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High five to this.

I mean, we live in a time of embracing our neurodiverse quirks. And I wonder when the way we structure our events will start reflecting that? Maybe, I'm just getting old. At the same time, I feel that 'the demoparty' as instituion is becoming increasingly energy-draining and stressful.

And I personally crave the kind of event that's got one music act on the maiin-stage per evening. At most. That prioritizes letting people focus on their productions. As well as getting some rest at night.

LOL. That reminds me of the rave party in the sleeping hall at TP5. Worst idea ever. I absolutely hated it after a ten hour drive. Just saying :)

Yes to pretty much everything said in this thread.

One thing that wasn't mentioned yet:

Many typical demoparties have all compos on the 2nd day, making it a rather exhausting experience, with near constant compo action for most of the day, evening and night.

Having some of the compos on the first night might be a wortwhile thing to consider. For example music compos, or wild/animation/video compos could potentially be already held on friday evening, giving a bit more breathing room for the organizers on saturday to ensure the "main" compos are on time.

This feels like a thread where people really wanted to say something, but have held back until now.

I've had my share of less than optimal party compo experiences. One party I will name check, Sillyventure, has really got its act together in the last couple of years and gets the compo's done in two blocks, by a reasonable hour.

A large part of their success has been down to enforcing strict deadlines on entries. Some of the most frustrating delays have been due to very last minute entries combined with poor communication.

A practical method to finish a compo block by midnight is for your partyplace rental to impose a zero-tolerance curfew on you after midnight - suddenly you'll get really fucking good at finishing all compos on time.

Wow, that's live nihilism on display here from you, Gargaj!

Live Nihilism Coding Compo

Huge thanks for starting this thread! I absolutely agree with most of the concerns, particularly long late night compos and a DJ set overload with all its effects on health, productivity and socializing at demoparties.

Just imagine, coming back from a demoparty with batteries more charged than before the visit!

Yep!

I rather have superlong and superlate compos than a party place where i can't just pass out on the spot (preferably near sleeping bag).

so you're saying you want a demo wellness retreat instead of a demo party? ;P

on a more serious note:


My take on this is the following: as party organizers we're providing a space / a canvas for our visitors to be creative in / to display their creativity on.
Therefore my default answer on any proposal to bring a seminar, to bring a DJ set, to bring a fun compo, to bring a byte wall, to bring a mate-light installation, to bring a mobile planetarium (sadly this one did not work out, yet) - is: bring it on, we will try to make it possible.
And now comes the hot take: You as visitor, do not have to participate in all of it - just pick whatever suits you. Nobody forces you to watch everything, to take part in everything, to dance to every DJ set. This is why for example we try to also have the volume much quiter in the BAR area, so you can take a break there, socialize or finish your entry. Also there's the room in the front and the tent/bonfire (next year we might have a heated tent outside)
I would love to have an additional focus room with complete quietness, but we have to work with what we have, location wise.
But in general I would always opt for making cool things possible and giving room for cool things to happen, instead of having 5 hours of idling between individual compos. We only live once, let's make these experiences when we come together, you can idle at home. ;)

That said:
We are aware that it the programme on Saturday got out of hand this year, but this was mostly due to amount of releases, and we already discussed a lot of things on how to improve / avoid this situation next year. A few of these ideas were also mentioned here already, eg. moving some compos to Friday, preselection, cancelling some events and/or compos.

We planned to have the main compos finish at midnight-ish, which is also where we landed in most of the previous years and which is a reasonable time in my opinion.
We will be aiming for this timeline next year again, and I hope and am quite positive that we will be more successful in achieving it again. :)

What Uncle-X said....especially for Revision with the extra day....having some of the music and gfx compos on a friday night might also give them more audience compared to Sunday at noon.

I love my Revision Tracker Music Compo at 14:00 on Saturday that nobody except the participants give a fuck about <3

actually, that sounds pretty splendid.

well, go and make a demo(party) about it

Demospa 2025?!

I think this is a fantastic suggestion by the way. It also lets my kids enjoy the demo compo without getting to bed too late!

This is all well and good, and it's nice to have a party packed with features and cool stuff.

But.

At the same time, going all in all the time sort of devalues everything a bit. Having compos run into early hours takes away from enjoyment, because people have flights and hotels and joint pain and many (most?) of us cannot party anymore like we could when we were 22, and I'd love to discuss the compos with other participants. Having sensory overload from loud music and all that's happening makes one tune out after a while.

Personally, I'd rather have less than more, and there's a sweet spot somewhere with enough balance between action and winding down. I remember more than one party where getting to the partyplace on the afternoon of the second day was too much for me, and it wasn't just because of the hangover. The small wood next to the kitchy hotel in Saarbrücken (forget the name) is a godsend.

Indeed, we only live once: having opportunity to meet people, exchange, work on things, in a supportive surrounding is a good reason to come together. I don't see why that would be idling, just because there were less "cool things". Of course, a well dosed amount of additional features is an awesome bonus to that.

Apart from this, I see it as a transition of needs that comes with the aging process and I have no doubt that during the coming years the "party hard" aspect will be of less interest for various reasons and this thread just talks that out.

not that far off. I favor this, so I've discussed the "casual demoparty but more like an laid-back academic conference with hotel rooms, shared dinners, yadda-yadda, no more bacchanal"-thing more than once with party organising friends. we just always assumed that the market isn't big enough to take the financial risk of renting half a hotel or even a castle for such a thing, because that is pricey :)

well, i mean, winterfärjan indeed is basically a very casual demoparty where we have a "compo area" for a couple of hours on saturday but other than that it's just chilling on a cruise ship and touristy stuff in stockholm. there's even a literal spa!!

Of the various suggestions, I really like the Friday compo block.
I've always felt Fridays were a bit uneventful in most demoparties I've attended, and you could arrive on Saturday without having missed much.

Having something to look forward to on the first day would be great.

@Zavie: Aren't »Shader Showdown«-events often on friday?

I've done the friday-skip several Evokes and one Breakpoint and one Revision and yes, that's also almost Demo Spa when there's just one day less of party to replenish afterwards :P

I have a really, really hard time understanding some of the wishes that accompany this thread.

I believe the original quest is a very legit one: to figure ways to move the compos to a time where visitors are more susceptible, as long as it's compatible with the workflow of the orgas. -- that makes sense because if there are remarkable demos, this gives the party people a chance to talk about their impressions; I mean, visitors can even base their voting on whether they had chance to understand what a given release was all about.

But I do not get the cry for "I need more sleep, therefore demoparties should cut short on their creative potential". Please. That is a completely different point.

Moving Compos earlier does not mean that there can not be not a bunch of live music afterwards. E.g. Deadline 2024 had so many requests of people WANTING to do a live set, why cut that short? Why rob them of the opportunity to express themselves, to grow, to try something new? There are people who replenish their batteries by exhausting themselves once in a while, be that by partying / raw dogging a project / extreme coding. I am sure that is not news to any of us.

Yes, with rising age there are rising requirements for sleep. But the important thing is, that not the world has to cater to your every need, but you yourself have to figure out what is good for you and what is not.

imo, the single most useful point is being more strict about the deadlines.

two ideas one could go from there:

- I would support preselection also on a base of "sorry, but this release made too much work for the compo orgas beforehand, and due to factors outside anyone's fault (e.g. general workload), we had to skip it for this party - this should always be acceptable
- this is a wider stretch, but maybe group releases not on basis of their technicality (pc demo / 64k / ...) but to group on their artistic content (e.g. chilly afternoon stuff / hardcore party material / experimental-visuals stuff / just-running-gag-jokes / ...)