Creative

IMPORTANT: ALL COMPO ENTRIES MUST BE SUBMITTED TO:

http://compo.tg11.gathering.org

Entries from previous years

Since 1992, The Gathering has been an arena for prestigious demoscene competitions and a meeting place for creative people from all over the world. The Gathering will follow up this tradition in 2011 with a broad selection of creative competitions, seminars and social events for everyone who wants to use their computers for something creative.

Most of this action will be centered around our Creative Lounge, where people who applied for a creative ticket will share an atmosphere of creativity, exchange of skill and experience, and of course a little friendly competition. The seminar schedule will be posted well before TG kicks off, and you'll be pleased to know that all seminars are open to everyone, regardless of where they are seated.

The Demoscene

If you haven't heard of the demoscene before, The Gathering 2011 will be a perfect opportunity to change that. Springing out from the software pirate scene of the 1980s, demos started out as small "signatures" shown before loading a cracked game. Before long, these introductions evolved into an art form in its own right, and computer parties started to hold competitions where the most impressive presentation was awarded:

Rupture by ASD, winner of the TG09 demo competition

Along with the increase in complexity and length of demos, the subculture spawned talented graphic artists and musicians, competing in dedicated compos at computer parties. As computer parties became more mainstream, these competitions began to see entries from people who had never heard of the demoscene; they just wanted to compete with their works and have their stuff shown in front of a large audience, with a big screen and massive sound system. And let us be very clear on this: You do not have to be a member of an ancient and elite demoscene society to compete at The Gathering. We do encourage you to get acquainted with some of the old-timers in the Creative Lounge though. You might pick up a trick or two, and maybe you'll be tempted to go to one of the many demoscene parties held every year.

You are hereby invited!

The traditional way of inviting people to a demo party is to release an invitation demo. Invitation demos are made exactly like other demos, but with the express purpose of inviting people to a specific party. To reach the target audience, they are usually released at another party where a lot of potential party guests can be found. The Gathering is no exception, which is why we released our invitation at the Kindergarden 2010 party.

Thankfully, in these times of super-fast information highway internets, we can also share the invitation with all the people who didn't attend Kindergarden 2010. We encourage you to watch the invitation demo, and we hope it puts you in the right mood for this year's The Gathering. We also encourage you to continue reading the other pages under the Creative section of our website, and don't hesitate to ask questions in the forums.