The CORE 2001 Partyreport

Interview with Hoild of Enhanced Newcomer Team

How to support the party the way that even it had only few C64 visitors, it enforced a good reputation of the C64 scene in the general scene population? In tge following dialogue you might learn some of the backstage details of this party organisation. We bring you the interview with Hoild, the member of the Enhanced Newcomer Team – C64 enthusiast and effectually the Core party C64 section organiser.
 

The usual beginning

CreaMD: How did you like the party?
Hoild: I was enjoying it, and it was obvious all the other visitors were enjoying it, too. We were only sum 52 ppl if I remember rite.
CreaMD: Quite a small one. Who from the c64 scene was present?
Hoild: I have arrived there by Friday noon, and the official start of the party was by 4pm. In fact, by noon there were N0 orgs at the partyplace at all, but for Charlie|Inq. I was getting there by train, together with SociSINGULAR, and most of the other SINGULAR guys also got on the train at Ajka. It was Poison and Leon and Leon's cousin. In short, these names make up the list of party-visitors from the 64 scene.
CreaMD: Cool ;-)
Hoild: But we must consider it was a Hungarian party and SINGULAR is one of the two active 64 scene groups in .hu still in bussiness. Apart from the sceners and me, OF COURSE we have met quite sum guys at the party-place who were 64ers in the golden age. None of them were sceners, though. (AFAIK)
CreaMD: Why, do you think, so few people came? Did organisers at least made some profit to pay the expenses ?
Hoild: _YOU_ should know better – good parties leave the organisers in a heavy financial loss, because good party == quality over quantity, and yet they could not ask for 10 times the normal entry fees to make up for the few visitors… ;]
CreaMD: ;-)
CreaMD: Well, it must have been quite a good party. Not that fabulous as the big ones. But still, why so few people?
Hoild: The orgs have not made enough campaigning on the international level, as, since the party was N0 Kvake-Nuk'EM over LAN crap, the number of visitors in a ‚small‘ country like .hu gets quite limited. IF there is going to be a CORE:02, my best advice for them is – gather visitors from ALL neighbouring countries as well, and even try to have visitors from remote corners of planet Earth! ;]>
CreaMD: I think they must have really scuffled the work on promotion. You did more promotion in a short 1 week than they did in whole months. Thanx to that, quite a nice ammount of quality releases were entered for the c64 compos on the Core party… [more on it later in the report]
Hoild: Apart from the sumwhat undersized hype and campaigning to launch this new party, I can only say good and positive things about the orgs and the things they have managed to get for maximum entertainment for us!
 

Hyping the partyplace

Hoild: Let me talk about the Partyplace – it is an _excellent_ BIG two levels building, with a good-sized meeting hall and even a movie hall with seats for ~400+ ppl or about!
CreaMD: Good, if the party would be there also next time it sounds like a good partyplace.
Hoild: Even more so – one detail _especially_ attractive to demo-sceners, as they are well known for finishing their releases +/-5mins to the deadline – there was a remote room with supple power connectors and room for about 15–20 machines, away from the noise of the party hall and the cinema room with the demoshows, to provide peace and silence for that last furious bit of coding/composing/pixelling! Great, huhh?!!
CreaMD: Indeed!
Hoild: Lets' skip the details on supple sanitary conditions, _clean_ sleeping rooms away from the noise and the action, all in all, it IS an ideal place for holding a B.I.G. party (BIG != MS, but still, room for ~500 visitors is B.I.G. for me)

Orgs, and even more hype

Hoild: The main orgs were the ppl from INQUISITION, a Hungarian Amiga/peecee group (hope I'm not talking bulls, I know only one of them for good). There were also sponsors for the console / Amiga / peecee events, the main platforms of CORE, and a few of these sponsors were providing awards for the 8bit compos – sumthing to be explained here. There was no platform like ‚C-64‘ listed, there was a so-called ‚8bit‘ listed as an official platform. Too bad we _don't_ have any speccy or Atari8bit sceners in Hungary, so this ‚8bit‘ was practically limited to the C-64. I cannot tell if it is a good idea to hold ‚8bit‘ demo / gfx / music compos with speccy / 64 / Atari all in one bunch. I don't know if there were different 8bit scenes present, what they would say about it. At the same time I am hoping VERY MUCH there will be a party in Hungary with visitors/competitors from all these scenes!
CreaMD: Yes.
Hoild: But even if there will be N0 such party in Hungary, there is still one such event in a certain neighbouring country – know which one, CreaMD? ;D
CreaMD: Oh yeah thanx for mentioning the Forever party. I almost forgot to mention it in this party report ;-)). How about sound equipment, projector?
Hoild: Ohh!, equipment! The sound equipment was quite OK, I was expecting far worse, the amps were OK and the B.I.G. speakers were perfect for demo/music compos! [don't expect better opinion from an audiophile] The projector was lacking a few thousand more lumens, and there was only sum reeel-crumpled canvas for it, adding extra-effects to all releases, like Bump-mapping done in Hw.. ;]]
CreaMD: At least they don't loose too much money on that, it must have been cheap ;-). And hey, it was nice that you could connect to internet at partyplace. You could keep me informed and also I could finish and submit my demo by saturday, just a few hours before the start of the competitions. Greatish!
Hoild: The last thing to be mentioned about the equipment is the party LAN, and the inet connexion – all network services were provided by one of the sponsors, K & H Computer, and I must especially thank Balazs of PSY-Net for letting me use an _expensive_ distance call dial-up connexion for DL-ing most of the 64 releases I got via the internet, after the 128Kbit ISDN inet crashed by Saturday afternoon.

About the visitors…

Hoild: MOST visitors were peeecee ppl, of course. I must add at the same time that the majority of these peecee ppl were _active_ sceners and not just any gamer-lamers! They were from .hu / .pl / even one or two from .ru – one coder guy has travelled SIX bloody THOUSANDS of Kilometers from Russia to bring his entry with himself and participate in person!
CreaMD: Six bloody thousand kilometers! Unbelievable!
Hoild: I must spend sum words on the Polish guys – it was quite a sight to see about 20 ppl appearing at once, marching under a B.I.G. Polish flag!!!
Hoild: As far as Amiga visitors are concerned, only ~10 ppl, incl. me, at most. It was not a perfect timing for a multi-platform party, as the famous/ill-famous sequel to the „Parad“ booze-parties, called Szittyozium[=„smokin'shit“], was happening on the same week as the CORE party. About consoles – a few guys from the other scenes present were also into consoles, [Official CORE party platform!!] and one of the sponsors, called NewWaveComputing, is a small bunch of console freaks! There was a scheduled console demo/alt.OSes/Apps presentation, and a 24 hours unofficial one at the desks of the NWC ppl. :] No real console sceners present that I know of, though.
CreaMD: Hm?
Hoild: SINGULAR was representing what few is left of the .hu 64 scene (remember, Quality over quantity!), and the 64 was still beating the crap out of Amiga, and doing FUCKING nice even compared with the peecee presence, with 7 SID entries / 5 gfx entries / one B'day demo for/from DMAgic by the man himself doing this party-report with me.
CreaMD: Haheh ;-). I won't cut this out. It's quite ego inflating ;-).
Hoild: -All the visitors were really enjoying and appreciating the 64 demoshows and compos – sumthing great to see in this crappy peecee era!! There were great 64 releases on the party, it is very well worth checking for everyone! The party had that particular nice oldie-feeling, in part because of the small but active/hardcore scener bunch of visitors, and in part because of the great 64 hacking we were doing to a d00d's C-64C – ohh, what a nice thick column of smoke was rising from that 64 (no joke)!!! }=]>
CreaMD: poor c64 thingie ;-|
Hoild: N0 worries. The d00d was lucky ‚cause it was a switching PSU we were using to check the mods, and it was only a few wires shorted by the sharp edge of the RF shielding…
CreaMD: I‘m really interested in the stories behind release collecting. Do you remember some interesting situations, dialogs, correspondence?
Hoild: Hmmm!.. WE (you and me) know what is behind the thirteen 64 releases on this basically non-64-centered party. Commodore 64 was not a main platform for this party, it was there only becuse there was a fuzzy ‚8bit‘ listed as an Official platform – what else 8bit could mean but the 64 in Central Europe?!! None of the orgs were 64 ppl, so sumbod had to take on the controls, to assure a real 64 presence on a party that is meant as ‚multi-platform‘ – or at least so I thought, about 6 weeks before the party. I was starting to promote it in e-mail to contacts and also campaigning for it like mad at #C-64, with no real results during the first 5 weeks – I was _desperate_..
CreaMD: ;-))
Hoild: ..it was looking like this – I got only one release during my lonely-campainging, a killer gfx from Jailbird (szeva!), and sum promises about „yeahh I might be visiting it“. Only this, in 5 weeks of mad and rabid hyping for CORE in the 64 community..
CreaMD: ;)
Hoild: ..and in the last week, I've got help from sumone in organising sum activity and kicking sum asses to come up with releases – it was (name rubbed out for a good reason). And so, in the end, the 64 community and scene don't have anything to be ashamed of. The majority of the 64 releases are from the d00dz at #C-64 (Yo guys!)
CreaMD: Nice to see #c-64 active once again, like in the good old times, instead of mumbling and gossiping… and generaly just wasting time ;-).
Hoild: I was trying to make it more attractive for ppl to send their releases to CORE:01 by telling them about the _N.I.C.E._ Champ.Cups winners are going to get – and three of these nice trinkets http://c64.rulez.org/…hamp.cup.jpg are now the reward of guys not just wasting their time at IRC (like me ;) but doing sumthing for the 64 as well, when word is there about an opportunity to show off!
CreaMD: ;-) So what? how will you send that cup to Agemixer? ;-)
Hoild: Well, I am waiting on word by him about sum BIG party he's visiting – Agemixer, you will get yer killer cup, I promise!!
 

Hoild wanted a big piccy so I had to leave it big (CreaMD ;)

Epilogue revealing more interesting facts

Hoild: So, as I told you, the party was a financial loss to the orgs, even if maximum entertainment for us, visitors. This made them drop a hint that the next CORE party is in peril. The small number of visitors has changed sum critical things, like the AWARDS, just to name one. By default, and by NWC's intent as sponsors, the winner of the ‚8bit‘ (= C-64) demo compo was to get a _DREAMCAST_ IF there is a real competition with several competing killer-releases!
CreaMD: (I think I wouldn't find use for dreamcast here.. I have too much equipment overload at home ;-)
Hoild: So, sponsors were not in scarce, the party-place was excellent, ppl were nice, and I am thinking about sum way to help the poor orgs to have a real multi-platform party in Hungary in years to come, since, as sum of you might've already heard it, last year's one was the last of the Antiq party-series.. :[ Dear 64 ppl! How about registering for the NEXT CORE party (if there is going to be one) well in advance? Let the organisers and sponsors know what they might expect regarding the number of visitors!!
CreaMD: Visitors list, sure an useful thing!
Hoild: Also, I am asking all of you to tell your _active_ contacts in the various scenes about this opportunity, and perhaps let your interest in such a party to be held in Hungary in the future be known to the CORE orgs – http://core.kign.org ..And one more idea – IF the CORE orgs give up on it, there is a fucking B.I.G. killer party-place to be utilised! It is _not_ expensive at all, and perhaps there are sum interested and reckless ppl to try coming up with such an event in the future, even if the CORE staff already had enough of it after one single event…
CreaMD: Yep! I would help with promotion for sure.
Hoild: And HEY!, YOU MOFOS!! WANNA HAVE THE BEST 128bit DEMO PLATFORM??! ENTER THE NEXT CORE DEMO CONTEST AND WIN A DREAMCAST!!! – It is is out of production by now, just like the 64, but the things I saw on it so far look promising enough, that it could be a good enough hi-end platform for a demo scene!
 

THE END

Credits and additional information

Date: 17.-19. august 2001 – Hungary
Partypage: http://scenergy.dfmk.hu/party/
Interviewed: Hoild of Enhanced Newcomer Team
Questions & Edited by: CreaMD/Dmagic & Hoild/Enc
Photos (source): come back later…
Core releases: Core 2001 releases

Start of the session: Thu Aug 30 03:13:21 2001
End of the session???Thu Aug 30 05:42:53 2001