The Gathering Money Ripoff

Written by Sixpack/Haujobb

It was winter, it was cold and it was The Gathering 1998. I remember it so well because I got the demo from Odin/gODs on the very same day I was leaving my beatiful pink painted room and started the trip to the big winter event in Norway. I called Zack and said that I got the demo and we arranged to meet at the local train station where the bus was going to meet us. We got into the bus a bit excited hoping to meet some other sceners. But the excitement was quickly turned down by a bunch of low life Quake lame gaming asswipes.

We finally arrived at the party place in Hamar after a VERY boring trip. Got off the bus and tried to meet some old friends outside. Pheew, some TRSI members and Spaceballers had just parked outside the main entrance. A bit high on different stuff, but that is what we are like... :) I asked how to get in, and as every year, we had to register at some PC shit... damn that, why can't it be like TP, where it rocks. But no, they try to be cool and professional, which they don't manage very well. I'll get back to the so called 'pro' word later on when we get to the serious part... :)

After some sleepless nights and lots of drinking, etc., I finally managed to deliver the demo and some other contributions to the organizers. I had some problems with the multi channel module because the disk was corrupt. But the organizers allowed me to use one of their computers and I managed to get it from my own machine back home. So congrats for a helping hand from the TG guys.

Then the big night came after 4 nights of boozing!! The PC Demo Competition was about to start, and I found a good spot. Some good, some bad demos, and then ours was shown. In fact it was shown last, which was a good surprise. I had a good feeling when I heard sceners telling me that it was good and had a fair chance to win the whole thing. Great! Even some quake dudes told me they liked the demo... haha! Only because it looked like a Quake #8 special edition... :-) Later on, the Amiga Demo Compo was held. Some good pieces there as well... And later on that day we had the price ceremony. I and my pal Caramel/ex.gODs sat down and hoped for a good position for the gods demo. I can mention that Caramel won both the 4 channel and the multi channel music compo, so he had lots of clothes and shit in a pile in front of us. Hehe! And then finally it was time for the PC demo pricing. "First place Evolution by gODs." YES... We made it... œ2000 was up there on the stage just waiting for being owned. But sadly that was very far from the truth. I came up there with Caramel, and Vegard, who is responsible for the TG organizing, gave us some SCALA shit and something that looked like clothes. Vegard told me just to write down my name and handle on a piece of paper so they could find me later on when they would pay us the price money. Sure thing...!!

Months later Odin wrote me a mail and asked about the money. He probably thought that I had put it all on my own account, but everyone should know better. TG has always fucked up these things. Bridgeclaw, for example, hasn't seen anything of his money for winning the GFX pixel compotition at TG95. But that wasn't anything near the amount of the stuff Crusaders and co. had promised us. So Bridgeclaw didn't care about it since he got such a nice job... :-) Anyway, I wrote Vegard a long mail asking for the money they had promised.

(June) Got a mail back from him some days later in English because this was a mail for all the sceners who had anything to do with the competitions. "The money will soon be forwarded to your bank accounts. This will happen when everything has been paid from the sponsors". Ok, I thought then that they would pay in some days or maybe a couple of weeks. But I was dead wrong again. Odin sent me a new mail asking about what was happening up here in Norway. Again, I wrote a mail to Vegard asking for the promised price. This time I got a mail back in Norwegian with some excuses about missing sponsor money. But he promised that I would get the money in two pieces very soon. œ1000 each time. But of course, my bank account was still not fed with some pleasing amount.

(August) Now the French were begining to get quite upset with the organizers, which is very normal when you don't get the promised amount. So the musician of the demo, Liszt/gODs, contacted the Norwegian embassy in France, which made Vegard and co. open their eyes a bit. He was seriously thinking about contacting the police so we could get the price. But we delayed it, and hoped for better times.

(Dec/Jan) After many mails bragging about bad organizing etc., a mail came from Vegard telling me and Odin that everyone else was paid and now we was the only one left, which meant that he now had time for us. Maybe there was hope after all then, after all this time with useless e-mails. After some time, Odin contacted me again through #thescene channel. He told me that Vegard had sent the money to his bank account in Paris. Vegard had sent a mail explaining how he did it and so forth, but there wasn't any money on the account. I contacted Vegard and asked for a reason for the disappearing of the money. Vegard then told me that there must have been some trouble with the Norwegian or the French bank service. He said that he would probably get the money back soon, and then send it back in eurocheck or something like that directly to Odin. Hmm, sounded a bit strange, this excuse. But we couldn't really do much about it.

Still today we have got no money for the winner demo at TG98. And soon there will be TG99!! I think Vegard and his gang should think this over and maybe try to pay the prices at the stage when the price cermony is going on. I think all these excuses are lame and unprofessinal. So think twice before you give TG your productions in 1999. Maybe you also have to struggle to get the money... In our case, there is still no sign of the cash... Around œ2000 in this case. I guess the police is our last chance. Too bad for you, Vegard, and your TG... I know many sceners will be somewhere else when TG99 will be arranged. Sceners have heard about this, and will probably not support TG! So now there are even more seats for the games dudes!! :-)

As regards me and my friends here in Norway, we are going to Mekka & Symposium '99 this Easter. Meet you there.

- Sixpack/Haujobb

(From Jurassic Pack #7, an Amiga diskmag)