pouët.net

Outline 2011

category: parties [glöplog]
come on, both "sides", let's not make such a drama of the food, shall we? the food possibilities were really good compared to some other parties. plus, the frittes place in the town center was REALLY REALLY good (there _is_ good dutch _fast_food apparently!). also, bring your own bbq!

also, once again, thank a lot to all organizers!
added on the 2011-06-06 14:13:49 by dipswitch dipswitch
Actually - the fact that the food seems to be the only matter of debate around, I'd say it's because everything else was truely awesome, well-coordinated (still impressed with the steady supply of ice-cold beer!!) and really well executed ;-)
added on the 2011-06-06 14:16:50 by Punqtured Punqtured
it'd be nice to be able to get something a little more substantial than pizza or kebabs, but hey, by now people are sort of adult, we can get our own goddamn food :)
added on the 2011-06-06 14:19:28 by farfar farfar
Punqtured: having a big-ass double doors fridge in the kitchen really helps with having a huge stock of ice-cold beer ;-) Also, overstocking helps too.. ;-)
added on the 2011-06-06 14:20:18 by FiXato FiXato
(maybe we could get haabkaar every day? :D)
added on the 2011-06-06 14:20:37 by farfar farfar
That party was perfect in many senses : the place itself (good beds/showers), the awesome organization team (you rock, dudes), the great live shows by gasman and gwem, the prods, and the partying people.

I agree we can't whine about the food quality in parties, as we can bring our own food anyway. And I must say I really enjoyed the noodles ;)

The only "problem" I've seen in the party organization is that many ST/e prods were shown on the STeem emulator, even not in fullscreen mode. To me the only valid option is to show them running on the real hardware, especially at an Atari party ! Just warn people about the compo machine before the party, and make sure this machine works on the beamer.
added on the 2011-06-06 14:42:02 by zerkman zerkman
Oh - and never use the masking-option of the beamer. It'll end up cutting off the edges of some prods.
added on the 2011-06-06 14:54:26 by Punqtured Punqtured
I'm going to respond to as many of the issues raised as I possibly can because I'm really happy that people take the time to suggest improvements (we need this to make the party better). Please keep in mind that what I write is my personal view, I'm not doing this party alone so what the other orgos think or say is equally important when it comes to deciding how we will handle stuff next year.

- Signs to point out the route to the party: I'm willing to give this a go, however, please don't rely on it too much and do check Google Streetview before going to the party. We put up signs before, and found out that a lot of them got stolen/reversed/fucked up in some other way (I guess it has to do with subversive Dutch mentality).
- Music: We will continue the tradition of having a diverse selection of artists performing. This means that visitors are likely to enjoy some parts of the performances more than others. We're OK with playing more music in a certain style, except if it means playing less in another style. Artists, dj's and any other performers are always welcome to contact us so we can improve our programme.
- We had slow landline internet access for the first time. Considering how shaky it was with only a few users on this line, I would prefer to keep this option for emergency cases. If we would share this connection with ~100 users, it would become useless pretty quick. So realistically speaking... don't hold your breath for this.
- The beamer outside was a last minute spontaneous idea of Numtek. It wasn't planned to be there and it wasn't really prepared, but we liked it and if circumstances allow, we will do it again and better next year.
- PMS will work next year before the party starts. The fuckup was caused by miscommunication and incorrect assumptions which won't happen again.
- Due to the compo team being responsible for moving equipment right after compos to enable music performances and ceremonies, it was sometimes overlooked to open voting right away. We hope to improve this situation by adding manpower to the compo team so they will have the possibility to do more things at the same time.
- We can minimize the waiting time for food to 2 hours by not allowing people to order in advance, but nobody wants this. If you order at 16:00 and expect delivery within 2 hours, there's nothing we can do because we never planned or promised to make the order before 18:00.
- Food quality: Personally, I've been eating food from Amon for 3 years in a row now, and never had any complaints. It's not cuisine, but the price/quality equation works out quite favourably in my opinion.
- We are looking at options to provide a wider range of food choices at the location, most notably Indian style (curry). Asking the hapkar to come 2 days instead of 1 is also an option, but I'm not sure if this would be financially viable for them (they're probably operating on a rather thin margin).
- Prizes: The cans of Fanta stay. We'll think about making diplomas or such, but we don't want nothing too tacky or cheap.
- I'm not aware of any Indonesian delivery services that will travel to the W'tjewel location. Catering services are too expensive, or too much hassle (we don't want to have to handle food orders before the party starts). Any clues appreciated, though :)
- The fridge was official, but indeed not announced before the party. We decided to put it at a rather visible location (right next to the beam screen) far away from the bar and kitchen so it would be obvious that it was for visitors.
- Renting extra fridges costs money we'd rather spend on other things. We kindly suggest visitors to make optimum use of the space available and not just plunge in entire supermarket bags of <whatever the fuck>, which seemed to be common practice this year.
- The foodservice people actually have their roots in Egypt, not Turkey
- Making entries downloadable through the partynet after the compo would be nice indeed, we'll see if this can be arranged without too much hassle
- The use of emulators in the compo was absolutely necessary to keep things manageable, not a matter of choice. If we hadn't done it this way, I guarantee you there would have been major delays, which we simply could not afford considering the full schedule. I do agree, however, that showing the emulator window should be avoided if possible, and we're looking at options to get this done (but no promises).
- Not using the masking option of the beamer: We're gonna check why this was done and if we can somehow work around it.

Besides these points, I have a couple more things in mind which we'll try to improve on next year. We'll always try to make things better, even if it only serves to keep the organisation sharp. However, I also think we've come a long, long way since we started doing demoparties like Outline and it's predecessors in Holland. And the beauty of it is, every year I have to arrange less and less to make this happen, because we have a big group of organisers who all take responsiblity and get things done on their own, and work as a true team, backing eachother whenever necessary and just not letting things get stuck in the mud because "that's not my responsibility". We're truely doing this all together, and I'm fucking proud of that!
added on the 2011-06-06 16:07:54 by havoc havoc
Kudos!
added on the 2011-06-06 16:20:01 by xylo xylo
For the few hours a day i was there, it seemed like an awesome party.

Really cheap consumptions (50c for soda and 1 euro for beer? How the hell do you guys get any profit from that?!), nice atmosphere, beds, awesome live acts (Gasman's rendition of Thriller was awesome, and i liked how he did the "rockstar-jump" with the keytar :D) and an always-friendly organiser team.

To those bitching about the food not being good enough: No-one is forcing you to eat at the party place. Get in your car and drive 5 minutes to the local village and have your snobby little mouth filled with expensive shit there if you'd prefer that. It's not that hard. You can't expect the organizers to serve you a 5-star dinner.

The only "negative" thing about the party was the Grölsch beer giving me a stomache ache, but i solved that in my own way. ;)
added on the 2011-06-06 16:20:20 by Noctis Noctis
Quote:
Really cheap consumptions (50c for soda and 1 euro for beer? How the hell do you guys get any profit from that?!)


We don't :)
added on the 2011-06-06 16:23:58 by okkie okkie
Kuroto: It's "Grolsch" without the umlaut ;-). But yeah, as their own slogan is: "There's beer and there's Grolsch" ^_^
Tastes differ, especially with beer, but I think Grolsch tends to cater to the expectations of the majority.
added on the 2011-06-06 16:50:15 by FiXato FiXato
I'm quite delighted to see that Outline is still on the climb, every year it grows as an event. Not that I've been for a while, but it's not hard to pick up on here at Pouet.
added on the 2011-06-06 17:18:49 by superplek superplek
the party was awesome (and I liked the pizzas actually) - on the food vs vegetarian issue im a veggie and I would never make the assumption that I could actually order anything that I would eat or buy at the party place. I usually *hope* for people not having showered everything with bad german ham, since that broadens my options slightly, but I usually plan for the worst (or check in advance - I hear some of the organizers have responded to emails too).

I totally agree that the food discussion means the party was awesome, if that is all there is to complain about :D
added on the 2011-06-06 17:33:03 by nic0 nic0
Grolsch is awesome, don't ever change away from that. And I'm kinda dissapointed the energy drink wasn't made from 100% KRACHT... :(

Since i haven't pointed fingers at anything yet, afaik, then i got this:

Please stop making it rain sunday morning
Stop having personal showers room, I like the "unfortunate" bodyrubbing
The geniune polite AND handsome bar/desk crew

besides that, everything was kinda perfect, whatever flaws I experience, you are already aware of and not responsible for
added on the 2011-06-06 17:36:21 by dwarf dwarf
[quote="nic0"]And I'm kinda dissapointed the energy drink wasn't made from 100% KRACHT... :([/quote]
Actually, it's still the same brand. MiXXed Up just changed their slogan to English :-(

@dwarf:
Isn't my presence enough to make up for the otherwise handsome crew? :P
added on the 2011-06-06 17:42:15 by FiXato FiXato
Crap, quote doesn't work that way...
added on the 2011-06-06 17:42:41 by FiXato FiXato
I hope the fussball table will be there next year. And who is that German guy who keps screaming when me and punqtured scored a goal and kicked their German asses twice?
added on the 2011-06-06 17:50:39 by xylo xylo
I just woke up from a 22 hour nap.

Wth happened this weekend?
a side note, please enable ile on all bar shifts. he rules.
THE PARTY WAS AWESOME! :D
It's hard to go back to real life afterward!

Many, many thanks to the organisers for making it happen!

YOU RULE GUYS!
BB Image
added on the 2011-06-06 18:59:43 by baah baah
yeah, Ile was pretty rocking in the bar :)

havoc: it's great that you take on board all the suggestions and comments, and hopefully all the positive feedback as well, because it was overwhelmingly good :)
added on the 2011-06-06 20:48:22 by farfar farfar
This was a classic Outline party with all the good bits seemingly amplified by fifty percent over normal. Everything went flawlessly, right up to the moment we came out of the other end of the Channel tunnel going back home. Then we got a crash-course reintroduction to 'misery island', torrential rain, traffic delays and the rest of it ;-)

I personally like the limited internet and being cut off from the world for a few days. Just means you have to do more oldschool face to face interactions with people :-) I'm not one like one of those people who go on a more conventional holiday and desperately look around for old editions of the newspapers from back home to keep my daily trivia fixation going. I really *love* to get away from it all.

The only area where I came up short on was sleep, but you can't blame that one on the orga's.

Thanks guys!
added on the 2011-06-06 21:24:55 by CiH CiH
Chiming in with Havoc: putting up signs pointing to the partyplace has either led to defacing of said signs, not to mention having awkward, conversations with the local cops because they felt our signs could potentially litter the area. Google Maps seems stupid easy in comparison.

added on the 2011-06-06 21:46:52 by Shifter Shifter
Gutted I couldn't make this, sadly I already had tickets booked to see Derren Brown. Will try and make the trip next year, esspecially as it's right next to my birthday. Wheres the music entries??
added on the 2011-06-06 23:05:06 by djh0ffman djh0ffman

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