*Blocks out the whatever-it-is cheap schlock-cop-TV garbage the still-drunken scroller group are watching and attempts to concentrate on the Pink Floyd-ish melodies floating up from the front of the hall.*

The rest of Friday evening was pleasurably occupied by a rerun of previous demos and competitions and a DJ-set from Alkana, which was melodic and earwormingly hummable without being too loud. The scroller group concentrated on getting severely drunk and quit trying to play their stuff louder than everything else once the volume of the main speakers was uprated to ‘deafening’.

The night shuttle was a welcome way to get home and several hours of sleep followed.

Breakfast was once again a set-up-for-the-day meal, with a wide selection of rolls and breads, cold meats, cheeses, spreads, salad dishes, fruit and cereal, as well as unlimited tea and coffee. German mixed fruit tea is rather delicious, I’m finding, and better than weak black tea with no milk.

Having made an obligatory stop at the nearby Netto to stock up on red wine, we headed out to walk back to the party place, which my husband had worked out from Google Maps was accessible via a pedestrian bridge across the motorway and river next to the railway bridge.

Several kilometres later, we passed under the railway bridge.

No sign of any pedestrian access, although we could see people walking across the bridge from somewhere. We carried on walking in an effort to find a way to access the bridge, and eventually saw a tunnel under the road and a walkway to the station. On the other side of the tracks was a ramp leading up to the railway bridge, and at the other side of the bridge we were greeted with the sight of the retail park location where the party place is.

On entry, we discovered that the scroller group were in full effect and making a large amount of drunken noise. They were watching a dodgy-looking cop-style show on a modern laptop, with the sound coming through a massive speaker that looked like something out of a cartoon. Far too space hog for my liking and not much respect for others either. The guys sitting opposite us on our table kindly found me some earplugs which do deaden things a little. It’s not only dark in here, it’s noisy too.

Fortunately the scroller guys left about an hour in to get some kip and I had a couple of peaceful hours watching the early competitions, or ‘compos’, the trackable music and the photography. Then there was a unique compo, where one of the local arts colleges had challenged people to design a video for their media wall. The judging had already closed, this had been completed before the party even opened, so the final shortlisted five were shown and the results announced mid-afternoon.

After that, we went for a walk around the retail park and had a quick nose into the supermarket to make sure there was nothing there which we absolutely had to have. On return, the random sight of a remote controlled camera floating around the hall at head-height was causing some stir. Looking like a typical flying saucer, with several lights winking on its lower edge, it landed in the main aisle and skittered away from its controller, squeaking furiously. A few minutes later it was up again, causing sceners to duck as it skimmed low over the tables. This time the back wall of the venue did for it as it didn’t so much kiss the curtain in front of it, but slammed into it full tilt, clattering to a stop on the floor.

As the controller rushed to retrieve it, the evening’s compos started up, so that’ll be a whole new blog post.

For more information you can listen in via SceneSat radio, there is also a live video link.

And now, if nobody minds, I’m off to have a few sherberts and enjoy the old skool executable music compo, which is one of my favourites.