One of the most recent major additions to the Assembly event, the seminars, were here again. This year they presented over 15 speakers ranging from the gaming industry pioneers to well-known demoscene legends. I had signed in for two seminars, but I was unfortunately unable to attend them due to rush of other things and events. Hopefully all the seminar presentations can be found on the Assembly'2003 DVD-ROM release.

The concert that was held for the 2nd time in the event's history, this time nominally "outdoors" as the stage was near the party hall's loading entrance. Friday's concert featured Axes Denied, Stereo Gentleman, CNCD Outside and perhaps the most expected performer of them all, Purple Motion (a.k.a. Jonne Valtonen). Stereo Gentleman's performance was hosted with a group of "High Heels" women dancers, but was apparently the least liked performance as stories tell that most of the audience left in the middle of the show. The best of the best was rightfully Purple Motion's performance, of which I have videoclips aswell photographs provided in this party report. Purple Motion played a number of re-arranged classics aswell new songs from his upcoming CD album (more info on that coming later in this report).

I wasn't able to watch the show's ending and the last performer, Stereo Gentleman, as the vocal music competition's jury duties obliged me to leave. During Stereo Gentleman's performance a living finnish legend, former Formula One driver Mika Häkkinen, was seen at the concert area with his wife. Afterwards I was being told that Stereo Gentleman's manager had some ties and links to Mika Häkkinen, and that was the reason of his appearance at Assembly'2003. Mika Häkkinen also visited the party hall's ground floor and the VIP sauna which the organizers also were using. I also heard that AssemblyTV tried to get Mika Häkkinen for an interview on television, but thye weren't able to do so.

The only negative aspect of the concert was the loading entrance area's horrible acoustics, or should I rephrase and say the lack of them. The concert's too high volume levels aggravated the problem even more into a point where most of the "sound" was just pure low noise which acted as a pacemaker.

One minor dowside to all television and online broadcast viewers was that AssemblyTV unplugged the show as Purple Motion came to perform. This was done because there was a possibility of music license fees they would have been issued upon as Purple Motion is nowdays a member of Teosto, a finnish composers' copyright society. I was able to talk with Purple Motion after and before his performance, and even though he admitted being quite nervous before the concert, his on stage charisma clearly won every listener's heart. Jonne "Purple Motion" Valtonen also let me in the details of his upcoming CD album, which he expects to get finished for early 2004. With permission from him I can reveal that the album will include "Starshine", "2nd Reality" and "Satellite one" out of his old classics, as the rest of the songs will be completely new, but made in the spirit of his old work.

The rave parties took place at the seminar hall just like at Assembly'2002, but this year they carried an offial name of "Tekkkno party", which indeed they was. The parties took place on two nights, thursday and saturday, and lasted much longer than before. Saturday's schedule held over 7 hours of DJ performances, which undoubtedly satisfied even the most tireless dancers.

The amount of prizes in total was announced to be over 35 000 euros, which is 5000 euros less than reported in last year's event. However the total value of prizes this year didn't include software prizes, so presumably the value of given prizes had grown from last year. The organizer's last year's decision to divide the prize ceremonies in two had received positive feedback, or atleast it seemed that way as the change has come to stay. One other improvement was that the organizers telephoned in advance to the prize ceremonies to those who were going to be rewarded, and by that slightly shortening the time it took for each contestant to come to the stage. One slightly more dramatic episode was seen in the second ceremony on sunday as the sovereign winner of the oldskool graphics competition was disqualified just seconds before announcement.

+ Number of competitions
The variety and supply of different competitions evolved again to more interesting.

+ Organizing
The organizers worked tough and well through out the event.

+ Concert
In overall the live concert was better than last year, eventhough the concert area's acoustics were terrible.

+ AssemblyTV
A positive change in the amount of servers and media streams transmitting the event through AssemblyTV's website.

+ Robo war
The very popular "Robo war" competition gave a nice little edge to the range of individual events Assembly featured this year.

+ Assembly'2003 poster
The party poster was free of charge this year.

After over a decade of Assembly events, the future of them has perhaps never appeared as bright and secured as now. The 12th Assembly event showed and proofed us that the demo-scene is alive and doing well. The steady amount of little changes and alterations done to the competitions have proven to be successful. The enlargening of the event's contents each year, with e.g. seminars and concerts, have attracted more people in participating. The event's popularity has never been a challenge for the organizers, but the growth of the event in some ways has perhaps reached the ceiling. One of the most important things is that the event itself and the competitions keep evolving and that the organizers can successfully continue to squeeze new ideas for the following years.

I personally had a fun time at Assembly'2003 by meeting many people, participating in the competitions and experiencing the jury process with'in. I'd like to say thanks and send greetings to every people who came to talk with me and whom I had the pleasure of meeting. Some planns for Assembly'2004 have already taken place and I've even completed one competition entry. The most ambitious project(s) that I'm working on won't most likely be finished in 2004, but hopefully I will have enough time to contribute a song or two for the music competitions. As always, I'm also open for any suggestions and offers for teamwork or co-operative in order to accomplish something bigger, so if you're in the need of e.g. music for demos, animations or flash demos, you know how to reach me. See you all next year at Assembly'2004 !

~ Milan Kolarovic (a.k.a. Acumen)
   on the 3rd of November 2003