Report: Austrian Scene Meeting 2k-1
The Austrian Scene Meeting 2k-1 was held at Entropy's new flat in the 22nd district of Vienna on June 18th, 1999. After the tiny silvester '98 meeting, this should be the first 'official' scene gathering held in Austria ever. Although still not many visitors were expected, the presence of some old and new legends like the ex-Surprise!Productions members and the Kolor guys from Bavaria should make this small assembly an exciting elite-only event. Which it proved to be in the end.
I arrived at Entropy's at 5:00 pm, just after the doors had officially opened. However, except Entropy himself and his co-organiser Franky, who had made the long way from his home in the Tyrol to Vienna a few days before, nobody was there yet, at least nobody demoscene-related: Two friends of Entropy's were helping him install the furniture in his new place of dwelling. In fact Entropy had moved in only short before Franky arrived in Vienna. That is why a lot of things still had to be done. Franky had already helped Entropy with the kitchen; now it was the ventilator's turn. With unsuspected technical gifts, the 4k-intro-soundcoder put the blue cooler together and attached it to the ceiling of Entro's small but nice living room, helped by one of Entro's friends.
In the rear of the room was the two sceners' PC equipment and a stereo, playing 3d animations from Franky's ex-groupmate Viper/Riot and a suitable soundtrack. On the other side of the room, there was the exit to the balcony, which was perfect for watching the birds in the surrounding nature. Nearby was Entropy's kitchen with a fridge full of coke, beer, and strawberries - all a scener needs to regain his energy.
With time, the flat got slowly filled. First Eisber, then DJ Da 4ceman of Singularity, both local sceners from Vienna, arrived. Lively chats about everything under the sun started, demos were watched, photos of the most embarrassing situations were taken, and occasionally Entropy ordered his visitors to carry some trash to the dustbin in the cellar of the building.
It really took off at about 6:30 pm when Entropy suddenly got a phonecall by Wez and the Bavarians who were just approaching Vienna. He said goodbye and left the place in order to pick the newcomers up. The remaining of us seized this unique opportunity to connect Entro's printer to his PC, put two coloured sheets in it, run Winword and design a poster with the text: "Peter's Swinger Paradise - a sub-company of the KEMA corporation" (Peter is Entropy's first name, and KEMA is his firm). After printing out two posters, our cheeky heroes, Eisber and Franky, dashed first to the front door of the flat, then to the elevator, where they put up the two references to this new attraction for tourists and everyone who needs it. By playing Poti/BM's infamous song "Frauen mit dicken Titten will ich ficken" ("I wanna fuck women with large breasts") so loud that nearly everyone in the house could hear it, Franky tried to intensify the impression that this was really a swinger-club. You can certainly imagine the neighbours' fury...
But most anxiously Franky was awaiting Entropy's reactions. So every time the bell rang, he and Eisber rushed to the door looking through the spyhole, once in his hurry almost losing a finger in the piano. Most of the time, however, it was someone standing outside the house who had probably pressed the wrong button by accident. Then, it was on about the fifth ringing of the bell, there were indeed several persons in front of the flat - but not, as expected, Entropy and the Bavarians. It was Lostcluster of Scoopex, the guy who had ported the demo "Alien 2" to PC, Peci, once a member of Surprise!Productions and now a Scoopexian as well, and the "scene professional" Erik Pojar (in his old scene days known as Rick Dangerous of S!P). What a nice crowd!
After everyone had quickly introduced himself, it was time for a bit of nostalgia: Franky showed Erik a snailmail exchange they had had several years ago when Franky had been a beginner at democoding who had taken courage to contact some of the then leading coders politely asking them for hints - so politely that Erik had adviced him to "drop that formal crap". Subsequent to that, Franky presented his latest baby, Void 3, to the audience. Erik watched and listened to it with delight.
Soon Magic of Singularity, a Viennese coder, arrived. From that point in time it did not take long to the sudden return of Entropy and the arrival of the new people that came with him, namely Wez/Riot, Shiva/Kolor, Siriuz/Kolor, Delta9/Colorfast and TheMadMan/Colorfast. Entro had of course noticed the posters but seemed to have rather enjoyed the idea. There was no time for a long debate about that subject anyway; far too many people had to greet each other and clink glasses. Moreover, everyone was curious to see the fastintro the Kolor guys had coded in two hours in order to bridge the time they had to wait for Delta9 to pick them up with his car. It did not consist of more than an oldskool sine scroller stating that Kolor rule because they were driving to Vienna; in fact it had only taken them so long to make because they had not been able to find a suitable font in the beginning. A nice surprise though, and hence a worthy winner of the ASM's fastintro competition.
It was already 8:00 pm and quite dark. Time for more nostalgia! The demo now presented was "The good, the bad and the ugly" from 1993, which Peci and Erik had coded. It had been ranked high in the Imphobia charts at that time. Its makers recalled some interesting memories while watching it.
The rest of the night went on in this manner. The attenders, later joined by Tobi/S!P and Snowcrash, discussed about coding, the scene and everything under the sun, watched demos, ate pizza, boozed, swung, and puked on the floor - the favourite hobbies of every true elite scener in Austria and Southern Germany. Yes, the meeting ruled indeed.
Franky later resumed: "This was the coolest scene meeting in Austria ever." With euphoria, he announced in news.scene.org/country.austria that there would certainly be another party next year, and then they want to make it a real demo-party. "But not again in my flat," Entropy protested. "My neighbours still hate me, and the mud from the party hasn't been completely removed yet... I simply don't like that people just puke on the ante-room floor," he continued, smiling. "But we will certainly find a hall in order to make a demoparty."
Hugi released a pack with all photos from the Austrian Scene Meeting 2k-1. It is available on scene.org and http://lbs.riot.org/asm/.
- ultimadok^hugi