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Download the pdf here
From the 31st of July to the 2nd of August 2009 the city of Cologne was the place for another issue of the Evoke demoparty. In good tradition of the past years, it was time to change the party-place once again. This year the Abenteuerhallen Kalk on the right side of the Rhine was the chosen location for nonstop partytime. From the Cologne central station it took only two short trips with the subway to reach the district of Kalk. The Abenteuer-hallen (adventure halls) are part of a huge industrial complex, consisting of various office and factory buildings. Most of those buildings are now out of service and so the Abenteuerhallen are now used for climbing, skating and other events. The hall were Evoke was held is normally used for indoor climbing, with lots of ropes and handles on the walls. The place looked very cosy with its dim illumination and the big gantry crane under the ceiling. So the new spot promised everything a cool party would need for success, let's get it on...
| "EVOKE LOGO LOOKED MORE LIKE ZVOKZ INSTEAD OF EVOKE" |
The hall
Again the amount of girls was above normal level for this type event and some of them were also part of the organizer team. Screen and shirt design were so advanced this year, that the Evoke-logo looked more like "zvokz" instead of "evoke". So the usual channels like IRC, Twitter and the guestbook where soon filled up with "zvokz"-tags of all kinds. During compos you could sometimes hear somebody shouting "zvokz", quite funny. Anyhow, the shirts sold out fast and the big-screen was working like a charm. Besides the main beamer, two more beamers were in service. One providing the info for every compo entry and a smaller screen besides the bigscreen. So you knew at every time, which entry was running. It was a very nice feature indeed. The third beamer flooded one of the hallsides with an animated clock (DropClock for Mac), smelled a bit like overkill, but who cares.
The internet connection ran fine but slow that year. There was only one crappy DSL-line available at the Abenteuerhalle, so the guys from Viprinet (Scamp) had to trunk it together with 8 UMTS-links, to get it to a usable level. But all those obstacles couldn't stop the "web 2.0" from hitting the party right away. If you took photographs at the party and uploaded your pictures to Flickr, the organizers suggested, to tag your stuff with "evoke2009". Those pictures were then presented on the bigscreen during the compos and other events. The longer the party, the more slides were shown. Thumbs up for this one and all those funny images.
On Friday evening it was time for the short opening ceremony held by a good tempered Puenzli, followed by a nice DJ-set from cTrix. Instead of real turntables he used two Amigas running ProTracker for the mix, a perfect oldschool setup. cTrix also won the prize for the longest trip to Evoke, as he had come all the way straight from Australia.
Ctrix performing
As the weather was as perfect as the year before, there was plenty of hours to spent outside. You could have a beer, or better one of those favourite "Kölsch". The openair-area was equipped with some benches and tables, also some tents were put in place in case of rain. But the best of all were the two huge barbecue grills and the unlimited supply of charcoal. So if you got hungry, you just placed your sausages or meat on one of these beasts and it was ready in no time! Extra bonus for that. The area was completely surrounded by those old industrial buildings, so you could party hard without disturbing anybody in the neighbourhood. As the weather was mostly fine, the live acts were performed outside and the barbecue area turned into a dance floor. If you were not into dancing or barbecue you could also buy some food or drinks for reasonable prices directly in the hall or could check out one of those donner shacks, which you can find at every corner in the quarter of Kalk.
| "INSTEAD OF TWO TURNTABLES HE USED TWO AMIGAS RUNNING PROTRACKER" |
On Saturday the timetable was packed with deadlines and compos, so showtime was coming up. The audio-compos presented the usual stuff and amount of entries. And again the loop compo rocked all other music-compos with its innovative concept of putting the necessary stuff in to a 10secs looping sample, just delicious.
The graphical works started with the animations, which were on a more mediocre level, but the story of the notorious Speicher-gurke was continued that year. Which led to a lot of laughter from the German sceners. The pixeled graphics revealed only a few highlights, especially the first place by xeNusion of Plastic. Also the raytraced images had only two entries to offer, but the first place by Morci and Mojito surprised with tremendous style. In contrast to 2008's compos, the delays were reduced to a minimum, so all the presentations were running smoothly. A big explanation mark for the organizers.
Finally it was time for 2009's "fear and loathing in Cologne". 2008's intro and demo competitions were an epic fail due to a very small number of entries and lack of quality (Rob is Jarig won the demo compo, do I need to say more?). So the tension was tight on the years contributions, but it seemed, that the scene learned their lesson well. Everybody and their mother handed in a lot of good work for all the different contests. The show started with the 4ks, which were ruled by Blue-Flame's entry, followed by the presentations of Titan and Still. But also glutamat by Gopher of Alcatraz in 4th place was great to watch.
A good level was also shown by the 64k intros. Where the nice invitation for Buenzli from the guys from Braincontrol made it to the third position. The fun factor was served by TGGC's entry, which presented various effects overlaid with humoristic comments, which were not everyone's cup of tea. Kakiarts won the compo with a solid production called Applied Mediocrity, getting an extra fame for the truthful name.
Interesting as always were the wild demos (console, real wild). Moods Plateau came in 3rd place with a simple "dance" demo running on a KC 85/4, which is an old 8bit system from eastern Germany. The 2nd rank was captured by a short Nintendo DS demo from MsK, entitled "Bitbox". The winner in this category were the guys from Jumalauta with their AltParty-Invitation running on an Gameboy Classic.
| "THE PARTY REALLY KICKED ASS THIS YEAR" |
The PC demo compo had about 8 contestants, a giant leap forward compared to the previous year's Evoke. The fancy invitation demo for Syntax 2009 in Melbourne made a comfortable second place, but the demo by Andromeda Software Developments finally took the winning crown home to Greece. Some people complained about recycling in Chameleon, but the ASD-style is unique by itself, so no real need to argue here. The thankless third place was taken by Titan with their quite cool production called High Today.
The last night was spent with voting via network and roasting all the barbecue rests. On Sunday noon, the final event of prize giving took place. The presentation of the winners went flawless and nearly on time. After the disappointments of Evoke 2008, the party really kicked ass this year. Organizing seemed to be heavily improved and also the visitors took their share, delivering a fair mix of quality and style in their contributions. Lets hope we see this continuing in 2010 and thanks to all people who attended and made this party a great success.
Photos by Saga Musix and Decca.
Last but not least, 2009's results:
PC Demo
1. Chameleon by Andromeda Software Development
2. Syntax Party 2009 Invite by Disaster Area
3. High Today by Titan
PC 64K-Intro
1. Applied Mediocrity by Kakiarts
2. CMath 4k Intro Wannabe by TGGC and Turri / TGGC
3. Buenzli Invitation by Brain Control
PC 4K-Intro
1. Lunaquatic by Hel / Blu-Flame
2. paradistance by Titan
3. Salvation by mad / still
Animation
1. Meister der Illusion by Esau Schulze-Fleischmann
2. i feel hundred years old' by nosfe / Flo+grey park
3. 2v0kz' by jumalauta
Alternative platforms
1. Man meets machine [GB] - Alt. Party 09 by Jumalauta
2. BitBox [NDS] by MsK`, Nurykabe, Hitchhikr
3. Let's Dance! [KC 85/4] by dOc.K / mOOdS pLAtEAU
Pixeled graphcis
1. Kap der guten Hoffnung by xeNusion / plastic
2. dsProject by atex / brain control
3. the heavily unfinished pic of a rowboating donkey by tomic
Raytraced graphics
1. The Harvesting by Morci feat. Mojito / Alcatraz
2. experiment x by atex / brain control
Tiny tracking music
1. House my Kolsch up by cTrix / Disaster Area
2. Phase One by Saga Musix / Gravity^Projekt Carnival
3. y0 dicks by tEiS + warhead / TRSi
MP3 / OGG
1. fluxosphere by mad / still
2. Lauf! Ein Lied Ãœber Jogging by KML vs. Warhead / TRSi
3. Sunshine (Party-version) by BeRo feat Palindrome
Loop compo
1. Lachhusten (7s Edit) by Jakob Bienenhalm
2. was?! by eha / smash designs
3. some FM by kami68k / l0p
PC ANSI / ASCII
1. indiana zwokz by moqui / high society
2. Freedom, on top of the world by irokos / Titan
3. Grey Girl by Laeila / titan
AMIGA ASCII
1. Evoke by ne7 / triad
2. Some kind of stuff to drink by dMG / diViNe sTYLERs
3. PasciiMan by T$ / Alcatraz^Scoopex
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