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The Party was a popular Demo Party held in Denmark during the years 1991 - 2002 for the so called "demo scene" - a computer art subculture that specialized itself in producing "Demos". A Demo can best be described as a non-interactive audio-visual presentations run real-time on a microcomputer. Popular platforms were Amiga, Commodore 64, PC and in some cases even gaming consoles such as PlayStation?.
Initially a major event for the Demo Scene, The Party later evolved to include massive networked computergame sessions. In retrospect The Party can be contributed as one of the forerunnes in the emerging computer game culture.
In the northern part of Denmark lies the town of Aars. It is not a particularly big town. But every year after Christmas something unusual happend. Around 3500 people began their journey to this little town.
First of all, the town had something that was unusual for a town of its size - an exhibition centre. But it is not the centre that was special. It's what happend in it, and here we are not talking about the animal fares or the “Garbage Exhibition”. No, it was something much bigger, for some it was the biggest event of the year. Something they had been working on almost the entire year, into which they had put a lot of energy. The event is called “The Party” and was one of the biggest computer parties in the world at that time. Some might wonder what a computer party is. Normally computers are associated with work, and work is something you don’t want to do around Christmas, and especially not at a party.
But a computer party is different. Here people from all over Europe gather to show what they can do with a computer. Some do demos, some do graphics, some do music and some are playing. Common to them all is that they are having a great time showing their talents with a computer.
It involves a lot of people to organize such a big party. Many of them are using a lot of their spare time organizing, planning and thinking about The Party.
On the following pages you can read a little about the people behind the party, past parties, statistics and other relevant information about The Party.
Christmas can be so hard on you..
The party has been around for more than 10 years. And in a world of computers that's a long time. Back in 1991 when The Party started out, we were working on 16Mhz computers. Today we work on computers that are 50 - 100 times faster.
The scene is to computers entusiasts what the techno scene are to techno enthusiasts and what the classical scene are to those who loves classical music. It's the forum in which the creative minds of the computer underground do their work. Constantly moving the boundaries for how much you can squeeze out of a computer, creating new ideas and putting them to life.
Over the past couple of years computers have become more powerful and this has changed computer games. It all started with Quake this game spawned a hole new breed of computer players. Gamers are the elite of the computer players, and they are those that the software developers turn to in the making of new games. Gamers aren’t satisfied with just playing games, they want to get better, they are tactical, they make strategies, they are the real professionals when it comes to gaming.
Some might say that working with a computer isn’t much of a social thing. Whell… The Party is proof that it can be, every year we gather around 3500 computer enthusiasts. For almost 3 days they are gaming, coding and generally having a great time. Some come to make new friends and get better to do whatever they are doing with their computer, but most come to participate in different competitions in the areas of gaming, programming, graphic and music.
The importance of such an event speaks for itself, in this digital age you don’t have to leave your home, the world is right at our fingertips. But honestly, how fun is to sit in your room all day without ever meeting other people? Events like The Party and other computer parties is helping to make a media, that otherwise might isolate people, a big social event