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SUNDOWN 2012 - 7-9th September - Budleigh Salterton, UK - Remote Entries allowed!

category: parties [glöplog]
Great atmosphere, people and compos. Best Sundown so far!
The four of us had a good time at Sundown 2012 overall and we were pleased to be back in Budleigh again after so long. There were one or two minor issues though:-

1. Milk needs to be provided with the free tea and coffee. My wife bought a small halfpint litre box that was put originally in the main kitchen fridge, only for it to go walkabout and get used, as it didn't appear that milk was provided at the time with the free hot drinks.

2. Regarding the situation with the lack of showers for those sceners sleeping in the hall, would there be any kind of deal that could be struck, say with one of the b&b's closer to the hall to allow people to use the facilities for a small fee ? That would probably stop the issue of some sceners who had BO issues, due to the lack of shower facilities within the hall.

3. In relation to the compos, whilst I can understand and agree with the general thought that original hardware should be used to show the entries, I wonder if it would be an idea to do a video recording of each entry. Bearing in mind the older hardware is now starting to fail, this would mean that the compos themselves would run to time - and - crucially, allow those who want to run the original code on their own original hardware at home to do so at their leisure. Emulators are getting to the point now also where they are now doing a decent job in a lot of cases so these could be worth considering.

We discovered a gem with the b&b that the four of us stayed at, not so far to walk to from the partyplace either. It was also good that Budleigh remains a safe place to wander around even at night.
added on the 2012-09-11 00:36:23 by Felice Felice
hey felice;
1. I'll get in loads of milk next time m8 <3 :)
2. It's tricky really - its a demoparty :D - maybe we can look at getting a porta-shower lol
3. yes video is an option we are already discussing - however one or two of the issues you saw were 1time deals which will never happen again, mostly caused by 64bit Windows 7/Mac OS conflicts we hadnt run across before related to naming / nesting directories and pulling data across to CF cards + old no longer maintained CF drivers, once we realised what the problem was it was a 2min fix, but we had to get there first :)
3b. most emulators (with the exception of certain little gems like bsnes) are still really pants compared to the real deal tbh - especially for sound (I go on ad-infinitum why hehe) we wouldnt touch those for 99% of things unless its a last resort... but yep we already have had a long discussion regarding video and pre-party prep of data etc \o_
added on the 2012-09-11 01:53:36 by ne7 ne7
Brilliant party.

Had a great trip there, had a wonderful time at the party despite healing through several walls of exhaustion! Great sound, the best projection system/screen yet seen at Sundown too! Massive thanks to the organization team for keeping it together given the pressure, and I was really thrilled to throw a floppy diskette in the hilariously outdoor (what is that day moon and why is it so blue out here) contest.

It was great to see so many new faces as well, I hope to see Vincent at another party (psonice's table neighbour I think) and huge props to Savannah and H0ffman, massive deliverance and for me exhillerating while enjoying a whole bottle of red. It was great to meet your sweet lady and hope to see her at more parties too - I hope Sundown sold the prospect well (!)

Well sure the compos were late which meant I felt a bit too exhausted that I struggled to pay attention towards the demo compo but I really enjoyed everything else.

Deltafire and cgi drove in convoy until. cgi split to continue to Scotland, big thanks and hugs for the transport and keeping your wits about you while driving for so long and hard. Fantastic posse!

Well the next parties I'm at are all inside the Netherlands so Outline and probably X, no time off free or money left for anything else so I hope to see at least a few of you at Outline, else it will be Revision next year :(

Cheers again thanks to rc55 for superb diplomatic measures, and organizing to make Sundown happen.

p.s I'd just like to say that I had nothing at all to do with the Space Penis fan art. (lol) in the compos or the slides on the bigscreen - I was not aparty to any of it, please give the relavent submitters their due credit. :) and be sure to hoot and toot at Dfox when you next see him :D

added on the 2012-09-11 03:01:10 by m0d m0d

Just my view on the shower situation - its now been 6 years of Sundown and hasn't phased any of the visitors yet, I have slept at the hall for all those 6 years, the disabled toilet is ample to use as a change, wash up yer torso place, its huge and is also a wet room so you shouldn't worry about spilling a bit of water. You don't go to a music festival and expect working showers so its not really that big a deal is it?

This is coming from someone who has up to 2 showers a day usually..

Its fine, man up, stop moaning about things that didn't even affect you in the first place... the orgas know and would change it straight away if it really was a real threat to attendance, and the option of b&b is always there.

</rant>
added on the 2012-09-11 09:53:22 by dv$ dv$
Strip wash seems like the sensible answer to me. Hiring showers seems like expensive overkill imho. Could always have a "Smelly people will be thrown the in sea" sign under the "Please respect the neighbours" sign next year.
added on the 2012-09-11 10:12:18 by raizor raizor
Felice:

1. Seriously, griping over half a pint of milk? Why not buy four pints and chuck it in the fridge for everyone? I would have happily reimbursed you the £1.50 if you really needed it.

2. Showers are expensive, and yes the disabled loo is fine for a wipe down. We'll look into showers again next year. That said, funky smelling sceners has always been a thing. Maybe next year I'll put around some bowls of pot pourri and a few glade plugins about the place. ;)

3. Emulators clearly aren't good enough. Did you see the ST demo that we couldn't run full screen because of flicker? Or the CPC demo that didn't have a silky smooth scroller despite having the vsync forced to 50hz?

On Friday we had only three entries for all competitions combined so we can't anticipate what platforms will have entries submitted and recording demos is a very cumbersome job - at Revision they have four people working for the entire duration of the party purely on getting demos captured in time.

For the record, the delays caused were not because of failing hardware but misunderstandings regarding file interchange between PC and alternative platforms. We did have a few bumps with the new PartyMeister system but DFox was super quick at sorting them right then and there.

I didn't like the party running late either but there wasn't much we could do at the time. My only regret is not giving Hoffman and Savannah more time to play because they kicked ASS.

We learn lessons every year, but I'm certain that this is the best Sundown yet. Delays are a pain in the ass but we did our best and I'm proud of the work of ne7, syphus, dfox, danbee and dotwaffle (and also our assistance from h0ffman and f3l).
added on the 2012-09-11 10:56:43 by rc55 rc55
Its amazing someone could moan about the cost of a few pints of milk and lack of shower facilities but yet be one of the privileged to actually afford a b&b.. my head is going to explode this morning. lol.
added on the 2012-09-11 11:21:45 by dv$ dv$
As Joey Twiddle said at the party when confronted with why he was such a nice guy handing out slices of pizza to strangers - "wouldn't it be nice if everyone did this?". WORD. PEACE.
added on the 2012-09-11 12:02:19 by dv$ dv$
Fuck, I forgot to include Devistator in those list of thanks - faux pas on my behalf, sorry dude, you were exceptionally awesome too. :)
added on the 2012-09-11 12:20:21 by rc55 rc55
Seems like this was a party of LOVE and nice people!
\o/ #stayfree :D
added on the 2012-09-11 12:45:57 by dv$ dv$
there's some files missing at scene.org from sundown.
one newschool demo and several photos.

who's gonna be our hero and saves the day?
added on the 2012-09-11 18:40:53 by ted ted
Well that was fun.. Thanks to everyone involved, you've all been bigged up above so I wont repeat ;)

I'd personally like to thank SunSpire and Topy for their tireless work on SceneSat broadcasting. Especially SunSpire who I threw into the hot seat when I realised I couldn't introduce the act on the radio and on the stage at the same time!!!! Poor guy had been travelling for 10 hours and only just entered the hall when I coerced him doing the broadcast!!

I see the streams from the weekend are now available on SceneSat ;)

Was cool meeting new peeps as is always the case with these events :)

I'm happy to say the good lady had a great time at Sundown. You'll definitely see us both at Revision and Sundown next year!

Also big ups to all who participated in the Floppy Disk throwing competition.. The results are...

1. Zeb
2. Xwise
3. DVS

and the award for the worst through goes to ME! It was legendarily BAD!!

Both me and Sarah would like to thank the dancing massive!!!! The atmosphere was wicked!

Now the council thing is resolved I shall be spending the rest of the year motivating Ruairi to do it all again!!

Peace out and see you all next year (or at Revision)



added on the 2012-09-11 18:44:23 by djh0ffman djh0ffman
Me and the missus have had a gruelling ordeal with flights and we're very much dead right now, however, I can paraphrase:

Excellent party. The UK demo scene has always had perfect ambassadors on the continent, but on their home turf they are absolutely unbeatable. Many, many thanks to everybody for an excellent time.

Details and minor, insignificant gripes may follow after sleep :)
added on the 2012-09-11 21:45:28 by Shifter Shifter
Shifter: Thanks man! :D
added on the 2012-09-11 21:59:22 by rc55 rc55
Ted: We uploaded exactly what was on the compo box, we're looking into it now.
added on the 2012-09-11 23:37:33 by rc55 rc55
The missing demo is mine, which is here. (Sorry about that - by now I'm well accustomed to the procedure of "upload some random file to Partymeister so that it exists as an entry, then perhaps get round to replacing it with an actual demo before submission closes" ;-) )

...and since I haven't chipped in here with my thoughts yet: what everyone else said. Best Sundown ever, I reckon... some parties are an assault on the senses, and others have the sort of reassuring cosiness of good times with awesome people, and on that scale this Sundown was "sitting by a roaring fire with a big bowl of apple pie and custard". Or something.
added on the 2012-09-12 00:42:11 by gasman gasman
That's a dam good analogy there g-dude! Couldn't have put it better myself.
added on the 2012-09-12 03:25:21 by djh0ffman djh0ffman
Felice: Sorry if I seemed a bit snappy earlier, still a bit sleep lagged. Your concerns are valid and I'll definitely put some thought into your feedback for the next party. :)
added on the 2012-09-12 11:01:20 by rc55 rc55
The Atari ST emulator in fullscreen thing is definitely fixable (actually I was about to walk to the compo desk to do that when the demo was started in windowed mode), but it took me a ton of fiddling about to find out how, so I can see how it went wrong & please regard this as a friendly offer rather than pointless bitching ;)
added on the 2012-09-12 11:48:15 by havoc havoc
ted: We've got all but three of the missing entries now:

Photography:
- Reach! by SaVannaH/Unstable Label
- Bye Wales... by xwize/ukscene
- Ream me up, Scottie! by Lifebuoy/Manontop

All of the original submitters have been contacted so as soon as we have them we'll upload them.

Rowley Birkin: That's cool - next time it happens we'll make sure you're there to look over it - assuming we can't get it running natively with the projector. :)
added on the 2012-09-12 11:53:44 by rc55 rc55
I know it'll work fullscreen as it worked on my win7 64 box :) probably that crossfire thing screwing stuff up. no big deal :)
I would have used my ST, but it was behaving oddly at the party - turns out it was a loose pin in the video cable, but it was too dark in the hall for me to spot it :D
added on the 2012-09-12 17:05:34 by spiny spiny
rc55: actually, those three photo entries *are* up on scene.org, just under unhelpful filenames. (I realised last night it would be a good idea to sort through them and get them added to Demozoo before the compo escapes our minds completely :-) )

Reach! by SaVannaH/Unstable Label
Bye Wales... by xwize/ukscene
Ream me up, Scottie! by Lifebuoy/Manontop
added on the 2012-09-12 17:14:51 by gasman gasman
can't see what's wrong with anus.jpg ;)
added on the 2012-09-12 17:21:10 by ted ted

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