^General Information

~What is MS all about?

The |mekka & symposium is a demo-scene party that is organized annually
at Easter. Here, about 1000 young Multimedia artists gather for four
days to meet similar-minded people, exchange ideas and participate in
competitions in which individual people and groups show off their
talent with regards to a traditional form of electronic art called
|Demos.

Although it might seem so art first glance, the |MS is no LAN party
where network game playing would be the primary occupation. People
playing Quake or Half-Life on our events are considered non-creative,
if not destructive, by most of our "serious" visitors. If you "just"
want to play games, think about going to our Planet Insomnia
(www.planet-insomnia.de) parties instead, you'll have much more fun
since you'll also be finding much more enemies to play against...

~Location, Date, Entrance Fee

The party place is located in Fallingbostel (www.fallingbostel.de).
Situated between Hamburg and Hannover, this is the only town in
Northern Germany that offers a hall suitable for at least 1000
visitors, while not being too expensive. At this place the |MS
parties have been taking place since 1997, so we really know its
infrastructure and limits quite well, too. The party starts on |Good
Friday (21st April, 2000) at 12:00 CET and ends on |Easter Monday
(24th April, 2000) at 12:00 CET. The address is:

Heidmarkhalle \
An der Heidmarkhalle 1 \
D-29683 Fallingbostel \
GERMANY \

The entrance fee amounts to |70 DM (35 Euro). We don't accept
currencies other than DM. We don't have single-day visitor tickets.
Girls and Mat/Ozone get in for free. There is no table reservation, and
no possibility of paying in advance. Money which is left is spent on
the repair of damages to the hall and on competition prizes (in this
very order, so please behave :D). If you bring your own computer
equipment (this does not cost extra, of course), bring your own power
connectors!

~Travel Information

If you're going to come by car, you can reach Fallingbostel through
the highway A7 - watch out for the "Fallingbostel" announcement. We
have a map (in english or german, included in the .ZIP file) which
guides you from the highway exit to the party place.

When coming by train, you have to use some major train to either
Hamburg or Hannover (whichever is nearer to you), and change for
Fallingbostel there (train schedules are available from the Deutsche
Bahn info page, bahn.hafas.de). Once you've arrived in Fallingbostel,
you can make use of the free |24h bus shuttle service we will set up
just like last year. But you |must contact us (see contacts section)
in advance, so that you will be picked up (please tell about number of
people and time of arrival). If you're coming without equipment, you
can also take the walk (half an hour); watch out for the "Bahnhof" /
"Railroad Station" in the center of our map.

This year there are again some guys organizing bus trips from various
countries to the |MS; some of them may have a free place left for you!
If you are interested in information about those bus trips, please take
a look at the MS2000 homepage (see Contacts section), we do not print it
here because of likely updates.

~Features

|1. Lots of competitions for Amiga, PC and C64 - and some platform-independent
ones such as a Graphics competition and various music competitions. We
don't have competitions for Atari and Acorn systems; feel free to
participate in the Wild compo with productions for these and even other
machines.

|2. Competitions presented on a big screen sized 6x4 sqm, including
powerful sound equipment - yes, the sound will be loud if you are
sitting in the first table row. No, we will not turn the volume down.
Choose your fate in advance by sitting down at the front of the hall if
you want loud sound (note that you don't need your own stereo to make even
more noise), or by taking place at the remote side of the 
hall if you are in need of a quiet place (note that some guy 
next to you will be pissed if you turn up your own stereo 
too much). Also, some wax to put into your ears when you 
want to sleep will really come in handy.

|3. Place for about 1200 visitors plus equipment; enough 
power for everyone - but: please do not bring equipment 
you don't really need. This has two advantages: You can't 
lose it, and it can't bring the power down (see below for 
more words on the subject of electricity)

|4. A warm sleeping hall - Just like on |ms2k-1,
comfortably small and warm. Of course you can sleep in the 
main hall as well. If you want to, you can also stay at the 
local youth hostel, which is located about half a kilometer 
from the party place (note that you probably need a member 
card):

Jugendherberge Fallingbostel \
DJH Landesverband Hannover e.V. \
Liethweg 1 \
29683 Fallingbostel \
Phone: +49 5162 2274 \

If you really can afford it: A listing of hotels is on the
Fallingbostel homepage (www.fallingbostel.de). 

|5. A stable party network! - the |MS2000 is a 
|party, not an ISP :-) Some kind of Internet 
connection will be there, but it is not our primary concern. 
A local network will be setup with 100MBit switches on the 
tables (Twisted Pair only). You will also be able to vote 
and contribute via network (paper voting will still be 
possible, of course). You can bring your own hub or switch 
if you want to use your own hardware. Quake, Half-Life, 
Unreal and other network game packets will be filtered by 
the backbone hardware. For more questions, mail our network 
master MoM (as usual, refer to the Contacts section).

|6. Food supply - there's a city nearby, with shops 
and bars; and we have inexpensive drinks and snacks 
available on the party 24 hours a day. Of course you may and 
should also bring your own food and drinks, as it will be 
less expensive this way. A nice snack-bar providing fries, 
hamburgers etc. will be situated next to the main hall 
almost 24 hours a day.

|7. Clean toilets and showers. Showers are not public,
though. Instead, we will have designated shower hours a 
couple of times.

|And last not least... Live music performances, traditional entertainment
provided by Steeler, cool party t-shirts... and the unique Mekka &
Symposium party feeling!

~Rules

We are not responsible for stolen computer equipment or 
other items you bring with you. We aren't responsible for 
personal injuries either. Take care of yourself, your friends 
and your luggage. We've never had much trouble with theft on 
our parties, but it might be better to think twice about 
taking a certain valuable thing with you onto the party.

The use of alcohol is hereby explicitly forbidden. After 
facing severe damages and personal attacks on previous parties 
due to heavily drunken individuals, we chose to put up this 
rule from 1998 on. Drunken guys won't be let inside, 
disturbing guys (this also includes Quake players, by the way 
:D) will be put outside. Don't consume Vodka in front of the 
stage. Don't |vomit onto the floor.

In case we discover that you are destroying things, either 
intellectual property (hacking the network system), or 
physically damaging the building or people, you can be sure 
that we will take very special care of you.

This year we will try again to supply you with enough
electric power. We invest in new cables and fuse-racks, just 
to serve your equipment more than well. To make this event as 
pleasurable as possible and to avoid last year's power 
failures, we would be pleased if you did |not bring all 
that stuff like: toasters, fridges, heaters or cheap extension 
sockets with you. These things were / are responsible for 
those failures, because they violate the FI protection. We can 
not remove this protection, because it's legally required, for 
your safety. So please leave them at home (mummy and daddy 
will keep an eye on them). Let's also stress that we are not 
responsible for any damage of your equipment (of course we 
won't refund half-written CD-Rs after a power failure), just 
keep this in mind.

Please respect German law. Illegal actions, especially
regarding software piracy, can not be approved of. Dutch 
visitors should be aware of the fact that weed consumption is 
illegal over here.

Last but not least, have fun! And if you have ideas of what
might be fun on the party, don't hesitate to contact us, even 
on the party. |You're part of the party.

~Time Table

The time table was not ready at the time of writing this invitro ;)

^Competitions

~Competitions on MS2000

Competitions are the core feature of any decent scene 
party. They are the ultimate tool to present one's work to a 
large audience and compare one's creativity directly to that 
of others. Consequently, in competitions on major parties, new 
milestones are set for demo technology because people keep 
constantly improving their skills in their quest for fame in 
the scene.

Each year again it's hard to determine which competitions 
to hold. You hold too many, people get bored (and the time 
table gets overflowed) -- you hold too few or too restrictive 
ones, some people get upset because they feel that they can't 
use their whole creativity. There's also always the aspect of 
tradition. Many guys (including us, the organizers) have been 
in the scene business for over ten years; sometimes it's not 
easy to make major changes to rules which had been established 
for a long time.

We hope that this year's selection of competitions suits
your taste. If not, you may of course contact the coordinator 
of the respective competition by E-Mail for further 
discussion.

|Some more notes

Everyone intending to participate in one of our 
competitions has to be present at the party. We don't accept 
contributions via mail. The sole exception to this rule are 
the Demo competitions; here we welcome external entries as 
well. Contact Raw Style for further discussion. (See contacts
section...)

|Cross-platform competitions

~Alternative Music Competition \
(including ambient, chillout, demostyle, etc.)

-MT2, IT, XM, S3M, and MOD allowed

-maximum filesize 1.8MB (no compressed files)

-4 minutes playtime

-all modules will be played with the latest versions of their
respective trackers

-max. one entry per competitor 

-contact Sierra (->Contacts) if you want to use another format

~Progressive Music Competition \
(including d'n'b, house, trance, techno, etc.)

-(see Alternative Music Competition)

~MP3 Music Competition

-enter your tracks as MP3 in 128kbps or higher or on Audio CD

-4 minutes playtime

-one entry per competitor

~32k Game Competition \
(for Amiga, PC and C-64)

-Size of all files: 32K

-Competition machines are the same as in the 
  platform-specific competitions (see below)

-The game will be played on the bigscreen by the coder.

-If you are planning networked games, contact us in
advance. We will do a quality preselection on this
competition.

-|For PC only: Mega-Em will be started to support 
GUS Midi music. Game must be playable with keyboard only. 
However if you have support for some special device 
(joystick or whatever) be sure to bring it along.

~Pixel Graphics Competition \
(hand-pixelled images only)

Maximum resolution is 800x600 in 24 Bits TrueColor.
Raytraced pictures do not belong into this category, only 
hand-pixelled graphics are to be handed in for this 
competition. The entries must be handed in in IFF, PNG or TGA 
format. All entries will be shown at least twice, at different 
daytimes.

~Alternative Graphics Competition \
(ray-traced, composed etc.)

Maximum resolution is 800x600 in 24 Bits TrueColor. The
entries must be handed in in IFF, PNG or TGA format. All 
entries will be shown at least twice, at different daytimes. 

|C-64 platform competitions

~C-64 Demo Competition

-Maximum size is a standard 5.25" DD disk (both sides).

-The demos may require user (keyboard/joystick) interaction.

~C-64 4k Intro Competition

-Maximum size is 4096 ($1000) bytes (=16.12 blocks).

~C-64 Graphics Competition

All formats/modes are allowed. The entry must be handed in 
as an executable file or as Koala/Amica. Any sounds or extra 
info-screens included in the file will not be shown/played. It 
would be nice of you to forget about additional music or coded 
effects and give us something serious for the show. The 
inclusion of working stages of your picture is appreciated. 

~SID Music Competition

All formats allowed. The entry must be an executable file
(if you need help with a program to play your tune, contact 
any of the Padua-organizers). The C-64 screen will not be 
shown during the competition. We will play up to 4:27 minutes 
of each tune. You may choose between a C-64 with a new or with 
an old SID-chip. There will be a preselection if too many 
entries are handed in. Preselected tunes will be only played 
for 30 seconds.

The C-64 competition rules are maintained by Anonym,
please mail him for further information or discussion.

|Amiga Platform Competitions

The competition machine, kindly provided by Infinity / 
Creative Minds, is equipped as follows:

-A4000, MC68060 @50MHz

-PPC 604e @233MHz

-64MB RAM (Your entry must work on 16MB machines as well)

-Cybervision PPC

-WarpOS & PowerUP

Assigns and installation scripts are forbidden (this means that unpacking 
the archive and running one program is all that is necessary 
to start the demo). Custom libraries may be used, but not 
installed outside of the contribution directory. 

~Amiga Demo Competition

-Maximum size is 6 MB uncompressed.

~Amiga 40K Intro Competition

-The intro size is 40KB at most. The intro is a single
executable file.

~Amiga 4K Intro Competition

-Maximum size is 4096 bytes.

-Booting AmigaOS without startup-sequence, running 
SetPatch and then simply running the 4K executable from a 
standard PAL screen must be everything that's necessary to 
start the intro.

The Amiga competition rules are maintained by Raw Style, please mail
him for further information or discussion.

|IBM PC Platform Competitions

The competition machine is equipped as follows:

-Intel Celeron or Pentium2 400MHz Processor

-128MB RAM

-Riva TNT 2

-Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 (ISA)

-Gravis Ultrasound Classic 1MB (ISA)

-Most recent DirectX, at least 7a

-Latest Nvidia Detonator Drivers

-Acceleration allowed in all PC competitions!

-Operating Systems: Windows 98SE, SUSE Linux 6.x Full Install


~PC Demo Competition

-File Size 10MB

~PC 64K Intro

-File Size 64K

~PC 4k Intro

-File Size 4K

-Mega-Em will be started to support GUS Midi music. 

|Time Limit: We don't have a distinct time limit for
the competitions. Just be creative and take the time you need. 
However, if an entry gets too boring it will be skipped!

|Usage: All DOS/Win entries will be started from the
Windows 98SE command line. Demos requiring EMS memory or 
special memory configurations will not be shown. We will not 
change anything in config.sys or autoexec.bat! Pure Animations 
are not accepted.

Please read the following FMC (frequently mentioned
complaints) before complaining about the rules: 

-Accel, Non-Accel topic: Now you know the rules and are
free to write an accelerated production, if you think that 
this will give you an advantage. 

-Windows productions: It is a fact that Windows demos are
far more compatible and easier to handle than DOS based 
productions. Anyway, in every compo you have the choice 
between a DOS, Win or Linux entry. 

-We suck, and don't know the roots of the scene: Actually
most of us are part of the roots, but we realize that the 
scene is changing every day! If we wouldn't accept that, we 
would have the following compo machine: 386/33 with 4MB, 
Trident 8900 and a SB1.

The PC competition rules are maintained by Doj, please mail him for 
further information or discussion.

|Other Competitions

~PlayStation Demo Competition

-max. 1 audio track and 1 data track are allowed. 
-the size of the data track must not exceed 6 MB.

-the demo must be delivered on a SELF-BOOTING CDR (NO CDRWs).

-before the demo starts there must be a possibility to 
choose between PAL/NTSC or at least an auto detection.

-the competition will be held on a SCPH-7002. (to avoid 
probs like last year... hello Haujobb)

-all demos will be spread.

For updated information or any questions and comments about the PSX 
competition write to Gott/Elitegroup or try the Elitegroup homepage.
(www.elitegroup.demo.org)

~Wild Competition

Here you can deliver anything that doesn't fit into the
other categories. We will not have separate Wild ("classic") 
and Video competitions, as the number of entries in the former 
would be too low. The most welcome contribution medium is a 
VHS or S-VHS tape recorded in PAL; you can optionally hand in 
a graphics file containing some information about the hardware 
used to create your entry. If you can't tape the thing 
yourself (if you are using really Wild hardware...) please 
contact us in advance. 

There aren't many restrictions on this competition. Your
entry should be related to computers, though. People are not 
interested in watching yet another skateboard video. Please 
help keeping this competition interesting!

^Contact Information

~Main Organization

These are the |ms2000 main organizers:

-Hardball/Amable (hardball@ms.demo.org), General Organizing

-Chaotic/Padua (chaotic@ms.demo.org), Staff, Beam, Misc

-Raw Style/Lego (rawstyle@ms.demo.org), WWW, Scene PR, Compos

-Gandalf/Phantasm (gandalf@ms.demo.org), Press, Sponsors, Power

-Decca/Lego (decca@ms.demo.org), Power, Misc



~Competition Organization

General competition organization is done by Raw Style. These guys
are responsible for some particular competitions:

-Sierra/Destiny (sierra@ms.demo.org), Music Competitions

-Doj/Cubic (doj@ms.demo.org), IBM PC Competitions

-Anonym/Padua (anonym@ms.demo.org), C-64 Competitions

-Gott/Elitegroup (gott@ms.demo.org), PSX Competition

-Raw Style/Lego (rawstyle@ms.demo.org), Amiga Competitions

-Gandalf/Phantasm (gandalf@ms.demo.org), Wild Competition


|For updated information, have a look at the ms2000 Homepage,
ms.demo.org/2000.

|For the credits/greetings, just experiment a bit with your mouse...
