The Ultimate Meeting 2007 Report

Written by Gopher of Alcatraz

My trip to the final demoscene event in 2007 started thursday, december 27th, around 8:00 at Munich central station together with delta/bypass and his girlfriend. We arrived at Karlsruhe-Durlach around 12:00 and went straight to the 'Festhalle' where TUM 2007 again took place (for the 3rd time already). The entrance fee was 35 € and girls didn't get in for free for the first time. To quote from the homepage: 'Since more and more woman are active in the demoscene, we decided to break with our old tradition that they get in for free'. So after Breakpoint now The Ultimate Meeting broke with that 'tradition' too. I think we've finally arrived in the 21st century :)

All people were thrown out around 14:00 and were allowed to enter the partyplace again for the fistful of entrance fee. The hall was still quite empty but slowly filled with sceners during the rest of the day. As no compos were scheduled for thursday, people kept themselves busy one way or another. Again this year a Nintendo Wii was placed near the entrance area and was always occupied whenever I passed it, mainly to have a cigarette outside. Which is, btw. another new thing at TUM (or generally new German law): Smoking is no longer allowed in public buildings like restaurants, city halls, ... So the smokers at TUM had to respect that new law as well (and will have to respect that on any upcoming German party). The obligatory 'pizza waves' started on thursday evening and (with a slight delay) the short but nice opening ceremony was held with some duelling and dancing cowboys according to the TUM 2007 theme 'for a fistful of pixels'. After that nothing else spectacular happened, in fact the party place was quite calm during the night.

Friday was finally compo day, starting with a free cup of coffee after I woke up. Unfortunately I cannot comment on anything particular before the game compo, because I was mostly busy talking to people or simply missed the the compos. The game compo itself had only two entries, a jump'n'run type game by the Royan Belgian Beer Squadron and a Memory type game by Metalvotze (Mammary Advance) where you had to find matching pairs of tits. Afterwards the 4k graphics compo started and had five entries with the imho coolest two from kakiarts and digimind. Before the ultimate demonight finally started, there was the official announcement for the latest pain issue (http://www.pain.scene.org) and also the official launch of the breakpoint 2008 website (http://breakpoint.untergrund.net)

with the theme this time being 'Digital Garden'. Some time later a DJ live set was played by Ewald + Bernd (Der verdammte Franzose + yoda) with some fine techno beats supported by some demoish visuals. Around 00.30 it was finally time for the last compos, starting with the wild compo. Nosfe had submitted a (typically) strange looking and color distorted but rather short video clip (sorry, but I never really understood his art). And Penishure's entry can be described with one word: "SCHEISSE". Next in schedule was the oldschool competition which contained nothing that really caught my interest. The kidnapped demo funcompo (only one entry) was a funny western-style version of odd's 'world domination' kidnapped/modified by nuance.

The following combined intro compo consisted of four 4ks and one 64k. Mercury's 4k was once more a damn fine production (allthough made at the party place and some scenes looked familiar to me ;)) with a kickass tune by wayfinder. Pittsburgh Stallers had a cool 4k with hard beats and good sync. Limp Ninja had the only 64k in the compo, not bad but it didn't have the visual quantity and quality I'd expect from a 64k. BluFlame's 4k (their first production ever) was actually quite nice and let's us hope for more in the future. The last 4k in the compo by h45h was okish.

And then ... the democompo. For me personally the five demos worth mentioning were 'human sources' by farbrausch, a fast paced ironic demo concerning spam mail content. 'Exospect' by black maiden with good direction, clean visuals and groovy sound (even coded in java). The awaited sequel 'Tayfur2:turkish delight' by speckdrumm, with the probably best looking döner in a demo ever. 'Aesthetic Distance' by youth uprising, with a very organic look and some resemblance to kewlers/mfx style. And finally the best demo in the compo: 'ferner' by still. I found it amazing, the atmosphere, the visuals, the sound ... the only downside is, it stopped at the very point where I expected it to blow my mind :) The other demos in the compo were not really my cup of tea or were of the 'already seen' type. But that's just my personal opinion, feel free to think different :)

Well ... basically that was about it.

I found TUM 2007 to be a very nice and well organized party once more. And a worthy end for an exciting year 2007 with many good and mindblowing productions. I am now looking forward to what 2008 has to offer (just like you I suppose) :)

More TUM 2007 photos:

http://2007.tum-party.net/after_party.php

Gopher of Alcatraz