Assembly demo party
 |
Overview of the Assembly 2004 party hall. |
The
Assembly demo party is a
demoscene event in
Finland. The main organizers of the event are Pekka Aakko (
Pehu of
Accession) and Jussi Laakkonen (
Abyss of
Future Crew). The event takes place every year between late July and early August, and lasts three to four days. The most recent Assembly was held on 3rd-6th August 2006 at
Hartwall Areena in
Helsinki.
The first Assembly was held in
July 1992, in
Kauniainen. It was organized by the
Amiga demo groups Complex and Rebels, and the
PC demo group
Future Crew. The staff grew into a large non-profit group of individuals known as Assembly Organizing. Through the
1990s, Assembly grew so large that even exposition halls no longer sufficed, and only the largest of sports arenas met the partygoers' needs. In
1999 they rented the largest sports arena in the country,
Hartwall Areena in
Helsinki, with over 5000 visitors and 3500 computers on the
ice rink.
The
2004 edition of the party also set up an interesting record: In the July of 2004,
QuakeCon announced to hold the world's first
Doom 3 competitions on the event starting at
August 12-
14, roughly a week after the game's release on
August 3. Assembly, however,
managed to snatch the first place after acquiring copies of the game via
FedEx with the help of some contacts in the
United States and holding the competition during
August 5-
8.
As of
2006 the party has been held for 15 consecutive years.
 |
Panorama view over the Assembly 2002 event. |
The party includes multiple
competitions, including but not limited to:
* combined
demo* 64
k intro
* 4
k intro
*
vocal music* instrumental music
* drawn graphics
*
oldskool music/graphics/demo
* fast graphics
*
short film (which replaced the wild compo and animation compo in
2004)
*
video game developing compo
Entries are submitted by demogroups and individual artists and are rated by judges. All demos which are deemed to be of a high enough standard are then shown on a big screen. Entries which break the competition rules (e.g. use
copyrighted material, aren't suitable for the category to which they are entered) are disqualified. People who are present at the arena vote for the entries, and the results are published on the Assembly website. The entries are usually made available by the artists at
scene.org or on the artists own website.
In recent years, Assembly has broadcast content from its in-house media effort
AssemblyTV to local and national TV networks, as well as producing web streams for people to watch live over the internet - spots for hundreds, if not thousands of viewers are catered for and these streams have been watched all over the world, not just in Finland.
Demo and intro competition winners
Assembly demo/intro compo winners, 1992-2006| Year | Amiga demo | PC demo | C64 demo | Amiga intro | PC 64K intro | | 1992 | Sound Vision (Reflect) | Unreal (Future Crew) | Gunnar 2 (Dual Crew) | Repo (Vectra) | N/A |
| 1993 | Extension (Pygmy Projects) | Second Reality (Future Crew) | Four years (Origo Dreamline) | Bananamen (Stellar) | Eclipse (EMF) |
| 1994 | Mindflow (Stellar) | Verses (EMF) | Attack of Stubidos 3 (Beyond Force) | G-Force (Pygmy Projects) | Airframe (Prime) |
| 1995 | ZIF (Parallax) | Stars (Nooon) | Extremes (Byterapers) | Fad (Sonik Clique) | Drift (Wild Light) |
| 1996 | Sumea (Virtual Dreams) | Machines of Madness (Dubius) | Follow the Sign 3 (Byterapers) | Pure (Sonik Clique) | Blind (Eufrosyne) |
| 1997 | Pulse (Nerve Axis) | Boost (Doomsday) | Speedway (Panic) | 911 (Limbo) | Mainstream (Moottori) |
| 1998 | Relic (Nerve Axis) | Gateways (Trauma) | Speedway 2 (Panic) | Edit 0.5 (Haujobb) | Oxygen (Coral) |
| 1999 | Beats (Loveboat) | Non-3DGasoline (Recreation) | Speedway 3 (Panic) | älä ota sitä vakavasti (Da Jormas) | Viagra (Mewlers) |
| 3DVirhe (Maturefurk) |
| Year | Combined demo | colspan=2>Combined 64K intro |
|---|
| 2000 | Spot (Exceed) | Oldskool Trippin (Haujobb) | Dead Flowers (Haujobb) |
| 2001 | Lapsuus (Maturefurk) | Riyadh (Bandwagon) | Sonnet (Threestate) |
| 2002 | Liquid... Wen? (Haujobb) | Impossiblator 2 (PWP) | Squish (AND) |
| 2003 | Legomania (Doomsday) | Robotic Liberation (PWP) | Zoom 3 (AND) |
| 2004 | Obsoleet (Unreal Voodoo) | Halfway There (Dekadence) | The Prophecy - Project Nemesis (Conspiracy) |
| 2005 | Iconoclast (ASD) | Boogie Factor (Fairlight) | Che Guevara (Fairlight) |
| 2006 | Starstruck (The Black Lotus) | Fruitcake (RNO) | Deadringer (Fairlight) |
*
Boozembly*
"Girls Dig Demos Too" by
Steve Kettmann of
Wired magazine. (August 3, 2001)
*
Assembly.org - Official website*
Assemblytv.net - Official media*
Assembly 2006 - MBnet The Official
Ezine of Assembly 2006.
*
Assembly on
Pouët*
The ARTS Radio (
MP3) contains an
interview with the primary organizer of Assembly, Abyss of
Future Crew.
