-
- Assembly came to an end on the Sunday evening, during which time
- we packed up and left the building, after helping out with one or
- two jobs to tidy up the place. On getting back to Q-Funk's place
- we zonked out for a while, then spent the next couple of days
- relaxing. A trip to Tampere to visit Pahartik, was also on the
- cards, so this consisted of a real nice value train ride (2 hours)
- between the two cities. Paavo's flat was, although small, very
- nicely laid out - he's got a good place there, which he's also
- in the process of buying. It has to be seen to be believed, but
- trust me, it is worth seeing. We also did some exploring around
- Tampere itself, visiting the famous public library there as well,
- amongst other places. We returned back to Helsinki on the
- Thursday and I flew back home the following Saturday.
-
- All in all, it was an excellent trip. I enjoyed it well and
- hopefully will be back for future Assembly parties in due course.
-
- Felice.
-
-
- -- - --- -- -------------------------------------------------------------------
- CHOSNECK 4th appearance contact us:
- done by the dream survivors greymsb@poczta.fm
- ----------------------------------------------------------------- -- - --- ----
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