Hi all!
Well, let's give my opinion on all this ^_^.
I personally have mixed feelings about this fair. On the one hand, I had a great time, but on the other hand, definately no credit for that to the organization. The fair was organized very messy, and I experienced a huge amount of desinterest on CGV's side. I only visited the infamous bottom floor to buy a drink, once - nice going for an entrance which should leave a first impression (NOT). And if I read on msx.org from someone that he thought the 4 stands on the bottom floor were the entire MSX fair, and missed all the rest, I can get so angry! It's such a waste, it could've been a nice day for him, but instead it became a short visit which left a totally warped, bad impression about 'what's left' of the MSX scene.
As snout mentioned before, apparantly they had no clue even about who their participants were. "MRC?? TNI??? Never heard of them..." they indeed said. And after that the man behind the counter went to his 'superior' to ask whether we were really participants. Whoa, it was insulting. The man was actually thinking we were lying or something, rediculous! A little good faith won't hurt anyone, and this was just plain rude. And with the statement about not knowing MRC and TNI, I felt like he was saying something like, "MSX is so passé, I don't care enough to know what's going on, so why don't you get real and use your PC like all the rest of the sensible people?". Well he didn't literally say that ofcourse, but that was kind of the bad aftertaste that remark left. It sounded demeaning, to me at least.
If I may quote GuyveR800: "Several standholders were all alone in one room, that way recieving a lot less visitors, and you had to go on some kind of adventure quest to find new dungeons with more MSX holyness!". Yeah! Well actually that quest was quite exciting. But I ended up in a room where they did massages... ;p Anyways, on a more serious note, ofcourse this is rediculous. I really felt sorry for Rinus Stoker, sitting there alone with only the occasional passer-by. Rooms do have a kind of cosiness to them, they do make the amount of visitors seem higher than they are, you can walk around a bit, and it isolates the sound a bit. Those are definately advantages to rooms instead of halls. However, there's rooms, and there's SMALL rooms, like most were in Tilburg. There was barely enough space to move sometimes, I had to step aside for people passing in and out of the room continuously, it was just too crowded. In addition to the large amount of people in the rooms, the ventilation was also very bad so it was often really hot and humid, especially on the top floor.
To quote a certain person: "cant imagine that its so hard to demonstrate meridian in a 5x5m room. Ok, its quite small but meridian could be demonstrated on just 1 computer. And a room filled with a crowd is something i cant imagine anymore." I mean, FUCK YOU dude. First of all, you obviously weren't there, so shove your lame scepticism in your arse and go fuck yourself. Secondly, it wasn't only a 5x5 room, but a 5x5 room with a full square of tables, reducing the visitor's space to about 2x2 metres. I'll do the math for you: that is 4 square metres, or 1 square metre per person if 4 people are in the room at once. And aside from TNI and er... someone else
, of all people they put the most active participant in there too, being msx.org, which announced on beforehand that they'd do stuff like presentations, for which they need space to fit somewhat of a crowd (YES, there was). Msx.org put a lot of effort in the organization of their events, because they, like me, believe that MSX fairs should nowadays be a bit more than just showing 'new products', and because the Tilburg organization doesn't organize such things they took the liberty to do so instead. However the Tilburg organization lacked any kind of respect for that, and pretty much dragged their efforts through the mud because of pure disinterest. No heart for MSX at all.
One more thing, the fair is indeed too short aswell. This is partly to blame to a lot of participants leaving early in the past, and now still (I have problems with it at the Bussum fair aswell), but it could still stay open for another hour for the 'real' msx-diehards, couldn't it? I never understood why they decided to stop at 16:00 instead of the usual 17:00. Anyways the present may be different than the past. You see, to me the atmosphere at the fairs is getting better and better, and I think there's somewhat of a 'revival' going on here aswell. What I mean is, the amount of 'MSX core users' has increased a lot, this can be noticed in the Oss fair getting much more visitors than the previous years, in more people staying at the Tilburg fair past 16:00, etc. Aside from the misorganization, I talked to a lot of people and really had a lot of fun, and would gladly have stayed half an hour longer.
So, enough complaining, let's think about the future. Someone already shouted 'boycot!', but although I can understand the sentiment I agree with Rob (sunrise) here in his statement that boycotting really shouldn't be an issue now, it's not supportive to the MSX scene. What seems best to me is that the Tilburg fair's organization would be taken over or co-organized by a more active MSX group like msx.org. It doesn't necessarily have to be organized in the same place, but it should definately carry the label of successor to the Tilbeurs, just like the MSX fair in Bussum is also still known as 'the new Zandvoort'. Being the organizer of the latter myself I speak from experience here when I say that on all aspects this gave the Bussum fair a huge jumpstart, which other 'new' fairs like the Oss one never had. That way you can tap in to the still existing popularity of the fair, get advice from the previous organizers, and won't have to start from scratch. Visitor-wise, participants-wise, and organization-wise, it's never been really difficult and Jaap, being the experienced organizer of the old Zandvoort fair, helped me out a lot and gave us from TNI enough inertia to run the fair by ourselves now.
To achieve this, the msx.org's initiative to write a letter is a good one (you can put my name under it aswell). I believe the CGV had a hard time gathering people willing to organize the fair this year, and that it should really be taken over from the old organizers and get a fesh new start. Sunrise and the MRC are mentioned as possible new organizers. But, although I don't really know anything about the situation they're in, I think Sunrise is busy enough as they are. Even though it may not seem much, a fair is quite a lot of work, especially if you want to make it 'more' than just a couple of booths selling stuff, it all adds up and shouldn't be underestimated. However when I see the effort msx.org already puts in fairs now, being but plain participants yet adding a significant extra touch, and the professional way they organize things with a dedicated team, I definately can see them putting together a successful 'successor' to Tilburg. If I may name some other people who might be interested in helping out, Wolf indicated that he might want to organize a Tilbug Next-Gen (;p), and I think the Oss people might be interested aswell. If they're not, you can at least ask them for advice on how to do it. They'll also have contacts where you (being more internet-oriented) don't.
Another subject comes to mind, I heard some people say they'd like the fair to return to a hall instead of rooms. I partially agree. The rooms like they are on Tilburg are just not suitable for a fair. However, when talking about rooms in general, I personally don't see the big advantage of a large hall to the classrooms which are used on the Bussum fair. It adds a certain atmosphere to the fair which is just... different. Both are good. Anyways, even though now some people said this I don't feel tempted to abandon my current location, but it would perhaps be rather cool if the successor of the Tilbeurs would be held in a reasonably-sized hall. Empty stands must be avoided at all cost (it looks depressing), so the hall should be picked with care, and there are also factors like for example sufficient power for a computer fair which should be considered. Also, I agree that it should be in a more central location in the Netherlands. Tilburg (or Oss, for that matter) is just too far to the South for people coming from the northern provinces (sorry Belgian people ;p), and someplace around the center of the netherlands would be a better option. After all, if you're gonna redo the fair, do it well, eh? ^_^.
Anyways, on a last note, I must ofcourse also apply all this to my own (rather: TNI's) fair. I know the past few years haven't been without problems, but I like this fair and want it to stay the success it has been so far, and perhaps even surpass Tilburg. For the people still wondering: yes, I will organize a Bussum fair again this year, and again next year, and again the year thereafter, and again... I have no intentions at all to stop, the thought never even crossed my mind. Anyways, I guess Bussum has to improve on some points aswell
. Since Jaap left the fair's organization last year it was even a bit messier than before, but in the end it has been much more of a TNI team effort, and this year it will be even more so, so I am confident enough that we can make this year better. There are several things which could be improved. First of all, we'll ditch the entrance fee, which will save us a lot of trouble, and lower the booth prices. In the end they appeared to be too high last year. Secondly, we will give a fair date much sooner this year, I will pay the Uit-Wijk a visit sometime soon. I can already tell you though that it will as usually be late september or (very) maybe early october. And we will again put a lot of focus on the MSX-Marathon, the events-part of the fair! Let's have a lot of fun again ^_^ </commercial break>
Ahwell, anyways, it's a long story (but then again msx.org's always complaining that I should post more ;p), but... gah (f00king long post ^_^;
. That's the way I feel about it.
~Grauw
Posted: April 27 2003, 22:27 
