pouët.net

So, I had this idea for quite a while, being cursed by the ability to going to any demoparty and ending up as a de-facto organizer literally in minutes... :) I know it's part my fault, given I love to jump on issues and fix them quickly, so these days I consciously fight against the urge to fix a broken party for the local orgas if they end up with issues... But then sometimes it feels like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Not good.

So, the idea arose, what if instead of all this being spontaneously occurring and giving a lot of stress and/or frustration, was the plan all along? Going just about anywhere and making a cool demoparty there! I have a bunch of party equipment lying at my place anyway, I have a car, I could put together a "just the basics" but versatile enough package, so I could just drive literally anywhere in Europe in 1-2-3 days, and organize a demoparty. Given, of course, I team up with some locals, who provide a place, some tables and chairs, a beamer, a flat white surface to project on, some speakers. And hopefully some entries and visitors, although this is optional, worst case we end up with a demoshow instead. :D

I could provide the rest of the necessities to a semi-pro demoparty these days, like compo equipment (incl. some video+audio equipment), networking with pro WLAN, configured party server with voting system, some streaming crap, whatever, and the usual arrogant-kind myself, trying my best to avoid the aforementioned trainwreck in slow motion (a.k.a. know-how). Or as Gargaj has put it - Demoparty As A Service. :)

Ideally, such a party should happen once a year, at wildly different locations - not just geographically in different countries and cities, but everywhere, from the top of a tall building, to a ship, to some seashores, or a small island on a lake, at some ski resort 2500m high in the Alps, above the Arctic Circle during the summer for (or Winter, yeah right) you name it.

So, after talking to a lot of people randomly about this (with special credits to metoikos for the name idea), I present the idea of Floating Point - a moving demoparty, hopefully - if there's good feedback - coming near to you soon. :)

As usual, nothing is organized yet, apart from the pile of equipment at my location, and the idea. But lets hear what the scene thinks, and are there locals in areas less densely populated with demoparties, who would like to team up for making such an event series!

We had a similar idea some years back - kind of a moving circus. Basically taking a year off and make a Demoparty happen every couple of weeks throughout Europe :)

Make it like Eurovision - the winner of the party gets to host the next one.

Or: if you want the party, you make an invitation for it.
As in: you invite *the party* to your place, and not people to the party. :)

may be more suitable for a 1-day demoshow

Rent-a-Charlie!

This is a great idea! The first one should be on a boat, given the name :D But I also really like urs idea with inviting the party to your place

making it once a year kind of defeats the purpose of it being itinerant...
other then that, seems like a nice idea to bring a demoparty to a random new place

urs: This works, and a great idea, until it's somewhat agreed beforehand. I'm slightly worried about "I made an invit, now do me a party here under this rock, or else..." happening quite soon... :)

EvilPaul: Yeah, but then entries must be limited to Europe (no, Australia is not in Europe...), or there could be problems reaching the next location! :)

Or alternatively, at Floating Point itself could be a Next Location Compo...? :)

will there be rounding issues?

the screen and the audio equipment could be on a ship in a river, while the crowd is at the riverbank. it needs to be set up only once, but the show can be held/repeated after several hours in a different location.

eg: Danube, 1st day Wien, 2nd day Bratislava, 3rd day Budapest, then Belgrade, etc...

ps: original idea by Hungarian rock band P.Mobil

demoparty on a ship container, coming to a dock near you soon! :)

lamdacore is working on a nice party-in-a-box solution for some time now, basically a pocket-sized intranet. seems like perfect for this occasion.

Adock? :)

actually last time i heard about a potential demoparty named "floating point" it was havoc's idea to rent a boat that goes down the rhine from the netherlands to bingen. would make a perfect match for charlie's gear, too :-)

havoc, you got quite far exploring that, didn't you? what was it that made it not go through?

We could use a demoparty in the Hague/Rotterdam area. Although the potential locations are limited, it would be epic to cycle to a demoparty in my hometown again.

skrebbel: the scale of the operation- it would take a couple of days to reach bingen from the dutch border and you'd need about 100-120 passengers to break even and have a ship that is upto par for a demoparty setup. saarbrucken is even trickier/further away, a daytrip from .nl to cologne is maybe more feasible (esp. if it's just a trip to the party, and not a full party itself, then you could make do with a much smaller ship).

Yeah, party-on-a-ship, most large cities with a river/shore have some sort of an event-ship these days, which is just harbored there, and used as an event hall on the water. That's probably more likely to get, even though these are usually quite popular and hard to book or very expensive.

BTW, I didn't know about havoc's idea, and certainly didn't want to take it over/steal it. I consider the name as a 'working title' anyway, until it's final or someone proposes something better. :)

@numtek:
Well, anything is possible, but as I wrote a local should take care of the location... :)

Charlie I'm not sure the name "floating point" was ever seriously considered. also i disagree that "stealing" a potential name of a potential demoscene event that never actually took place is, eh, stealing :D

Furthermore, I'll be damn busy driving around Europe for the Shader Showdown Qualifications in the upcoming year, so I'm actually happy that someone else picks up the boat idea \o/

the floating pointy boat aspect could be expressed by an MS before the party's name.

symmek is dead

_controlfp_s(0, _MCW_EM, _MCW_EM);

floating point - without exceptions!