TG17

My first trip to The Gathering 

​The Gathering is over for this time and the expectations is on the roof the next year. TG17 as my first time was a pleasant experience. So many people with the same interest, I felt right at home. Everywhere I went I could see people dressing and behaving comfortably and with no worries. Anywhere I want I could say hi to people or get all worked up by amazing computers without anyone looking weird at me, one of the machines I saw even mad me jump of excitement and the owner only smiled. The Crew were so friendly and answered all my noob questions. 

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It all started for me the Wednesday morning, where me and my brother arrived a short while before the doors opened. We waited for a while in the car for some of the Q to disappear. The lack of info made me go into the wrong queue the first time and I ended up with my stuff in main entrance without having checked in, so I had to go back through the masses to the right queue where I could check in. here I got a bracelet with a NFC chip that I would end up using quite a bit through the festival. It was used every time I would go in and out of the hall and when I bought TG merchandise and when I gathered Badges. 

When we got in to the hall there were lined up a lot of desks all marked with row and seat nr. and the desks had small lines on them showing you designated space to use. Which make it simple to set up my shelf without having to discuss with my neighbour where I could or could not set it up.

The shelf we rolled in on wheels and we simply lifted it up on the desk where we plugged in the power cable and the network cable. I turned my main switch on and voila, It was ready for use.
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while I was setting up my stuff while my brother was out getting more, a woman came over and wanted to talk to me, she was a reporter from the radio station P2 and wanted to interview me which they actually used in their program you can find here
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The Gathering is a big LAN party but it is much more than that. In the middle of the hall there was a scene where they had; shows and concerts where Freddy Kalas showed up and held a lively concert that lifted the roof of the festival. But he wasn’t the only one; Da Tweekaz ans Sonny Alven also showed up and made a really good atmosphere. They also had Fun & Games events here where they got participant from the crowd to join in.

Foto: Håkon Instefjord

on the edge of the hall there were lined up stands where different sponsors etc. showed off their tech, amazing case mods, VR and much more where showed and setup ready for us to interact with. Different schools also had stands here, university trying to get new students and even some companies trying to find new apprentices were around here. 

The smarter stands were the stand where we could buy computer parts, this I could see were crucial, sometimes shit happens and things may brake during transportation, then it’s nice to know that you could find a replacement part right here at the festival, especially since it’s during the holidays and most stores around is closed these days. 

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​The stand the really cached my eyes where the one that had books, games, badges, bracelets, actions figures, hats and much more. The guy in charge of this stand where there most of the day, way longer that any of the other stands. Yes I got some goodies from this stand..

​At night, or rather in the morning people were sleeping all over the place, in chairs, on the floor, around the edge of the hall, in the sleeping hall, camping wagons, tents and in cars. Me and my brother slept in the car.

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​Did I game the whole time I were there? No, ofc I were on the raids with my guild but most of the time I could not hear my teammates through all the noise in the hall even with the volume at max. most of the time I were between 80-85dB where I was sitting.  So I was moving around a lot, looking, talking, and gathering the badges given out by the hosts. These were like real life achievements. It works easy, there is a list of all the achievements you can get and then you did the stuff, taking picture of it or some kind of proof of it, then bringing it to the creative or gaming stand depending on which achievement you’ve done and they would register it on my NFC chip and give me a badge. 

​during the time I were there I got 6 badges, two for social media, one for participating in a creative competition, one for a IRL builder (my shelf), one for streaming from the festival, and on for throwing garbage. Next year I want to do more of these. 

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The atmosphere was good, and it was structured with about 400 Crew members making sure everything went according to plan and making sure we were all safe. They checked where people were not sleeping in front of emergency escapes or beneath the desks. They also checked that the shelfs were safe and gathering garbage, cleaning and so much more. Overall making it a really enjoyable event for everyone.

And speaking of atmosphere every few minutes a guy would yell ARNEEEEE and the rest of the people in the hall would join in making a massive roar yelling for the guy called Arne. There are different stories why they do this, some say that they guy called Arne got lost and the started yelling for him. Others say that his mother were calling someone else on the festival to get a hold of him, and they yelled for him. However, they original story really went, the result is the same. They now yell for Arne every now and then. It works as a nice ice breaker and one of the many things that brings the people closer together. 

​This year’s Cosplay was really good, they were all over the festival. Ready to be taken pictures of. It always makes me look in awe, so much time and effort resulting in a such a fantastic result. Salute for every cosplayer that joined in and supplying us with some eye candy

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​This year I had to travel home early so I left Saturday morning, so I didn’t get to participate in the Pimp my Reol competition, but I’ve gotten a lot of new good ideas for it for next year, so I’m coming back stronger than ever next year.
The computer I used for this festival you can find the build for it here