Sillyventure 2014 Report

by Felice

Its that time of year again ! Yep, in 2014 it is in the month of December and the first weekend too, so what better than a pre-Christmas meet-up with Atari scene people in the wonderful city of Gdansk ?

The timings for this particular party had been looked forward to, ever since the announcement in March 2014 that there would be another very welcomed Sillyventure Atari demo party. As the months and weeks went by fairly quickly, other parties such as Revision 2014 came and went, alongside Outline 2014 (sadly the last one in Eersel, but we just had word of a new location for 2015), Rewired 2014 and then the run down to Sillyventure in the December, things were looking good.

The eagerly-awaited 4th of December, 2014, arrived and it came to pass that CiH and myself got into the car at an unfeasibly early hour of the morning and started the hour-long drive down to Luton Airport. Our flight was once again with Wizz Air and, once we had got through customs (which, for Luton, was reasonably quick) we headed into the departure lounge area and got ourselves a cooked breakfast from the server, where we have eaten before.

There was a crucial difference this time. An old friend from the UK Atari show scene, Tronic, was also making his way over to Gdansk on the same flight that we were on. He had gone to eat at another restaurant but had let us know already that he was safely within the departure zone, so after eating, Chris and I headed up to locate Tronic in Franky and Benny's, where he'd had his welcome breakfast.

After a short while and a good chat, our flight was called and we headed over to the departure gate. Thanks to Chris having a brain fart we nearly managed to get onto a flight for Poznan, fortunately we were able to retrace our steps and get the correct flight to Gdansk. The flight itself passed smoothly until we were warned by the pilot of a potential problem, meaning that we couldn't land in Gdansk, but the flight was diverted to another airport, Bydgoszcz. This was about a 3 hour ride from a city of Gdansk but Wizz had thoughtfully provided a free bus link to get us back up to Gdansk.

So we ended up arriving quite a bit later at Gdansk Lech Walesa airport. Despite this, our taxi guy was able to pick us up from the airport about three quarters of an hour or so later, so we headed via the taxi to the hostel, where we have stayed before.

After a short rest for weary brains and feet for about an hour, Chis and I decided to wander up to the familiar party place at School no 5 in Sluza Street. We exchanged a few texts with Tronic and he met us in the main lobby area. Whilst our room was OK once we'd shut the window (as it was rather cold) - his unfortunately wasn't up to scratch in terms of temperature, so he ended up grabbing a room in a hotel nearby. He came back to our room to join us and we made the short walk to the party place. The big familiar Sillyventure banner was already in place; Grey had most of the arrangements in place and he was in the process of tying up some loose ends as time went on.

The three of us entered a fairly sparsely occupied hall, but already quite a few people had set up their Atari kit. I had also decided to bring an STe with me, for a change, as opposed to the usual laptop. How this was possible was that I purchased (via Amazon) a proper cabin bag, which allowed me to pack a small television and my STe, along with one or two other essentials. I had, unknown at the time, managed to make a bit of a mistake surrounding the UK-EU plugs, in that the ones I had bought as replacements turned out not to be compatible with the euro 6-way adaptor I had brought out with me. Through a combination of borrowing some other cables and an SC1224 monitor from Piotr (PiTeR - many thanks once again for your help here). we managed to get my STe and Ultrasatan powered up and working. Once CiH had done a small amount of work on my Ultrasatan boot card to get up the proper desktop which he had on his own setup, this was running rather well for the rest of the party. Although I didn't actually set up the STe until the Friday morning.

After a while, we were feeling quite tired, as it had been a long day we decided to go for something to eat, then bed in that order not too long afterwards. We picked up a new friend, F#Ready, a Dutch 8-bit guy who we got talking to. Like us, he was hungry so joined us for a meal. Grey had made a deal with a few restaurants within walking distance of the party place, so we picked one and, once we found the proper location, we went in, ordered from the menu and ate a welcome evening meal. This particular restaurant, the name of which I forget for now, was designed a bit like a nightclub - in fact, the staff were setting up for a karaoke night that was due to happen a bit later on.

The food that the 4 of us had there was very good and the staff were lovely too. We got the bill, paid that and headed back to the party place, where there were a few more people in the hall. More tables had also been brought down and we gave a bit of a hand to Grey and the others with the last few tables and chairs that were currently located on the third floor.

After a fairly good night's sleep, Chris and I entered the party place and set up my STe, along with his laptop on one table. We also contributed a small amount to the realtime article which had been set up on a Mega STe that was in the nearest corner to the door. Quite a few other international visitors were also now present, so greetings were exchanged. Among the early arrivals that Friday morning were Samurai and Front 6, who'd had a longer journey to Gdansk even compared to us. Their flight with Lufthansa was diverted to Warsaw, so they had to put up with a 6 hour coach trip to Gdansk. So they'd been feeling quite tired too and had, rightly, got some decent sleep before making their entrance on the Friday.

The Friday passed well, more and more people started to arrive and, even if in a lot of cases their English wasn't too good, they were still friendly and pleased to see us at the party. The older guy, Henryk, also turned up with his Atari 8-bit setup, proceeding to plug it all together and start it going. One of his grandchildren was also with him; he was playing a few games and showing the kid some 8-bit demos, which I think he appreciated. The in-party food service had also started and we were offered a brunch, that consisted of ham, eggs, hot sausages and salad bits, all of went down well. The catering has always been topnotch at Sillyventure parties over the years and SV2k14 was no exception to this. The Polish chef in charge also spoke good English, having grown up in California for a few years so it was good to have a chat with him after the meal.

Friday evening was when things really started to get going. More international guests had started to arrive quite late on, but just in time for the opening ceremony, the infamous Devil's Show and the DJ gig set that was being performed by Stu at the nightclub we had visited back during SV2k13, close to Gdansk University. Like Ultrasyd in 2013, Stu played a cracking gig, lots and lots of tunes that did us all proud. A good number of people who were at the party were able to make this, including one or two that we ensured made it (Krupkaj and friend) as they had missed Ultrasyd's gig back in 2013, which they were most miffed about. Still, they along with the rest of us enjoyed Stu's gig.

Proper buses, rather than the Hummer vehicles, had been ordered this time and these were a lot more comfortable and spacious. There were two of these waiting outside the party place to take us to Stu's gig - they were waiting patiently for us to get back on again after the gig, which we did. Tronic also found us then as well; he enjoyed the gig too, which was great to hear. You see, for him, it was his first ever demo party - and I doubt he'd miss any other Atari-related parties as long as those are still happening.

By the time we all got back to the party place on the Friday evening after the gig, we were tired and decided to make it to bed. Samurai and Front 6 also departed around the same time as us. Quite a few others were staying in order to booze the night away, surely there must have been some sore heads floating about on the Saturday, but not for us. Even though I had pretty much drunk at least one bottle of wine over the course of the day (a rather good Hardys red) that was also shared with CiH, he drunk a couple of pints of the local beer that was also on tap, as one of the perks of being at the party. So we toddled back off to the hostel and slept almost the sleep of the dead :)

Saturday was the day when all the compos were planned for showing; this got under way a little after 7.30pm or so and went on till just past 3am the following morning. There were a lot of entries in all methods for Atari 8-bit, ST and Falcon respectively. Happily all the international visitors had also arrived at last, this included gwEM, 505, Defjam / LSL, No / Escape, Earx and a number of other luminaries within the international Atari scene.

The day passed well and, before the compos started, the 7 of us, CiH and myself, Tronic, F#Ready, Samurai and Front 6 had decided to go for a meal together, so we went back to where we had eaten before. Once again it was a lovely, superb meal - it couldn't be beaten. The wine that was on offer is also good stuff too ;) We had all been under the impression of having missed the music combo at least, but it turned out when we got back that we hadn't.

From what I remember, music compos started first and there were some decent tunes. These were followed by gfx, then the rest of the demo compose. I had an entry in the Wild competition as well that was produced at the museum I volunteer at, this went down well in terms of votes but was cut short due to being longer than five minutes allowed. Still, it gave people a taste of what to see if they visit Cambridge.

There are rumours that there may well be a Sillyventure 2015 (now summer 2016 - Ed note), to be held in the summer, but these are not certain. Please, don't give Grey a hard time over this.

Cheers,

Felice.

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