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I find it fascinating that America now appears to have more demoparties than active sceners.

Not meant in a negative way, but I don't think what's needed are parties targeted at 2500+ visitors over there. It will result in only <1% of your visitors being sceners.

I think the logical next step that's needed is to get people actually WORKING on productions. At least if the US term for "demoparty" is not to supposed to forever stick at "some US guys who've visited Europe once tell other US guys what people are doing with the computers over there". Like... the answer to a youth culture that's decided to create instead of just consume isn't "cool, let's be like them and consume!!".

Talk less, present less, adore less, do more.

I think people are sometimes holding themselves to the european standard and figuring they aren't qualified/worthy of releasing a production. A good start to get around that could be to have more fastprod gatherings. Yes, the productions will suck.. but it's fun to join together with people and create things, and you learn.

The first gathering likely wouldn't go too well - people would have trouble importing art / sound / etc. assets from one each other into prods. But people would naturally be more prepared each time.

@gloom: The SparkArts Festival is an annual event established primarily to raise awareness of the demoscene, and other digital arts, to encourage people to participate in it. By digital arts, I mean music, graphics, computer games, animations, the whole bit, and we're hoping to feature presentations and workshops covering each of those topics in a variety of detail. The demotheatre will again be running during the duration of the festival, and we'll again point to demos as the perfect showpiece for the medium, as they combine all of the other disciplines beautifully.

@phoenix: We have the resources to go bigger this year, so why not? Anything worth doing is worth doing right. I don't expect the whole demoscene to jump on the bandwagon, and follow us wherever we lead, but I do hope that we get some participation from the wider scene this year. Honestly, we clobbered Pilgrimage in attendance without even trying last year.

What we have is a serious, sustainable vehicle for demoscene growth and outreach in the United States. I think that's something, and I'm proud to be a part of it. I would hope that some of you might, as well.

scamp:
<em>"Not meant in a negative way, but I don't think what's needed are parties targeted at 2500+ visitors over there. It will result in only <1% of your visitors being sceners."</em>

The trouble is that most people here have never heard of the demoscene. I think the ability to present demos to 2500+ visitors is <em>exactly what we need</em>.

meh, I fail at bbcode again. ;) Where is the edit button?

dilvie: No, it's not. It's exactly the WRONG way to do it. 2500 people all going 'meh' because it's harder than making a youtube video vs 3-4 people who are interested and think it's effing cool as hell and make it a great party?

Some of the most fun I've had at parties have been at the smaller ones (less than 30 people.)

Go with small party with interested people. You'll enjoy it more, they'll enjoy it more, and people will be attracted to it naturally.

The thing being, (what scamp said) it's not a "consumer" activity in the sense that you are also a participant. Having 2500 peoples being in contact with the demos (rather than their creation) is not so interesting in the longterm as outreach -- it's the surest way for them to trigger a "spectator"-reflex of comparing the demo with whatever it is they are familiar with --

No, it is definitively not the right approach. Coming from someone who has unsuccessfully tried to present demos to 6000+ visitors for years and years (guess which party), I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that you have the wrong approach.

Ok, so you show 2500+ (I seriously doubt that number btw) people some demos. What happens next? Most of them won't understand why the animations on screen look worse than games, or fail to grasp the lack of story ("They are short films, are they not?").. and then? Nothing.

When doing "outreach" work, you need to have a more targeted approach, and more importantly; you need to have a support-system for people who actually wonder what that on the bigscreen is - some way for them to communicate with people who can explain, and show, and tell.

The right way to do it is to have a proper demo party (I don't mind if it's during some other event that's demoscene-related in some way) with less people. Get the sceners or wannabe-sceners or don't-even-know-it-yet-wannabe-sceners together in a room for a few days and watch the energy heighten experience.

...The Gathering?
Did I win? :D

And don't forget to come to Inércia Demoparty 2005/8/Breeze 2008/whatever...

@scenerhup, _-_-__, gloom: You guys seem to be under the impression that the rave is the ONLY thing happening at this event. It's not. It's a multi-day festival that will be mostly comprised of educational, hands-on workshops related to the demoscene. Last year we had participation from a few school groups, an interview in the paper, an interview on television, all of this explaining a bit about what the demoscene is and why it's important to us.

This year I intend to have some educational materials at the rave following the party explaining what we're doing, why they're seeing what they're seeing on screen, and where to learn more about it.

@gloom: that number you doubt is based on well-established track record. I'm not just pulling random guesses out of my arse. =)





Overflow tent outside:

time to go bandana shopping!!

The stuff you guys will be most interested in will happen in smaller conference rooms (likely the same ones we used last year), and there will be experienced people there the whole time, guiding people through the event, passing out schedules and information, showing off the demos, explaining what people are seeing, etc...

Don't be so quick to write us off. We've all done this before. =)

I admid I haven't been in a lot of demoparties in the past but that doesn't look like any demoparty I've been to. I see more girls than guys and no big screen whatsoever! At least I can imagine they're playing Rob Is Jarig there.

radman1: You'd look so fly in a bandana. Like srsly. ;)

xernobyl: those shots are taken from the stage, obviously the big screen is on the other side. =)

radman1: Did you get my email?

Those must be the 7,7*10^4 sceners that downloaded Linger In Shadows.

You forget that I keep asking you _what_ this event is. :)

Judging from those pictures, I can't really see how a rave with random jock-looking people attending will bring more people to the scene, but yeah.. I'm still all for scene-promotion, just.. you know.. set yourself realistic goals.

The one on the right looks a bit like Vulture/Traction except that I think Vulture has more muscles.

That guy doesn't look like a coder, musician, or graphician. He can only be a director!

Now I know why the scene is dead! That guy killed it!

ANGERFIST

Looking at the pictures you could easily quadruple the amount of women in demoscene! Jumalauta officially supports the initiative.