The evolution of the Ultimate Meeting (tUM)

from diminutive meeting to progressive demoscene event

Background: the Ultimate Meeting is a 100% pure demoscene party that's held on an regular basis between christmas and new year's eve, from 27th to 29th december, in Germany. Last year, about 250 visitors attended tUM in Hemsbach (Germany). Together with Evoke and Breakpoint, tUM is one of the three major german demoscene parties.

Flashback to early december anno 1999, somewhere in Mannheim (Germany), just a few days left until The Party 9 is going to start... approximately fourty, mostly german sceners are sitting in at beergarden tables inside a cold, little hall, talking to each other and having fun. The old cast-iron stove on the one side of the hall is glowing dark red from all the wood and lame entries that have been fed to his all-digesting stomach. A snuggly and personal atmosphere fills the location as some not so serious meant contributions are shown on the medium sized beamer. Yes, it's close to the end of 1999, so why not just party with your scene friends and conclude another year of demoscene experiences. After three days of relaxed activities, everyone headed home with the feeling of being gifted and ready for the upcoming year of demoscene events.

Back to the present: It's 2oo5 and the tUM organizers want to rock it one more time. But first, let's see how tUM evolved from 1999 over 2oo2 to 2oo4... After our respectable success with our Ultimate Meeting in 1999 and some bad occurences in the demoscene during 2oo2: no longer serious demoscene competitions at The Party and Dialogos cancelled - we decided to bring tUM back to life. We were eager enough to squeeze 150 sceners of various nationalities into another medium sized hall in Mannheim (Germany). Even people attending "just for fun" (in other words: boozing! ;) wiped their eyes with surprise when they were looking at entries like Planet Loop by Madwizards or the 3d-glasses featured fr-029':dopplerdefekt by Farbrausch. Scheduled Pizza-Waves to feed the masses, a team of wonderful girls at the foodsupport, serving free coffee, and cool funcompos made tUM*o2 more than a successful relaunch. In 2oo3 we were able to obtain some additional know-how about organizing bigger events, as a division of tUM orgas supported the Breakpoint demoscene party in Bingen (Rhein). Real demoscene feeling and carefully selected scene competitions, as well as some unforgettable funcompos like the Demo Dance Revolution made tUM the ultimate party of 2oo3 in every way. Who else than those attenders can say that they saw sceners dance to the music of Farbrausch's "The Popular Demo" - among them Chaos^Farbrausch himself? We had also switched the location once again to have enough space for all the lost souls of sceners that were wandering around without orientation as there was no The Party that year. With the help of the dreamcast-scene.com, we were able to introduce a special DreamCast compo with extraordinary prizes. Therefore 2oo4 had to be another year of improvements and enhancements. We decided to invite the AMiGA-scene to spend the holidays between christmas and New Year's Eve with us partying. Also one major advantage was the use of the Partymeister/BOOBS system which had been developed by D.Fox and TB especially for tUM. A second stage area with chillout corner, DJ Acts, a GBA demoshow and of course the electrifying liveact of Pornophonique, which was their first apperance at a demoscene party, was not enough. There also was a bunch of cool funcompos like the Picasso compo with real paint and easel or the Beathoven compo, where three well known scene musicians had to compose a tune without hearing something.

The upcoming bustle...
So far tUM can look back at an growing history of success. Anyway, during the last years, we had to accept that tUM is not an event that brings a high amount of releases, since most people preferably come to party and chill with their scene friends. Therefore, the Ultimate Meeting organizers have thought about further improvements. This year, tUM will move to a new location which fits the party motto we chose: "Pirates of the demoscene". Yes, you got it right: tUM will be a place for adventurous demoscene pirates partying and hunting after leet treasures. You can surely expect a very pirate-y environment, so be prepared to board our location and bring your flags, hats, parrots or fake beards along. This year, we will try to make the competitions of your favourite party at the end of the year more interesting by bringing in some fresh ideas. We accomplish this by modifying the categories and thus allowing more different platforms to be shown. Nearly all existing platforms will be allowed as long as they fit in one of the categories. Wouldn't it be nice to see some cool ATARI stuff again? Do you agree, that a stylish AMiGA PPC demo can win over a PC demo? We say: YES! For this reason we divided the demo and intro competitions into different categories - check www.tum-party.org for details on this. But don't worry about traditional competitions like the graphics, music or even the ANSI/ASCII compo: we have them all. Among the improvements you will also find a new vector graphics compo and a game compo, just to name a few.

Now for the essence
What conclusion do we get after 4 years of ultimate demoscene devotion? The Ultimate Meeting is a must for all true hearted friends of the demoscene and the 5th anniversary will be a special one. Be sure to board our ship to sail beyond all known limits and find big treasures in Karlsruhe/Durlach (Germany) from 27th to 29th of december 2oo5!

You will find further information at www.tum-party.org or you can also contact the organizers directly via the ircnet / #tUM.

Regards
the Ultimate Organizing Team

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