The Gathering
The Gathering is one of the largest computer parties in the world. Founded in 1992 by Crusaders, a demo group, it quickly grew from 1100 participants to over 2500 when it first moved to the Viking Ship at Hamar. Nowdays, the party is even bigger: over 4800 participants, 250 volunteers and a large number of sponsors meets every easter to celebrate technology.
During the five days the event is taking place, everyone sleep, eat and drink inside the hall - if they sleep. Music is contantly hammering out of large speakers, gamers are fragging each other and people are competing with each other in a large number of compos. What could be a better way of spending easter
Early years
I have been participating at The Gathering since 1998. Without knowing what
would meet us at Hamar, me and some friends got hold of some computer equiment
and bought some tickets. I actually borrowed a nearly brand new computer from
godfather which had some faulty memory sticks. Without enough knowledge to debug
the faulty sticks, the easter was more or less a lesson in how to install
Windows 98 beta 5. I still remember the installation key :-)
The computer problems did not matter as the network quality was shaky at best.
During the first three days we had net for about 2 hours. The reason for this
was both problems with some backbone parts, which where held in customs, and the
famous "512 workgroups should be enough for everyone" problem in Windows 9x.
Anyhow, regardless of the network problems and my own computer problems, TG98
was still the best year. Ever.
We returned to the Viking Skip in 1999 with our own equiment. I had a Intel Pentium II 266MHz with a whooping 256MB of RAM and 13Gig disk. Thanks to my sponsor (hey, mam :-), I could afford a 2x CD recorder. Life was good, and the fact that Cisco Systems supplied the network made the experience even greater. The network was working. All the time. Or, as Cisco put it: "The Network Works. No Excuses."
Cisco returned in 2000 to repeat the success.
Joining the crew
The volunteers at The Gathering are called "The Crew" or just "crew". This crew consists of around 200-250 people which all works all easter for free to create this massive event. It has evolved from a highly unorganized bunch of people to a hierarchical organization with specialized functions.
The crew now consists of five main sections with their own sub sections:
- Core
- Event
- Info
- Security
- Tech
| Year | Crew | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Tech:Server | Member |
| 2004 | Tech:Server | Member |
| 2005 | Tech:Server | Shift leader |
| 2006 | Tech:Server | Member |
| 2007 | CrewOmbudsman (CO) | |
| 2008 | Info | Organizer |
| 2009 | Info | Organizer |
After watching the crew with envy for some years, I tried to join in 2001 after having some experience with organizing our own little party, The Summit. As I soon discovered, it was not easy to join the crew. I was turned down that year and the next year.
My breakthrough came in 2003 when Andreas-Johann Ulvestad (Norwolf) needed someone to run the new video streaming service. As I has played with the Windows 2000 and 2003 streaming services, I was confident enough to apply for the job after most of the other crews were filled. Needless to say: I got it. I was in!
Joining the management team
After being responsible for the server part of the video streaming for some years, I was elected CrewOmbudsman (CO) by the crew of 2006. The role of the CrewOmbudsman is to protect the crew in all important matters and to resolve conflicts internally. The CO is a member of the management team for The Gathering. The seven members of this management group (Organizers from Core, Event, Info, Tech and Security plus the crewombudsman and participants ombudsman) are responsible for organizing the whole event. I had previously worked with the group when I was a member of the KANDU board, but being a member of the group itself proved to be much more work than I could ever have imagined. Just think about it: we are organizing a party with more than 5000 participants which lasts for 5 days involving a large quantity of technical equiments which sometimes are not built for the kind of activities that we are using it for. For example, a lot of the networking equipment sold today without a hefty price tag are supposed to be used in office setups with sporadic, low volume traffic. We are trying to push the maximum amount of data on all ports. Simultanously.
No wonder that is does not work all the time. Planning is not everything - we need some luck too :-)
Although it was more work than I thought before I took the job, I really enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed it so much that I stepped down from being the representative for the whole crew to become the Organizer for Info in June 2007. My job now is to supervise 5 crews with over 40 members and to make sure that all the participants get all the information they need. Quite fun, actually. Especially when I have such a great bunch of people working under me.