Event Eleven Photoshoot

On October 15th, 2011 we celebrated the upcoming launch of the long awaited MRC 2k11 - the brand new MSX Resource Center with a completely revamped layout and a brand new backend, built on Pressflow, MediaWIKI and SOLR. A video preview and presentation of the new site can be found right here. We know some of you are frantically refreshing our current site to see if the new one is up and running already, but we are still not quite there just yet.

The slightly delayed introduction of the website did not stop us from having a great party, though. You could already read all about it in this news post, but of course a picture is worth a thousand words. And pictures we have! The Event Eleven photoshoot is finally there! With contributions from Kees Stravers, FiXato and the MSX Resource Center crew the shoot gives a good impression of the entire event. Naturally, on MRC 2k11, the pictures in this photoshoot will become available in higher resolution as well!

Relevant link: Amsterdam 2011 - Event Eleven photoshoot

Comments (24)

By Walter.MSX

Expert (73)

24-10-2011, 20:00

Reaction : I 'm disappointed.

By snout

Ascended (15187)

24-10-2011, 20:24

Seriously? Why?

By hap

Paragon (2043)

24-10-2011, 20:26

Really? To me it looks like they've done a pretty good job giving (non-visitors) an impression on what this event was like.
*edit* and nice to see the work being done to set-up the place, not as simple as a standard 'oh, some chairs here and we're done' =)

By FiXato

Scribe (1743)

25-10-2011, 01:00

I'm disappointed too!
I would've expected more people to pose with us!

By SLotman

Paragon (1242)

25-10-2011, 09:11

Wow that's a lot of pictures

By Paulbrk

Hero (611)

25-10-2011, 12:55

Let me make a constructive criticism, I would like to help you see better the situation.

I expected a much bigger event, with stands of Konami, but someone who came from Konami to speak to the public of anecdotes of the company.

I see that when the people of Holland makes any such event, does not think much about outsiders who can go, as do an event that lasts less than a day is not very attractive to some who have to spend money on trip and a hotel.

Therefore I recommend that the next time you think better and organize something for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. (like Star Trek conventions here) With many events, contests, games, graphics, demos, like other parties out there.

The Event Eleven was good but I expected something much bigger and much more content.

I hope you do not bother anyone, just ask you to think a bit on the people outside.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

25-10-2011, 13:23

I expected a much bigger event, with stands of Konami, but someone who came from Konami to speak to the public of anecdotes of the company.

There's a difference between sponsoring and participating. We stated that Konami sponsored the event, which in this case resulted in Konami goodies to give to our visitors.

Entrance for E11 was free, three days would be far too expensive for us to keep it free. Keep in mind that the catering was also on the house. We're not sure whether an entrance fee would've influenced the number of people showing up..
Some 80 people signed up for the event, some 60..70 showed up. The vast majority was Dutch, and it was more or less identical to the typical group you'd see on MSX fairs like Nijmegen - although I had the impression there were quite some new faces here.
Star Trek fans outnumber MSX fans by almost astronomical figures, Star Trek related business (people selling fan material and services) and activities too.
Demo parties (Assembly'xx etc.) have thousands of visitors, a lot of them are in fact developers and have a certain drive to win contests (I used to be one of them, so I speak out of experience). There is MSX activity around, but not among the same amount of people. If a yearly MSX1 game contest results in some ten entries, if a previous yearly MSX2 game contest results in two entries, if other artwork (graphics, music, incidental demos) is released only every now and then.., then what makes you think an event like this would suddenly feature enough new content to fill up three days?? And don't get me wrong: I'd like it a lot when it could actually be like that, but currently there're no signs that it would be like that.

Now, of course we'll evaluate E11, and may consider doing it again. Within the crew we certainly had this "The Night Before Tilburg"-vibe in the last week. If people have suggestions for activities: let's hear 'm! As long as you keep in mind that E11 wasn't a fair, but more like a show where people actually have to prepare something, you should be on the right track.

By syn

Prophet (2135)

25-10-2011, 16:42

Judging from the pictures the event may have been boring (a bunch of guys staring at a screen) but the presentations were great, and showing presentations was the whole point as far as I know (+ the socializing part).

Anyway nice pics guys

By TheWhipMaster

Expert (120)

25-10-2011, 18:23

I was there and the event was great !!! Even my girlfriend who is not a msx user did enjoy the ambiance , place ,food and organization !
For me the only down side was the fact that my dutch suck and it ask me lot of effort to understand specially after 8 hours drive ! If you ask me, I would do it again any time ... maybe I would arrive one day earlier....
Thanks again to sama (yes now know who you are ) ,Latok ,Snout ,Sander ....

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

26-10-2011, 00:06

I certainly enjoyed it. Liked the concept of a presentation. Did miss some stands though, if only one.

Now if only i hadn't folded my music quiz paper so it disappeared in the stack...

By WORP3

Paladin (864)

26-10-2011, 09:07

What a lot of pessimism, the guys (with the bad comments) should show some respect instead of making such headless comments

By Paulbrk

Hero (611)

26-10-2011, 17:42

@Wolf, I understand what you say, It was only a sugestion, your event was good

By Lord_Zett

Paladin (807)

26-10-2011, 20:43

nice to see that many ppl came to this event. its a nice idea to let evry boddy show there stuff in a presentation and that one day long.

Better thing than a msx fair. maybe a idea for nijmegen to do that on the stage.

By edoz

Prophet (2501)

26-10-2011, 21:20

It was indeed a very nice event! ... but i didn't see any real MSX powered on

By Lord_Zett

Paladin (807)

26-10-2011, 21:37

next time te do. i when i have somting to show i shoeld do it that way.

By Lord_Zett

Paladin (807)

26-10-2011, 22:16

next time there is a similar event, and I have something to show, I should do it that way

By hbarcellos

Hero (649)

27-10-2011, 14:33

1) Charge a reasonable fee to rent a nice place and for the infrastructure
2) Contests: 12 hour coding game + specific games competition (ex: Konami Soccer)
3) Used stuff marketplace
4) Call the few guys who still sell new stuff (ex: carts)
5) Maybe, create some special carts for the event, just like the Spanish folks do
6) Sell food & beer for the cost price. It's easy to buy several stuff at the supermarket, and sell it with a marginal increase due to errors in the capacity (buying more than needed)
7) with the money from # 1, hire some real nice girls (hot ones), walking around in sexy VG customs and posing for pictures with happy drunk MSX users
8) As the others just said. Make it more than one day. No need to spend a lot of money. Just charge (maybe ask for the money first) and try to get support from video game/technology related companies and rent the place for some days. If someone is paying for the trip + hotel would not mind to pay a little bit more for the organization

With the adequate approach, it shouldn't be hard to get support from companies, retailers and etc... Retro-computing is not SO unknown these days and pretty much all the participants have a reasonable "buying power".

*PS* My friend Muffie said that he's banned AGAIN. Can you guys please mail him about the ban, so, he might be able to defend himself and/or even propose something else?

By snout

Ascended (15187)

27-10-2011, 15:36

Thanks for all your suggestions! Although we have not made any decisions yet, we enjoyed Event Eleven a lot and we would certainly be open to organize more events in the future. This time we just wanted to celebrate a party with our good friends & visitors, and therefore we kept everything completely free, but next time we are likely to ask an entrance fee and/or charge a little bit for food and drinks.

As for muffie: indeed, he was banned AGAIN, because he was trolling AGAIN - despite knowing perfectly well why he was banned twice before (this year) in the first place. We sent him an e-mail, so perhaps he should check his junkmail folder(s). And otherwise he can always contact us. As he is a repeat offender, and looking at the massive amount of mod alerts we received on his person, I don't think there is much room for 'parole' though...

By hbarcellos

Hero (649)

27-10-2011, 16:17

Why don't we try to organize a larger event like: 1st MSX International Meeting before we all get too old for that?

I might try to contact the organizers of this fair
http://www.campus-party.com.br/2012/index.html

and fit a MSX special section in. I'm pretty sure they'll be interested in a side focus on retro computing?

Even being a CLOSE FRIEND of Muffie, I also have some other friends at the local MSX and RETRO general scene...

He'll check his email... But just in case, you guys can use my e-mail and I talk to Muffie. Ask John Hasskink for the address.

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5684)

27-10-2011, 16:25

"John Hasskink"?
Hey, I'm not that kinky, you know..

By the way, I think your point 7) is a bit unfair. We were very fortunate to have the collaboration of Bub and Bob.
Besides that it should be mainly MSX drawing the people at the event.

By FiXato

Scribe (1743)

27-10-2011, 22:43

If there is to be multi-day retro event, it might be an idea to see if it can be co-organised with the Bonami retromuseum, since they already organise a good single-day retrofair twice a year.

As for discussion about bans, please use the Contact us form :)

By sd_snatcher

Prophet (3675)