The Gathering starts at nine o’clock Wednesday morning. But some people arrives earlier, just to chill out on the parking lot.
They bring their caravans and tents and make a good time out of their stay.
We went outside to see what the early birds was doing, and the sight of the parking lot really impressed us.The first thing we saw was lots of cars, but there were noone inside them. They had Gathered around the 17 caravans that were parked all over the parking lot. They were sitting around campfires talking about earlier experiences and what they would do at The Gathering this year.
In the south end of the lot we ran into some boys from Odal: Petter (21), Pål Anders (16), Kim and Patrick. They arrived 18:00 and were sitting around a campfire when we asked for a talk. They smiled and accepted us gently. Pål Anders and Kim was first-time-visitors, while Petter and Patrick both had been at The Gathering before. They come to The Gathering for playing games and watching demos, graphics and listen to the music compos. Petter was even planning to join the Fast Music, High Quality Music and Wild compo.
Petter and Patrick hoped that The Gathering would have better network, and more stable electricity this year. They also hoped that the stands would be as good as they were in the previous years.
Pål Anders and Kim could only say that they were really looking forward to take part in this happening and hoped that their expectations would be realized. When we asked them if they had heard about the Dance Dance Revolution competition, they replied that DDR was great, but they didn’t feel good enough to participate in the European Cup. They were however looking forward to some physical exercise on the dancepad.
Three of the boys are going to participate in the Counter-Strike compo, even though their ambitions are low, and they mostly play for fun. “If we win a match, we take it as a bonus”, Petter added.
When asked about the conferences held this year, they told us they where looking forward to the Valve conference, but because of the popularity, they expected there could be hard to get one of the available seats for it.They arrived 6:00 pm Tuesday and they were looking forward to barbeque and sitting around the campfire in the late night. They live not to far away, so the whole early arriving was planned. We in crew wish them and the rest of the participants this year a great gathering.
Written by: Mats Frøiland - Pictures taken by: Helge Øyvind Hoel
