Alternative Party 2011

mini-review by Felice

And so it comes to pass, another year spins quickly round to mid-October, and it is time for the regular annual trip out to Helsinki. We haven't quite forgotten just how many times we have flown out there over the years. Attending Alternative Party from the beginning, back in the heady days of Easter 1998, we weren't quite sure just what we had let ourselves in for. But, judging from this article alone, visiting Helsinki has become an eagerly awaited time of year; with the heavy associated pull on our hearts when the aeroplane doors close and we push back from the terminal walkway, on our journey home.

We have flown out to Helsinki with quite a few airlines over the years, ranging from budget to scheduled. This time it is the turn of Finnair (though not on a British Airways-associated time) to fly us out from Heathrow - Terminal 3 to Helsinki. It was a good flight, not too early either, although we had an early start, leaving my place (CiH having arrived the night before and stayed overnight on our spare sofa-bed) around 5am in the morning. This was largely to ensure we got to the airport in plenty of time, as Heathrow can be notorious for queueing, particularly through the customs.

Dropping the car off at Quality Airport Parking close to Heathrow was a doodle, which helped bearing in mind our slightly befuddled states at that time of the morning. We got taken in a mini-van, along with our cases, to Heathrow, where we immediately rushed into the airport, found out where we needed to go to check in and joined the back of the small queue.

For such an early time in the morning, Heathrow wasn't too bad for the queueing, although I ended up with an extra security check which involved going through one of the newfangled bodyscanner devices that were recently installed there. This showed up no problem and, once through this, we went into the departure lounge to wait for our flight.

A decent cooked breakfast was what was required at that point as we'd had no breakfast prior to leaving my place, so we sought out a Wetherspoons-ish type pub which carried out this job beautifully for us. The food was good quality too and not too expensive either; a little more compared to the High Street but not overtly so.

Our flight over went like a dream and it wasn't long before we were at the now familiar environs of Helsinki-Vantaa airport. Buying a travelcard each to cover for local bus and metro travel around the city area, we located the famous 615 service and got seats on the next available one that took us to the railway station.

We'd had a prearranged plan in mind to be met by Q-Funk (Martin-Eric Racine - who some of you may know of or who have heard of from Atari circles over the years) and his girlfriend, Henna. They were standing outside the station when our bus pulled up, so it was good to see them again. After the greetings were over, they accompanied us to the hotel where we got our stuff checked in, then the four of us went for a meal to a nearby Nepalese restaurant in Ruoholahti as things hadn't quite got going at the partyplace yet. The hotel we were staying in, by the way, was the Holiday Inn Ruoholahti, a lovely hotel in the business district of the same name. This is the second time we have stayed there and if future Alternative Party events are held at the Cable Factory it'll be the de facto standard. Yes, we're still sceners but like a number of us in other scenes too, we're of the feeling that we're getting a bit old for sleeping bags and mattresses on the floor.

After our lovely meal, Marty and Henna departed and we made our way over to the Cable Factory for the Alternative Party 2011. This year's theme and style was 'Red Machines' - celebrating the life of the USSR, before Communism fell back in 1989 or so. It took a little while to get through the queueing system that was imposed this year. Once in, we located some computer places together within the huge Merikaapelihalli (hall) where the party was being held.

The layout of the party was slightly different again, this year. The Cafe Soihtu had been moved down to the side area close to the stage, allowing people to sit and enjoy a coffee or similar whilst watching the mainstage action. Towards the entrance to the party there was an excellent display of Russian memorabilia. Yes, a lot of it was quite kitsch but interesting to see. Next to this was the hackerspace area which one of our other dear friends, Paavo (pahartik) Hartikainen, was involved with.

Along and close by were a collection of retro gaming consoles, I think there was at least one Sega Megadrive amongst the collection, along with a Dreamcast, Sega Master System and others such as SNES and other Nintendo systems there too. Close by the gaming systems were the tables containing computer places, which was largely the area where we had set up our laptops side by side, my new Macbook Pro and Chris's Dell machine, still going strong after all these years.

Scenesat were broadcasting live from Alternative Party 2011 and were sat immediately in front of the computer places. Although Ziphoid and Truck weren't there this year, I believe most of the broadcasting was produced by T-101, one of the other Scenesat regulars.

One of the reasons for attending the party was to attend an important meeting that was being held in one of the party rooms on the very future of Alternative Party itself. The organisers were beginning to feel that things were getting a little samey and stale. What we were largely concerned with was that there should definitely be more Alternative Party events in due course, whereas the initial threat was that there might be no more.

The decision to give the party name itself a rest was taken; this was felt a better compromise rather than having a weak event with the same name, as had happened some years ago despite best intentions by the organisers. So for 2012, this was the case, though some of the organisers came up with an event called 'Wark Fest' held in the Merikaapelihalli (Cable Factory) during the October of that year. Unfortunately that was not an event that CiH and myself made the trip to, due to various reasons. However, the Alternative Party event was confirmed for 2013 a few months ago and we'll be there as per usual, We're looking forward to it too as it has been one of our favourite parties for many years now.

Hope to see some readers there in due course and in the future !

Cheers,

Felice.

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