Assembly (demoparty)
The Assembly demoparty is an annual demoscene and gaming event in Finland. It is the biggest demoscene party in the world and the biggest computer event in Finland. The Summer event takes place every year at Messukeskus in Helsinki, between late July and early August, and lasts three to four days. The 2020 edition was held online.
Assembly Winter was announced in early 2007. The winter party is held in January or February and is a more gaming-oriented LAN party–type event, whereas the summer events continues the traditions of the original demoparty under the name Assembly Summer.
History
The first Assembly was held from July 24 to July 26, 1992, in Kauniainen. It was organized by the Amiga demo groups Complex and Rebels, and the PC demo group Future Crew. The staff grew into a large non-profit group of individuals known as Assembly Organizing. Through the 1990s, Assembly grew so large that even exposition halls no longer sufficed, and only the largest of sports arenas met the partygoers' needs. In 1999, they rented the largest sports arena in the country, Helsinki Halli in Helsinki, with over 5000 visitors and 3500 computers on the ice rink.The 2004 edition of the party also set a record: in July 2004, QuakeCon announced it was holding the world's first Doom 3 competitions at the event starting on August 12–14, roughly a week after the game's release on August 3. Assembly, however, managed to hold the first Doom 3 competitions after acquiring copies of the game via FedEx with the help of some contacts in the United States and holding the competition during August 5–8.
Since 2014, the event has moved to Messukeskus Expo Centre. In 2022, the party celebrated 30 years of continuous operation. The main organizers of the event are Pekka Aakko and Jussi Laakkonen.
Boozembly
Since 1995, an event called Boozembly has been organized in a nearby forest. It is officially unrelated to Assembly but serves as a meeting point for Assembly attendees as well as for other computer hobbyists and their friends. In Boozembly it is possible to use intoxicants which is not allowed in Assembly. Later IT corporations started to sponsor free beer for Boozembly. Like Assembly, Boozembly itself has become an important part of Finnish demoscene culture.Competitions
The party includes multiple competitions, or compos including but not limited to:- Demo
- Oldskool demo
- 64k intro
- 4k intro
- 1k intro
- Dance music
- Listening music
- Fast Music
- Fast graphics
- Short film
- Real Wild demo
- Photo
- Video game developing compo
Entries are submitted by demogroups and individual artists and are rated by judges. All demos which are deemed to be of a high-enough standard are then shown on a big screen. Entries which break the competition rules are disqualified. People who are present at the arena vote for the entries, and the results are published on the Assembly website. The entries are usually made available by the artists at scene.org or on the artists own website.
Assembly's demo competitions generally hold a very high level, especially for a party that is not specific to the demoscene. Notable winners include Lifeforce by ASD, Panic Room by Fairlight and Frameranger by Fairlight, CNCD and Orange.
Janne "Tempest" Suni—who is a Finnish demoscener, pixel artist, tracker musician, and a member of the demogroup Fairlight—is best known for his song "Acidjazzed Evening". "Acidjazzed Evening" originally won the oldskool music competition at the 2000 Assembly demoparty. Suni and his award-winning song came to mainstream prominence after the melody was unlawfully co-opted by hip-hop producer Timbaland in the 2006 song "Do It" by Nelly Furtado.
During Assembly demoparty 2013 an electronic music concert was performed on stage by Sabastian Teir alias „Kebu”.