Blockparty

Blockparty is a demoparty held in the United States. It was founded in 2007 by Jason Scott and Christian "RaD Man" Wirth. For its first year it partnered with Notacon in Cleveland, Ohio. This allowed the organizers to focus on the content without having to worry about infrastructure planning.

Blockparty is considered to be a spiritual successor of NAID, the North American International Demoparty, which was held in 1995 and 1996 in Quebec, Canada. Both organizers and most of the speakers for the first Blockparty had attended or competed at NAID. NAID's short life (only 2 years of existence) but wild success was considered a high point in North American demoparty history and Blockparty is in some ways an attempt to repeat that success. Blockparty organizers were also active participants in the organizing of Pilgrimage, the only US demoscene event between 2003-2006.

Blockparty broke the mold by having a record attendance for a North American demoparty in its first year: with 200+ people attending Notacon, 100+ watching the competition, and over 40 entries across all the divisions. In all, over $3700 in prizes were given away to the winners. [ [http://www.demoparty.us/ BLOCKPARTY 2008: North America's Biggest Demoparty ] ] Many of these entries were from first timers who had no previous experience with the demoscene. The invite for Blockparty 2007 placed 2nd in the combined demo category at Numerica Artparty 2007.

Blockparty 2007 featured 6 presentations about creating demos and music; each speaker was chosen for their contribution to the demoscene. [ [http://www.notacon.org/archive/2007/speakers.html NOTACON - presented by FTS Conventures ] ] Recordings of these presentations can be downloaded from [http://www.notaconmedia.com/ Notacon Media] . Due to a rule requiring attendance by a demo group to enter the competition [ [http://www.demoparty.us/2007/competitions.shtml BLOCKPARTY 2007 ] ] , members of Northern Dragons, Trailer Park Demos, Chemical Reaction (CRO) and Phluid were present at Blockparty. [ [http://www.demoparty.us/2007/community.shtml BLOCKPARTY 2007 ] ]

Because of Blockparty's unique position alongside a non-demoscene event, much attention was given to helping "outsiders" understand and appreciate the culture surrounding demos and the people who create them. The presentation [ [http://www.notacon.org/archive/2007/speakers.html#phoenix NOTACON - presented by FTS Conventures ] ] by Andy "Phoenix" Voss (co-producer of the Mindcandy DVDs) spoke directly to this point, explaining some historical and social factors shaping the present-day demoscene.

At the end of Blockparty 2007, the organizers produced the "Blockparty Pledge": There will be at least five Blockparties, held yearly, from this point on. Blockparty 2008 is currently in the planning stages and will occur on April 4-6, 2008. It will once again be held in partnership with Notacon.

2007 speakers

* Andy "Phoenix" Voss - Allow Me To Demonstrate
* Jim "Trixter" Leonard - 8088 Corruption
* Andrew "Necros" Sega - Taking Tracking Mainstream
* Christian "RaD Man" Wirth - Building Character: ANSI from the Ground Up
* William "S_TEC" Swanson & David "Polaris" Valentine - Techniques for 4kb Intro Development
* Jeremiah "Nullsleep" Johnson - Squarewave to Heaven: An introduction to the Chiptune Music Scene

2008 speakers

* The Fat Man - Art Behind Enemy Lines: A Target-Rich Environment
* Jim "Trixter" Leonard - Self-Preservation Mode: Lessons Learned While Archiving Demoscene History
* Jeri Ellsworth - CPU Not Required: Making Demos with FPGAs
* Tim Cowley: Automated Psychedelia - Translating sound into color and motion
* Pete Edwards and Fred Owsley - Circuit-Bending Will Get You Laid!! (Maybe)
* Jake "virt" Kaufman - FM Synthesis - Beyond the Adlib
* Beausoleil "BarZoule" Samson-Guillemette - Audio in 4K: what to do and not to do

References

External links

* [http://www.pouet.net/party.php?which=1336&when=2007 Pouet.net Archive of Competition Entries]
* [http://www.notacon.org/media/2007media.html Notacon 2007 Video Recordings]
* [http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=30040 Blockparty 2007 Invite - Northern Dragons]