pouët.net

crash '97: two guys (who did have some previous demoscene/party activity) promoted what would be "the biggest/best demoparty in north america". it would be in a huge sports arena. over 1000 people would be there. first place demo prize: a whopping $10,000. no fewer than three invitation intros were released.

the problem: it was in calgary, alberta. the scene had previously built up around montreal, quebec (naid), and while there were plenty of sceners along the east and west coast, calgary was essentially in the middle of nowhere.

50 people showed up. they claimed they still had a good time (and i'm sure they did), but the two promotors' brash claims amounted to nothing and they lost a lot of money. and first prize was much smaller, yes.

the moral: a) don't make wild claims unless your previous events/experience in the demoscene back it up. b) don't hold your event in a location far from neighboring cities - it may work for raves and burning man, but not so much computer parties. c) it takes lots of people, lots of dedication, and lots of time to make a truly noteworthy event in the demoscene. d) don't launch your american event promotion with a pouet.net thread "America's Biggest Demo / Digital Arts Festival", you will just get pouetized by europeans. :)

actually all those seem to sleep and recover from breakpoint trip, you're lucky :D

http://demoscene.us/news/demoscene-get-together-in-salt-lake-city/

Random opinion peice by s_tec to get you started. :D

[Random disclaimer: I'm a editor on demoscene.us ;p]

Here's my response to s-tec's post. I'm open to feedback from all of you. How can we earn some scene cred and get more demoscene participants this year?

I'm afraid making it a demoscene-only event is out of the question, but certainly, demos will be front and center at the event. Last year we ran demos on a projector screen the whole time, and accomplished a lot of public outreach and education in the local community. I'm willing to do more of that and lay the foundations to rebuild the local scene (we have more than our share of talent here), however, I also want to make this a fun event for the demoscene, as well.

Perhaps three demoparties in North America are two too many. Regardless, I will still be interested in flying out some speakers to address the local community here if national participation is an unrealistic goal, and I'd love to show some great demos on the huge projector screen at the rave in front of thousands of people. Yes, there will be thousands of people -- most of them not demosceners, admitedly. V2 throws electronic music productions that attract thousands on a regular basis, and we're teaming up with them for this event.

- Eric

Hey, thanks for voicing your concerns. I'm certainly open to feedback. I realize we have a bit of a credibility problem with the demoscene. In fact, that's one of the reasons we hardly did any out-of-state outreach at all last year. Keep in mind, even with just the local support last year, we did better than any of the Pilgrimage parties attendance-wise.

I'd like to do what we can to improve our scene-cred this year. What do you think is needed?

I realize you have concerns, and I want to address them. In order to do so, I need your help. We have proven that we can come up with a kickass venue and get the local community involved. We have a great team working on this who have huge number of successful events under their belts. What we are lacking in a big way is scene cred.

I want somebody connected to help organize and make sure that key people are here and that demos actually get submitted this year. I will fly presenters out on my own dime if necessary.

What would motivate groups to enter our competition? Prizes? Publicity? Help submitting to the Sundance Film Festival, held here in Park City every year?

If you were me, what would you be doing?

ehh, i'd be ordering pizza and forgetting about the whole deal. but that's if *i* were you, so don't let it stop you.

if c64 demos are allowed I might maybe possibly send in something if I'm not lazy.

No. Just, no. In fact, they are faaaaar to few. In Europe there is at least one party every weekend, and this is what is needed to keep the scene running. Local presence and having somewhere people can band together to work is essential.

Every continent needs a whole bucketload of smaller parties, and then one or two big ones people can go to every year.

and every city needs a demoscene pubmeeting once a month. :)

I agree with gloom and nosfe here. I've always been interested in attending a demo party, but I'm not really willing to take my desktop computer with me to a demo event if it's more than 500km away when I know I'm not going to recognize anyone when I get there anyway. Local and grassroots is going to be an important part of the growth.

nosfe: Yes! :)

btw, what's the most updated demoparty list. currently?

Isn't it the coolest thing that a guy that's organizing a demoparty in the land of the lowering dolar never heard about nvScene?

it makes perfect sense. afaik nvscene has nearly only been promoted in europe and on pouet, for now. which, come to think of it, is actually a bit odd :-)

I missed the nvscene announcements because when I'm not actively working on demoscene outreach for SparkArts, I'm busy with my photography and party promotion career.

Another thing worth noting. I do the party organizing thing for a living these days. My ability to get people to parties is one of the reasons people hire me to do their photography. It's a package deal. =)

Local outreach and participation is a HUGE focus of our efforts here. Last year we introduced this scene to many young people in Highschool and College who will likely represent the next generation of North American demosceners. Back when we were you, you couldn't go onto a BBS without seeing a demoscene section, and the text sections of the file servers were loaded with demoscene tutorials.

These days, with so much unrelated info competing for the attention of the younger crowd, it's essential to have events like this if there is going to be a next generation in the North American scene.

- Eric

"when we were you" should read "when we were young"

Please don't forget, Block Party starts April 4th, and for those who attended last year, and attended the Pilgrimage events before that, there should be some familiar friends there who may or may not be at the SparkArts fest in October. I know most of the people attending have probably already made their travel plans -- I just want to send out a quick reminder. =)

I'm not trying to compete with BlockParty and NVScene -- What I am trying to do is promote demos as the ultimate showpiece for the digital arts at a festival that will discuss music production, game development, machinima, digital photography, graphic design, etc...

- Eric

Allow me to be the first saying you're awesome!

dilvie: I'll repeat myself: what IS this event?

he's gonna get all these sceners to show up and then it turns out its a gay pride party with demos.

Well, I can understand Dilvie's excitement about organizing big culture events in SLC, and if he has the experience, that's great. I just think it was a mistake going from small (Pilgrimage) to small and unheard of outside SLC (SparkArts) to biggest demoparty EV4R!@# There needs to be some gradual growth.

It's still not a bad idea to host a demoparty around the same time as a rave or other digital arts festival, but take small steps up the demoparty-planning ladder. The demoscene around Utah isn't going to jump several hundred people in one year.

As for not hearing about NVScene, we're doing what we can to promote it on demoscene.us. As for not hearing about demoscene.us, well, it's not *quite* complete yet and we'll actually start plugging it at Blockparty. :)

skrebbel: which brings us to the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8QAf-YYL5k



And the Falcon030 seems a little bi-curious too.