The Gathering (demo party) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Gathering is the largest computer party in the world (as DreamHack

DreamHack

DreamHack is a digital festival, a local area network gathering with demo competitions, gaming competitions and more. It's arranged twice annually at the Elmia exhibition centre in Jönköping, Sweden and also twice a year at Expolaris Congresscenter, Skellefteå, Sweden and holds the world record ...

is a LAN-party/computer festival). It is held annually in Vikingskipet Olympic Arena

Vikingskipet Olympic Arena

Vikingskipet , officially known as Hamar Olympic Hall , is an indoor multi-use sport and event venue in Hamar, Norway. It was built as the speed skating rink for the 1994 Winter Olympics, and has since also hosted events and tournaments in speedway, rally, association football, bandy, ice sledge...

in Hamar

Hamar

is a town and municipality in Hedmark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Hedmarken. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Hamar. The municipality of Hamar was separated from Vang as a town and municipality of its own in 1849...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, and lasts for five consecutive days (starting on the Wednesday in Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

each year). Every year, TG attracts more than ~5200 (mostly young) people, and the demand seems to be times higher.

Beginning

In early 1991, Vegard Skjefstad and Trond Michelsen, members of the demogroup

Demogroup

Demogroups are teams of demosceners, who make computer based audio-visual works of art known as demos. Demogroups form a subculture collectively known as the demoscene....

Deadline, decided that they wanted to organize a big demoparty

Demoparty

A demoparty is an event that gathers demosceners and other computer enthusiasts to compete in competitions. A typical demoparty is a non-stop event lasting over a weekend, providing the visitors a lot of time to socialize. The competing works, at least those in the most important competitions, are...

in Norway. In the late eightes/early nineties, it was common that demoparties

Demoparty

(more commonly called "copyparties" at this time) was organized by large demogroup

Demogroup

Demogroups are teams of demosceners, who make computer based audio-visual works of art known as demos. Demogroups form a subculture collectively known as the demoscene....

s. Because of this, and the fact that Deadline wasn't particularly well known, Vegard suggested they should get the group Crusaders involved. At this time, The Crusaders was one of Norway's most popular Amiga

Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...

groups. Partly because of their music disks, but also because of their diskmag, the Crusaders Eurochart. At first, Crusaders weren't too keen on the idea of organizing a party, but when Vegard reminded them that they always complain about how bad other parties are, and that this was their chance to show everyone how it should be done, they agreed.

After briefly considering having the party during the fall of 1991, it was decided that Easter would be better. All schools are closed during Easter week and the period from Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday, also known as Holy Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Great & Holy Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries, is the Christian feast or holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles as described in the Canonical gospels...

to Easter Monday

Easter Monday

Easter Monday is the day after Easter Sunday and is celebrated as a holiday in some largely Christian cultures, especially Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox cultures...

are official holidays in Norway

Norway

. This meant that most of the target audience would have time off to attend TG, and all organizers and crew could work full time with TG with a minimum usage of vacation days.

1992–1995

In 1992, 1100 people gathered in Skedsmohallen at Lillestrøm

Lillestrøm

' is a city in the municipality of Skedsmo, Akershus, Norway. The municipal administration is located in Lillestrøm.Facilities in Lillestrøm include hotels, Norway trade fairs, a brand new cinema, a mall, Lillestrøm torv, restaurants, a high speed commuter train that reaches both Oslo and...

, way more than the expected count of about 800. The following years, TG continued to grow. In 1993 Skedsmohallen again was the venue with 1400 people visiting the party. In 1994 the venue was Rykkinnhallen in Bærum

Bærum

is a municipality in Akershus county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Sandvika. Bærum was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838. A suburb of Oslo, Bærum is located on the west coast of the city....

, and the visitor count had risen to 1800. A slump occurred the next year and the reasons for this are debatable. The 1995 party was moved to Stavanger

Stavanger

Stavanger is a city and municipality in the county of Rogaland, Norway.Stavanger municipality has a population of 126,469. There are 197,852 people living in the Stavanger conurbation, making Stavanger the fourth largest city, but the third largest urban area, in Norway...

, a 470 km, 6 hour drive from Østlandet

Østlandet

Eastern Norway or Austlandet ) is the geographical region of the south-eastern part of Norway. It consists of the counties Telemark, Vestfold, Østfold, Akershus, Oslo , Buskerud, Oppland and Hedmark....

where many participants lived, and Crusaders were not organizing the party this year, but by Magnar Harestad with help from some of the Crusaders crew. (consequently it was called simply "Gathering 95"). It was clear that one would soon need a bigger place to be.

1996-current

The venue decided upon was Vikingskipet Olympic Arena

Vikingskipet Olympic Arena

, built earlier for the Lillehammer 1994 Winter Olympics

1994 Winter Olympics

The 1994 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVII Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event celebrated from 12 to 27 February 1994 in and around Lillehammer, Norway. Lillehammer failed to win the bid for the 1992 event. Lillehammer was awarded the games in 1988, after having beat...

. Providing lots of space and good infrastructure (abundant power, good parking opportunities, etc.) it was the ultimate party location, and in 1996, the first TG in Vikingskipet attracted 2500 visitors. However, TG has continued growing, and has been sold out every year since 1998 (see The ticket sales controversy below); TG05 and TG06 attracted about 5200 visitors.

Daily life

TG lasts for five days (from Holy Wednesday

Holy Wednesday

In Christianity, Holy Wednesday is the Wednesday of the Holy Week, the week before Easter...

to Easter Sunday every year), and thus is both longer and of course bigger than most other computer parties. Most people tend to let their daily rhythm go and instead sleep as they see fit (many simply in front of their computer, but most people on the arena stands); for a lot of people most of the time is usually spent in front of a computer, but many like to use the opportunity to meet new or old friends in real life.

People have wildly different opinions about what constitutes a proper computer party; the common trend at TG these years seem to be warez

Warez

Warez refers primarily to copyrighted works distributed without fees or royalties, and may be traded, in general violation of copyright law. The term generally refers to unauthorized releases by organized groups, as opposed to file sharing between friends or large groups of people with similar...

, games (the most popular being Counter-Strike

Counter-Strike

Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...

), and IRC. However, many visitors find this too boring in the long run, and there are many unofficial mini-events happening all the time. Informal competitions to build the highest tower of soda cans are not uncommon, and people have been spotted having their own private mini-rave-parties put together by a few people and a PC with PA Systems.

Happenings and the demoscene

TG has always been a hub for young creative people to battle it out in many types of competitions; demo coding

Demoscene

The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer...

, music, graphics

Graphics

Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, animation

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

, games, hardware-modification and Dance Dance Revolution

Dance Dance Revolution

Dance Dance Revolution, abbreviated DDR, and previously known as Dancing Stage in Europe and Australasia, is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, Dance Dance Revolution is the...

to name a few; in addition, there are usually concerts and other things happening live on stage once or twice a day, as well as seminars etc.

In the first years, the focus on TG was pretty much on demos, but as TG is held at the same time as Breakpoint, a German scene-only party (and the earlier Mekka & Symposium

Mekka & Symposium

Mekka & Symposium was a demoparty held annually in Fallingbostel, Germany over the Easter days from 1997 to 2002....

), many European demosceners have left TG in favour of BP, and TG, like the majority of other computer parties, has become more of a gamer event. The scene at TG still lives on, though, as TG has introduced features such as a demoscene-only area, "creative cashback" (those handing in entries to the creative competitions get a discount) and other demo-oriented events. In fact, you have to go back as far as 1996 to match the amount of entries handed in to the creative competitions at TG04.

Crew

The organization Kreativ Aktiv Norsk Dataungdom (KANDU)

Kandu

The Kandu are a Hindu caste in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. They traditionally provided parched grains and are one of the Bania castes in the Vaishya Varna. In Bihar, Kandu often use Gupta as a surname. Kandu living in Nepal are also called Kanu...

is formally responsible for hosting TG. In addition, there are about 300 volunteers participating to make TG become reality every year; these are collectively called the crew.

The TG crew is split into multiple sub-crews, such as a democrew (Event:Demo), a gamecrew (Event:Game), a first-aid crew (Security:Medic), a network crew (Tech:Net), a server crew (Tech:Server), etc.. (The exact list varies somewhat from year to year.) Each of these has a chief who reports upwards, and is responsible for some aspect of the party.

All crew members are volunteers and unpaid; the only advantages a crew member has over a normal visitor are free entrance, access to a crew-only sleeping room and hot food served a few times a day. All members of the crew must arrive at the party place one day before the party itself starts, and stay one day after the party to aid in cleaning up afterwards. (Some people, such as chiefs, typically come even sooner.)

Everybody who wants can become crew (except for the Security crew, where there is a minimum age of 18), by applying at a special interface called wannabe. The chiefs usually pick their own crew, based on the applications coming in and previous experience. Crew members from earlier years must re-apply every year if they want to be crew again, but it is rare for a person having done a good job not to be selected the next year.

Ticket sale controversy

Up to and including TG01, TG tickets (as all other tickets to everything else happening in Vikingskipet) were sold by Billettservice, a company closely related to the postal service in Norway. Partly sold via the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

, partly by phone (but always picked up at a local post office), the Billettservice system broke down hard every year as thousands of people tried to order tickets to the event simultaneously.

To try to make the ticket sales a bit more smooth, a group of people closely related to the administration of TG made a separate company called Partyticket (or Partyticket.net, PTN for short), selling unified ticket-related services (such as ordering, payment, seating, handling competitions etc.) to smaller and larger computer parties. Partyticket went online for the first time in 2002, and like Billettservice instantly went down under the massive load, partly due to a problem at the third-party service authorizing credit card transactions. However, the tickets were still sold out in a matter of hours.

2003 was not much better; a lot of problems had been fixed (and PTN had successfully managed the ticket sales for several other computer parties), but there were still problems left, and it was decided to postpone the ticket sales by one day to fix the problems that had been discovered. The sales went relatively smooth the next day.

In 2004, one hoped that one would finally see the end of the problems, especially as a new queuing system and new hardware was installed; however, the server again buckled under the enormous load, and the queueing system was found to be severely buggy, apparently shuffling people around in the queue at random. This frustrated a lot of visitors, many of which never got tickets at all. Many people blame the ticket-sales problems directly at PTN and has tried to pressure TG into choosing some other solution.

In 2005 the queuing system was changed. Instead of buying actual tickets, people were put in a virtual queue, thus loading the server a lot less during the peak hours. The next day, people were processed from the start of the queue (but no more than 200 at a time). This system ended up working a lot better than the queueing system from 2004, despite some misconceptions in the media.

Since 2006, however, there have been no major issues.

In 2007 the Norwegian Tax Authority demanded that taxes were to be paid for the tickets sold from 2001 to 2008, as they didn't consider The Gathering to be a cultural arrangement (all cultural arrangements in Norway are exempt from paying taxes). Although the management of TG sent a complaint to the Tax Authority, they did not reconsider their demands. Within August 8, the management of TG had to pay 988,536 NOK

NOK

NOK or Nok may refer to:*Kiel Canal *Norwegian krone, NOK is the ISO 4217 code and is used as an abbreviation for the currency.*NYSE stock ticker for Nokia Corporation, based in Finland...

in unpaid taxes, which could have caused the 2009 arrangement of The Gathering to be cancelled. If no money was paid within August 8, the arrangement could be closed for good. However, on August 16, 2008, KANDU

Kandu

and The Gathering won the tax case and will temporarily be exempted

Tax exemption

Various tax systems grant a tax exemption to certain organizations, persons, income, property or other items taxable under the system. Tax exemption may also refer to a personal allowance or specific monetary exemption which may be claimed by an individual to reduce taxable income under some...

from paying taxes for the tickets sold in 2006, 2007, 2008 and the future. Also, there will be a law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

amendment to secure this for all other computer parties in Norway. The stated reason for this decision, is that The Gathering's purpose is to gather youth from inland and abroad so these can get together to cultivate a computer culture, and the Storting has declared in a white paper

White paper

A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to...

that computer gaming is considered culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

.

For The Gathering 2011 KANDU has signed an agreement for ticket seles with a company called Unicornis and their ticket system Geekevents. This agreement is for a three years period.

Name

Most years, TG has a name or "tagline"; the tagline doesn't really mean much, but it still influences the logo (or the other way round) and some other material. A list of names includes:

Year	Tagline	Inspiration
2000	"The Gathering 1900 - Follow the Flow"	The Millennium bug Year 2000 problem The Year 2000 problem was a problem for both digital and non-digital documentation and data storage situations which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits.In computer programs, the practice of representing the year with two...
2001	"A Cyberspace Odyssey"	The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey 2001: A Space Odyssey (film) 2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
2003	"The Gathering: Reloaded"	The movie The Matrix Reloaded The Matrix Reloaded The Matrix Reloaded is a 2003 American science fiction film and the second installment in The Matrix trilogy, written and directed by the Wachowskis. It premiered on May 7, 2003, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, and went on general release by Warner Bros. in North American theaters on May 15,... , and a reference to the endless reloading to get a ticket on PTN
2004	"Rescue of Fractalus"	The Lucasfilm Games LucasArts LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s... 's game Rescue on Fractalus!
2005	"We Are The Robots"	The Kraftwerk Kraftwerk Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008... song "The Robots" from the album The Man-Machine The Man-Machine The Man-Machine is the seventh studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released in May 1978. It contains the song "The Model" which was a chart-topping single in the UK in 1982....
2006	"The Dark Side of Pluto"	NASA NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research... 's first probe New Horizons New Horizons is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission currently en route to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, Hydra and S/2011 P 1. Its estimated arrival date at the Pluto-Charon system is July 14th, 2015... to Pluto
2007	"Still Puzzled?"	The famous "fifteen puzzle"
2008	"Optimus Prime"	The Transformers character Optimus Prime, the fact that this is the 17th Gathering (a prime number) and Prime numbers' relations to computers.
2009	"Fire and Ice"	As if making its way through "fire and ice" due to the tax issues, the event still managed to pull off.
2010	"Submerged"	After having seen "Vikingskipet" dressed in fire and ice last year, we dive under water for TG10 and present The Gathering 2010 - Submerged.
2011	"Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Lightning"	The theme points to both that we have now risen from the depths (TG10 - Submerged), and that "cloud computing" is becoming increasingly important in the world of computers.

Demo and intro competition winners

The Gathering demo/intro compo winners, 1992–2009
Year	Platform	Demo	40-64k intro
1992	\|Amiga	Wayfarer (Spaceballs Spaceballs (demogroup) Spaceballs is an Amiga demo group from Norway, originally based around the city of Halden. It was formed in 1987, but did not make its first release until 1989.The group has released many demos, including State of the Art and Nine Fingers... )	N/A
1993	Amiga	Desert Dream (Kefrens)	40k Intro (Lemon.)
1993	PC	The Search For The Holy Halibut (Twilight Zone)	N/A
1994	Amiga	Sequential (Andromeda)	Bjarne (Stone Arts)
1994	PC	Superunknown (Five And Then Some)	Das Grelle (Gollum)
1995	Amiga	Deep (CNCD & Parallax)	Jobbo TG'95 Intro (Spaceballs)
1995	PC	Dope (Complex)	Fluid Motion (Valhalla)
1996	Amiga	Tint (The Black Lotus)	Lights (Stellar)
1996	PC	Inside (CNCD)	You Am I, You Am The Robot (Orange)
1997	Amiga	Captured Dreams (The Black Lotus)	Gene (Fudge)
1997	PC	CNCD Vs. Orange (CNCD & Orange)	Gene (Fudge)
1998	Amiga	Rise (TRSi TRSI TRSI may refer to:* Tristar and Red Sector Incorporated, a demogroup* The Right Stuf International, an anime- and manga-related retailer* Trophy Resources An Oil and Gas Company trading on the Pink Sheets... )	Imitation None (The Black Lotus)
	PC	Non-3D: Dimension (Gods)	Jive 2 (Sublogic)
	PC	3D: Planet Cornball (Complex)	Jive 2 (Sublogic)
1999	Amiga	Supermonster (Spaceballs)	Fusion Is No Good For Me (Spaceballs)
1999	PC	Yume 2000 (Future World Mix) (INF)	Public Demand (Purple)
2000	Combined	Hypnopolis (Spaceballs)	glAss (Psikorp)
2001	Amiga	Powergod (Spaceballs)	mx.9kru (Nocturnal)
2001	PC	Triple Five Tsunami (Fadeout)	mx.9kru (Nocturnal)
2002	Amiga	Scrimm (Spaceballs)	Masse Lego (Nocturnal)
2002	PC	Thermo Plastique (INF)	Masse Lego (Nocturnal)
2003	Combined	World Domination (Odd)	LOL 2K (Neon & Lug00ber)
2004	Combined	Our Demo (Outracks Outracks Outracks is a Norwegian demogroup who released their first demo in 2002. Best known for the demo "Synthematik" from 2004, which got nominated for the "Breakthrough Performance" award at Scene.org Awards 2005, Outracks is still active today in the Norwegian and European demoscene.-Style:Outracks'... )	Nemesis (Excess & Kvasigen)
2005	Combined	Meet The Biots (Portal Process)	Cubism 2 (Kvasigen)
2006	Combined	Animal Attraction (ASD Andromeda Software Development Andromeda Software Development is a Greek demogroup that was formed in 1992. They produced a number of small intros and demos in the mid 1990s for the PC, most notably CounterFactual and Beyond... )	Smoke This (Portal Posse)
2007	Combined	Gamma (Outracks Outracks Outracks is a Norwegian demogroup who released their first demo in 2002. Best known for the demo "Synthematik" from 2004, which got nominated for the "Breakthrough Performance" award at Scene.org Awards 2005, Outracks is still active today in the Norwegian and European demoscene.-Style:Outracks'... )	Mupé (PlayPsyCo)
2008	Combined	Camden Town (PlayPsyCo vs. Kvasigen)	konami / raze (PlayPsyCo)
2009	Combined	Rupture (Andromeda Software Development)	N/A
2010	Combined	Phon (PlayPsyCo)	Magnus (Youth Uprising)
2011	Combined	We Crave Sustenance (PlayPsyCo)	Michigan (Loonies)

External links

The Gathering official website
KANDU website
The Gathering on Pouët
The Gathering: Computer Parties as Means for Gender Inclusion by Hege Nordli, an academic paper about The Gathering demo party and parties in general. (PDF)
Various logos
http://www1.vg.no/spill/artikkel.php?artid=504539
http://www.nettavisen.no/it/article2107924.ece

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