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EPO doesnt help much with doing demos though!

For me, it is my disabilities because I can't talk, hear, can't drive, etc. Also, no demo scenes around here. :/

Also, I usually go out with someone I know.

Word! Exactly that! The analogy with the family is exactly what I feel when I go to any party. I'm introvert and I don't like parties and gatherings at all.

For example, I was kindly invited by a fellow scener to come to Revision '15 (he even paid me the tickets!!! So much kudos to that!) It was nice meeting some Nectarine sceners I've been chatting with for years, at the Nectarine table. So I said hello and was standing there for a few hours. I can remember that it was (too) loud and dark. Nobody except some of the Nectas came up to me (or me to them) for a quick chat, we exchanged a few words, but that was that.

The rest for me was watching the others sceners (strangers) having a good time, laughing, obviously knowing each other for yeras, and me standing there more or less like an idiot. (the stranger disturbing the family party), so I was quite happy to leave again after a few hours on just one day. Meh. Parties are really nothing for me I guess. I was happy to be back at home infront of the PC and doing my demoscene stuff (which is music).

So even if I knew people for years online, and meeting them offline iRL on parties then, they chat for like a few minutes, then they are busy with other people or coding stuff or doing music or whatever.

So, do I miss out? I guess not really. I just prefer meeting people one-on-one (among 4 eyes), then I have their attention 100%, and can have a great time with demosceners. I just can't understand why or how you can have fun on a party with lots of people you don't even know really, or at all, plus it's loud and dark. :) But I guess that is the nature of being introverted.

Sorry for brining up this one year topic but I just wanted to say that. ;)

Don't forget Revision is a very big party with a *lot* of people. I usually come back from Revision feeling like I did not have enough time to talk/connect with everybody.

Smaller parties are way better for socialising and having proper talks. People are also more welcoming when there are less people around.

I remember Flashlight coming to his first Outline not really knowing anybody, just some names from Pouet/IRC and within 15 minutes of arriving he was sitting with the Poo-Brainers drinking beer and chatting!

@Rapture



Drugs and alcohol help me.

@Rapture: Next time you better go outside to the bonfire :)

Imho thats the beauty of demoparties, when a conversation hits a dead end or you need a break you can easily go and do code/music/graphics/whatever, connect with other people or just lurk around and watch others do something cool.


I do too, however for me these are two very different things, not to mention that the "conversation hitting a dead end" thing is way more fatal in this case. Also you dont invite strangers to your place and instantly become friends with them do you? Gotta get to know people somehow.



I feel like the key to become part of the family is to get involved and be there(well and not being a jerk certainly helps aswell), this is not something that happens over night, people need to get to know you. If you're having a hard time striking up a conversation you might just chime in on existing conversations of larger groups or start by giving props to someone for his/her work and/or ask about it(hint people like to talk about stuff they're passionate about), get to know the people sitting next to you(ask what they're doing, if they were at this party before, how long they've been around, where they're from etc.), The chances of someone being like "dude who the fuck are you? gtfo" are pretty slim to non existant(assuming they're not crunching) and even if you happen to get to that one person, so what? there are still at least another 100+ people around. For more advice of getting the most out of your party visit search pouet for (one of)the "visiting my first demoparty" threads... well and what visy said :P

I'm glad this topic is still active btw.

I found that my behaviour at a big party (Revision) tends to be different from the normal one. For example, I went over the hall ALONE, with not so much fear. Then I was dancing, I was talking to unknown people... God! I'm not able to do this normally. Of course, some of the fear appeared in the crowd of totally strange and foreign language speaking people, e.g. when sitting in front of the big screen. You think then - what the fuck am I doing here? Do I belong here? What are they (being next to me) thinking? All those strange things.

The family thing is real, one feels like an invader sometimes. Sometimes, I'd like to be their (family) closer friend, but I'm not able to make any closer contact.

What okkie said about smaller parties - they might be better for more socialising because, it's also about people you know. If you don't know anyone, it's always harder, not depending on big or small party.

This year Forever party went not too well for me, 'coz I my anxiety was very strong. There were almost all people I knew, it was a small party, but still, I didn't enjoy the people and most of the time I wished to be alone. So it depends on a mood, too.

Although LJ is right, I think Rapture is complaining that he doesn't get enough "fun" out of the party, even that he is actually talking to strangers (occasionally).

And here I can related with Rapture. However, I think you (Rapture) should just lower down your expectations. That is, if you go alone, you will rarely have a lot of fun, but who knows, maybe next time, after you make some more friends, it will get better. That's just natural social dynamics.

Okkie: Yeah that's true of course, Revision is big! But I also was at tUM '12 (The Ultimate Meeting), it's much smaller, and I could talk a *bit* more with people, but not very much. Most were still strangers. Nice to have met Sagamusix and Bacter though! :)

Nice example by the way - at tUM, Sagamusix had time for me to talk, order and eat pizza and do things together. On Revision, Saga had not more time than like 5 seconds to say Hi & bye to me... So yeah. It really *might* have to do with the size of the party, so I could try smaller Parties more than big ones, thanks for the tip, Okkie.

Visy: Yeah, I read and heard that Alcohol can open you up more and makes you more relaxed and open to talk to people at the parties. But I'm not so fond of the idea to get drunk to reach my goals ;) I enjoy a beer and wine with good friends in a restaurant, though. :)

Sensenstrahl: Ah, sounds cozy. :) But I didn't even notice there was a camp fire an Revision, haha! ;D Could be because I showed up on Saturday noon and vanished afternoon already again. :D

LJ: Ok, that sounds kinda intriguing that you can just jump over to the next small conversation with other people if one conversation is stuck / at an end, because you see you don't share too many hobbies or whatever with a person. But I still prefer inviting demosceners (or visit them or whatever) one on one. Of course I make sure then, to know them properly online. Then it cannot happen, that a conversation is stuck after 5 minutes. So of course I don't invite random sceners( strangers) to my place because then the chance is high that the conversation is kaputt after 5 minutes, indeed. :D But other than that, good advices and tips from you, thanks!

Factor6: Yeah it's cool that the thread is still active (I succeeded in reviving it, yay! :D) I agree with you too! Yes, I'd make sure NOT to go alone to parties. At tUM'12 and Rev'15 I went with two coder friends, but they wanted to go after a couple of hours on each party, as well. Next time, if I wanted to visit a party I'd make sure again to: a) visit a smaller one, b) taking a good friend with me again. Because if we found out it's somehow boring, we could at least leave together, not having a depressive mood afterwards. :) So yes, I might give it a try again in the future. So thanks for the tip not to go alone to parties, but also with a friend, etc. :)

tomkh: Yes, indeed! Somehow I don't get enough "fun" out of the whole thing. Lowering the expectations is a good advice. Because then, you cannot be dissapointed. I'm sure it can only get better this way, on future parties.

"The golden age of parties is over" - is that a bold sentence to state? I fear that I missed the greate parties in the 90s, where even the big parties were smaller, and Future Crew was *the* awesome thing at Assembly. Those were the days, I presume! :)

To finish my long text: Maybe the whole concept is just not for me. Some people are meant to shine on parties or at least partly enjoy it, and some stay away altogether from them. I'd like to know how the percentage is! I bet, the majority stays away from parties. i.e. a party attracts maybe 10k people, but there are 100k or even million sceners around in the world! But most don't visit parties. Are there any official numbers or stats on this? I'd LOVE to read about it!

Thanks for reading and looking forward to more replies and thoughts!

I wouldn't know - all I know is that now we can pick between small parties and big parties around the world, there's certainly a lot more of them, they're more affordable to travel to (was travelling to Japan even a remote possibility in the 90s?) and they have a lot more interesting features, the compos are more varied, and you can talk to a lot more people online before and after.

So maybe that golden age is, I dunno, now? :)

Honestly, nothing wrong with choosing either option - if anything maybe it's a good thing to tone down on our overt optimism that demoparties are a wonderful fix-all solution to all of our human problems. They're great places, but they're not a magical cure.

Here are some numbers, but you have to make the correlations yourself:
- SceneID (i.e. the auth backend behind Pouet, Demozoo, etc.) has ~4600 users as of 2014. (The previous db had a shitton more but it was very spam-vulnerable so at least 70% of it was spam - same with Pouet numbers.)
- Pouet gets 300-400 registered users visit the site each day.
- Revision parties generally go between 800 and 1000 paying visitors (afaik)
- Most "average" parties get between 100-150 visitors.

I mean, I wasn't there either, but I think in the 90s, the big parties were bigger than Revision is now.

Yes, it is. Back then Future Crew were the same kind of nerds in cola-stained white shirts as everyone else, and getting to know people was just as hard, or actually harder because there was no internet where you could freely communicate before meeting in person. Plus, no, the parties weren't smaller. The Party in the early 90s was huge af, and people needed giant tag walls and whiteboards to even find each other.

Why is that? You have at least interest in the demoscene in common. Watch each other prods, share some fun facts about how the ideas used in there came to be, etc. I'm sure it can last for more than 5 minutes.



It is a lot more complex than that. In my case, I visit only one or two (small) parties per year. It is not an all-or-nothing thing. My first demoparty was not a very pleasing experience, not knowing much people there back then. My first big party was also the last one, as it was way too loud for me and I couldn't talk with anyone. I much prefer small demoparties where I can sit together with someone and collaborate on fixing some code or whatever.

I would suggest to try a few different parties, they don't all have the same mood at all. Find some that fits with what you want to do there.

Haha, I forgot about that yeah! Going to a party was the first step, *finding* the person you wanted to talk to was hard. Having a computer set up just scrolling 'I'm looking for <list of names>' over and over for days was very common :)



And yeah, this is not so much that he didn't have more time, but Revision just tends to get away from people! You walk to the bar to get a beer and before you know it you've been in two discussions and it's 45 minutes later.

But do what you feel is best man, there is no right or wrong way and I can imagine a big party like revision being hella intimidating as a first party!

And being slightly intimidating is why Revision has the newbie table and the tour, trying to give people more of an 'in' into the party. Because yeah, just walking into that hall by yourself is like whoaa.

it's still less intimidating than being 16 years old and going at the Party in a massive hall crowded with 4000+ people :D

i feel Revision like a really cosy and warm cocoon :)

Howdy mate! I think you would have hated many of the well known parties from the 90's. The Gathering, The Party and Assembly were mixed parties with thousands of people with the majority of people being there for gaming (or copying games), and the demoscene being a small part of it (especially in late 90's and on). Also, scene-celebs were younger and had bigger egos back then, which didn't help either. :)

My experience from most of my trips to TG (and partly TP) was that i found it hard to find the people with the same interest (demoscene). Partly because i was afraid of bothering people, but also because in the huge crowd i had no idea who were sceners.

Two of my favourite parties are Rendezvous '92 and Kindergarden 2009 (which is the only party i've been to since the 90's). Both were smaller parties. I didn't know many people before i went there, but in both cases it was easy to find people you could talk to, and people were generally very polite and gentle.

I don't think alcohol is necessary to have fun at demoparties. I enjoyed having a few cans of beer at KG'09, which perhaps made it easier to start conversations, but i wouldn't do hard drinking.

I still haven't been to a German demoparty. Maybe i'd meet 1 guy i already knew there :).

THIS

It's quite ok to feel intimidated and/or not like parties. It's a lot of stuff to "take in", especially if you don't know anyone (I can recommend both Gargaj and Sir Garbagetruck to help out with this part). I've been to over 50 parties I think and I still get exhausted and retire to a corner to surf Facebook alone or something like that every once in a while. And, if that's not enough, it's quite ok to not like parties at all. Many people don't and get their demoscene fix by other means.

Gargaj: Ok thanks for the numbers. Much smaller that I had expected.

Knoeki: Interesting to know that the parties back then were bigger than they are now. Yes, I guess it's because gamers, hackers, crackers and copy'iers (or whatever they're called) are frowned upon.

Kb: I wonder anyhow how they were able to meet without the internet... as a party noob I'd guess, before that, there were mags and Mailboxes/BBS (I started with them too in mid 90s, but only locally/same city, everything else would've been too expensive to call regularly).

Pulkomandy:

Because with inviting some random stranger scener (that was my example), I *could* invite some jerks to my place. ;)



Thanks, yeah, I can and will try that! *thumbsup* :)

Okkie:

Yeah, indeed :D I asked Saga afterwards why he was so quickly away again this time, and he said he was just overly busy, in my case he was supporting a DJ, by being a dancer on the dancefloor, hehe. ;) I tend to take stuff like that personally quickly, but he said sorry via email to me about that, so everything is ok. ^^



Thanks for your very nice words, okkie! :) Yeah maybe the newbie tour would be nice to see if I went next time to Revision or something.

Rez: Well, the dark ambience *was* cozy, no doubt about that. :) It was just much too loud, too crowded (yeah yeah, the introvert thing again)...

Hi Mel! Maybe we'll meet someday on a (smaller) German party, who knows?! :)

Preacher: Whoa, 50 parties is much! And yes, no one is forced to go on parties at all. It just relaxes me big time and makes me feel good, not to be alone with these thoughts that parties are not everyone's taste. :)

Another tip if you're up for it: Try and help organising a party.

+ You get to meet the much smaller organising team ahead of the big event.
+ You're automatically a part of a 'family' (that of the organising team) and if you ever visit another party, chances are that some members of the team will be there too.
+ You are more or less forced to socialise as you work together with others to set up the party.
+ If you need a break, there are always one-person tasks that you can do. (I start grabbing and coiling cables during teardown for example...)

- You actually have to work before, during and after the party. ;)
- You might not have much time during the party to socialise with guests.

Before 2011, I was a mere scene lurker, content with experiencing parties via streams, articles and the scene.org file archive. Since then, I've helped out at 7 Revisions and through that have met quite a few people whom I definitely consider friends now. (Still haven't managed to visit a party as attendee, but that's mostly due to time constraints on my end and no longer because of "I wouldn't know anyone there and feel awkward"-syndrome.)

Steltek, that's an interesting tip, along with a nice pros and cons list. Thanks! (of course everyone reading here is addressed with all the tips, not just me, but still thanks). I'm sure on a small party, it's not as much work as it is when organising on a big party. ;)