General rules for the creative competitions at the Gathering
These rules apply to all the creative competitions, unless explicitly exempted in the rules for a specific compo.
These rules are available in both English and Norwegian. In case of inconsistencies, the English version will take precedence.
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Right to participate
All participants with valid tickets (regardless of type) to The Gathering 2011 are allowed to participate in all of the creative competitions.
Members of the Gathering crew may participate in competitions. We have a lot of skilled people in our crew, and we do not want to deny them the right to contribute and compete.
An entry in a competition can be made by an individual or a group. If the entry is made by a group, at least one of the group members must hold a valid ticket or be a crew member at The Gathering 2011.
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Number of submissions per person
A person or group is not allowed to submit more than one entry per competition, unless the rules for a particular competition explicitly allows this.
If you are submitting a co-operative entry in a competition, you may not submit an additional individual entry.
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Minimum amount of entries to hold a competition
A competition will be held if we receive three (3) or more entries for that competition. With fewer entries, the compo will be merged with a similar competition or cancelled.
In case of a cancelled competition, submitted entries will not be released. This means that you are free to submit them to competitions at other parties if you choose to do so.
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Hand-in and deadlines
Unless stated otherwise in the compo specific rules, you can start working on your entry at any time; you don’t have to make it during the party.
All entries, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the competition rules, shall be delivered in a Zip or Rar archive containing the following:
- The entry itself
- Documentation/development snapshots as stated in the rules for the specific competition.
- A text file (.nfo) containing contact information and any extra information about your entry.
Entries must be handed in before the compo specific deadline. If you miss the deadline, we reserve the right to refuse your entry.
You are naturally allowed to submit your entry before the deadline. This will give us time to contact you should there be any problems. If you hand in your entry before the deadline, you will still be able to update or modify it until the deadline.
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Soft deadlines
Some compos have soft deadlines in addition to the regular deadlines. A soft deadline means that your entry must be registered in the compo system before this time, together with a working copy of your entry.
You are allowed to update your entry by uploading new versions of it until the final deadline. The latest working version of your entry uploaded before the hard deadline will be used as your actual entry.
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Disqualification
We reserve the right to disqualify or refuse to accept any entry for any reason we see fit. Sure ways of getting refused are breaking the general rules for participating and/or the individual rules of the compo you want to participate in.
In addition to the above rules, we will not accept entries that can be qualified as any of the following:
- Contains any sort of illegal or offensive content, including extreme political content, racist content, pornography, abuse towards groups or single persons, slander or other things generally considered bad taste.
- Contains copyrighted material used without permission from the copyright holder(s).
- Contains malicious code or does not work on the compo machine.
- Contains or displays particularly unpleasant sound or image.
- Is particularly bad, boring or unpleasant.
If your contribution is not accepted, or is disqualified, it will not be released publicly. This means you will be free to release it another party, although we might not recommend it.
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Originality
Entries that are previously released cannot enter a competition. However, your entry can be partly based on previously released material; re-using code, samples, textures and similar is allowed, as long as your entry contains a significant amount of new material.
By "previously released" we mean:
- Made available for anyone to download from a public web page or similar.
- Entered a competition at a previous party.
- Been sold or used commercially.
By "previously released" we do NOT mean:
- Sending or copying your entry to a select group of friends or associates.
- Previously released entries that are re-worked or remixed significantly. The Creative Crew will decide what "significant" means, and exercise these rules using common sense.
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Jury
Some compos have a jury in addition to the public vote. Each jury will consist of members selected by us, with relevant experience in the fields they will be judging.
Attempts to influence the decision of the jury will lead to disqualification.
Jury members are not allowed to participate in any of the competitions they are judging.
Pre-selection
The jury will perform pre-selection to decide which entries to show in the compo.
Entries that are not shown can not be voted for.
The decision of the jury is final and not open for appeals.
Voting
In some compos the winners will be decided by a combination of jury votes and a popular vote. In these compos, the jury vote will count as 33% while the popular vote counts as 67% of the total vote count.
Some competitions will be decided exclusively by a jury.
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Compo Shows
The compo shows will be executed as follows:
- The start of the compo is announced from the stage no later than 10 minutes prior to the screening of the first entry. The schedule will also be available on the gathering.org web pages during the party.
- The entries are shown or played back one at a time, in their full length, or until the maximum playing time for each entry is reached. The maximum playing time is stated in the compo specific rules.
- If an entry looks or sounds in a way that is considered unpleasant to the audience, we reserve the right to terminate an entry at an earlier point, or play it at a volume that is not pain-inducing.
- Before and after each entry, the name of the entry and the participant or group will be announced in text and/or audio.
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Publication of entries
The Gathering reserves a non-exclusive right to publish all entries participating at the Gathering 2011 for download on the Internet, and on any other media we see fit. By submitting an entry to the competitions at the Gathering 2011 you give us the right to publish your contribution as described here.
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Disclaimer
We reserve the right to change or adjust the rules as necessary. If that happens, the rules will be updated on this website. It is the participants' responsibility to make sure that the entries submitted are compliant with both the general rules and the specific rules of the competitions they are entering.
