Cologne Conference '98 (Nov 14, 98) ----------------------------------- Organizer Report - The Computer '98 (November 13th to 15th 1998) Every year on November, there is the biggest Amiga fair in the world in Cologne/Germany. In earlier days, the Scene used to spray their graffity and group names on the walls and stalls around the fair. From that moment on, every year, there is a big wall prepared especially for the Scene to write and scribble on. For many Sceners around Europe, this place at the fair became a traditional meeting point. You can meet more than 200 Sceners from various groups on the so-called "Scenewall" at the fair. Former, the fair was called "WOC" (World Of Commodore). But since years gone and especially Commodore is out of business, the fair got different names. This year, the fair was called "Computer 98" and again many Sceners came to the fair on saturday. - The Fair Party Three or four years ago, every regular visitor and Scener knew, that there's a party to visit after the fair. Because, nothing happened the last years, six Sceners thought, that it's time to change this lack of parties during the fair. It was the Los Endos BBS Meeting, where we all had the idea to organize a party during the "Computer 98". Nevertheless we had big problems to find a place to party. The November 14th is the busiest time in Cologne, because that's the time of carnival. Fortunately, we finally found a place. It was not that big as expected, but our last hope to make this party to become real. - The Sponsors Surprisingly, from that moment on we rented a place and everything was very easy. A homepage have been built "http://www.academicus.de/cc98" with the support of the company "Academicus", an intro has been coded by Modem of Darkage, who came to the party from Italy by the way, and lastly we found many other sponsors supported us. We like to thank Amiga International, Inc. who really helped us out with a financial help. Without them, the party wouldn't been a success. It was Petro Tyschtschenko from Amiga International Inc, who talked with us, and also Nicole Gottfriend was very helpful. Again, we realized, how grateful we should be towards Amiga and even Amiga Internatoinal Inc. himself. No Party and no Scener would have become that, what it/he is, without our favorite Computer. Thank you Amiga! The same time, MicroniK sponsored us an Infinitiv Tower II (value: 438,- Marks) for the big lottery. We also like to thank the great MicroniK employees who build this tower for us, and special thanks to Oswald from MicroniK, who came to the Party and helped us around. Even Village Tronic gave us the "Ariadne" network card for the Amiga, worth 200,- Marks. Thanks to Ekkehard Brüggemann from Village Tronic for his effort. - The Meeting The opening was at 6 pm and almost everyone was already at the place at 7 pm. After a couple of hours the party place was quite full. For some people, the room was too small. Other told us, that they liked it because that was much more personal that way. We think, that it was small. This was our first party and at the end the majority liked it. We are satisfied this time, but we'll do it better next time for sure. Lastly, more than 180 visitors came to the party. You can have a look at the guestlist and all reviews at the party homepage: http://www.academicus.de/cc98 - The Prizes We also like to thank to firms, who supported us with a lot of prizes during the fair: Amiga International Inc, Schatztruhe, Titan Software, Amiga Spezial, Amiga Plus, amigaOS, Amiga Magazin+PCgo, Magic Bytes, and Red Bull for 100 cans of free beverages for the party people. During the party, there was a little misunderstanding. XXX of Haujobb thought that the big Red Bull sign was not for free. Fortunately the Red Bull employee left the party place after that. So, even XXX had a nice souvenir to take home. Lastly, the prize value for this meeting was 2,000 Marks (Red Bull sign included). Almost everybody won something at the lottery, which was at 11:30 pm. Every winner won also the "The Golden Beer" - the party prize including some other big CD prizes. Congratulations to Acryl of Scoopex: The famous graphician won the Infinitiv II Tower, the biggest prize to win at the lottery. Lucas of Lightforce was the winner of the "Gravereuth Dart Competition" and won the "Ariadne" card. The winner of the Dynablaster competition was again, the unbeatable champion: Andy of Nuance. - Chocolate Competition All competitions have been moderated by Steeler of Phantasm, the star of the night. The first competition was at 9 pm. At the "Chocolate Competition", two competitors had to eat 500g chocolate to win "The Golden Beer" with some other prizes. Before eating the chocolate, the competitors had to get it between all the cream on the chocolate. The winner was Exhorder, who couldn't resist to vomit after eating chocolate and drinking beer at the same time. Unfortunately, that was too much for him. One hour later, he began to fight with the organizers and was forced to leave the party place as usual. - Gravenreuth came, saw, and has been kicked... The next competition was one of the interesting ones. It was the "Gravenreuth Dart Competition". After everybody wanted to throw knifes to Gravenreuth's picture instead of darts, Steeler chose the Amiga users, who could win the "Ariadne" Card from Village Tronic. Five cut-throats threw knifes to the ill-famed lawyer's face. And here, something very weird happened. Allow me to call this the "Gravenreuth Desaster": While People throwing knifes to Gravenreuth's picture, the master himself appeared. Gravenreuth came to the party place and asked to enjoy the competition. We think, that this was one of the most embarrasing moments at this party and we will never forget Gravenreuth's timing to appear. We thought, that the opportunity was too high to mix up Gravenreuth's ugly face with the nice picture painted from Peachy of TRSI. For his own secure, Gravenreuth has been kicked out of the party place by the organizers. Surely, something everybody wants to do once in his life. "Ladies and gentleman, Gravenreuth left the building..." - Hungry Sceners We had too much prizes for the lottery, that we didn't have enough time to make a drawing all the time. After raffling the Infinitiv Tower II, and also many other big prizes, Steeler did the "Lion feeding". PC-CDs, PC-Magazines, and PC-Stuff were destroyed from a bunch of hungry Sceners. Also, there were a real scuffle, to get all the Amiga stuff. That was a real desaster, because after this, the party place looked like a battlefield. Finally everybody was happy. The person who rented us the place, was not. Unfortunately we couldn't kick him out of the party place. - The End The last hours many Sceners were drunken and some of them were high. But the real trouble came from the man, who rented us the party place. He was one of those aunties, who use to complain about everything all the time. We apologize for the stupidness of those people. We think that every visitor at the party behaved very decent. The last visitors left the building at about 4 pm, and after that, the organzers tidied the party up and left either. For us, it was a great show and a nice coming together, and we want you back, when it's time to spread invitations for the "Cologne Conference 99"... - The Credits The Cologne Conference was organized by Ghandy/Darkage^Gods, Dire/Eremation, Exon/Jormas^Faith, Merlin-M/Nuance, and eVRIMSSON/Nuance. We are also very grateful to Chavez/Faith, who did the same work as the organizers. The Dynablaster Competition was arranged by Andy/Nuance. The Party competitions were moderated by sTEELER/Phantasm. We'd like to thank Raven/Nuance, Bettina, and Iris, who helped us a lot. Also, many thanks to The-Elevatorman and his brother Skyfly for taking pictures and helping us at the party. report by eVRIMSSON/Nuance (Evrimsson@teucom.xnc.com)