Underground Conference - The History
   Past, present and future...

ucIIe location (1996) The Underground Conference is one of the oldest scene partys in Germany that still take place.

It all started back in 1994. After attending THE PARTY 4, some german sceners were pretty pissed about current partys. Today we can say that TP4 was the beginning of those "commercial" styled partys like most are today. Members of PURGE decided to do just the opposite and organized the Underground Conference in early 1995. It was a very small party held in an old youth club near Stuttgart. It was small, but the feeling was great. It was planned as a one-time party.

In 1996 I (scamp/vacuum) decided to do another Underground Conference, this time in Bingen/Germany (where I live). I changed a few things. The biggest change was that the second Underground Conference (called ucIIe, like Deluxe Paint II enhanced) was going to be an Open-Air-Party. PURGE and KLF (Keen like Frogs) joined the organizing team, and together we made this party a very nice event. At UCIIe there was one hard thing we had to fight against: The weather. The Party was held in May 1996, and unlike other years that years may was extremely cold. Good we had that huge campfire, else we all would have died ;)

To understand the history of the UC, I have to tell you a bit about my personal past so you understand. Skip this part if you don't care ;) Because of the bad weather, a lot of ppl who announced they would come to uc2e didn't. After the party I had huge bills to pay. Back then I didn't have an income and was still going to school. It took me half a year to pay all those bills. After that and some personal trouble I left the scene for organizing my own future (which was very dark back then). I lost contact to most of my scene friends. That's why there wasn't a Underground Conference in 1997 and 1998. During 1998 I finally had my own business running, and I decided to get back into the scene. I joined the United Cracking Force (UCF) as a coder and also re-formed my own group VACUUM a bit later. In early 1999 I got back in contact with the german demoscene. I was very happy to see that many of my friends of the past were still active. But I also noticed that the partys across europe I loved so much either died (Wired) or got even more commercial. So it was time for an Underground Conference.

In June 1999 (I learned not to risk bad weather in May again ;) the third Underground Conference (UC3d) took place, again with a different, improved location. As quite some time had passed by since UCIIe, for many visitors this was a "new" party. But also quite a few dudes from back UC95 and UCIIe showed up. Smash Designs and (the rest of the dead) Purge joined the organizing team. UC3d was a great success. Again it was small, again less ppl appeared than planned, but we had tons of fun. It again had this unique feeling only the Underground Conference has. If you ever attended one, you know what I mean. If you didn't, you now have the possibility to find out. Since the ending of uc3d I got lots of requests for a another Underground Conference. Some ppl even bugged me several times a week ;). As my own business is now running well and growing, my main problem about the Underground Conference is fixed now: The unpayed bills after each Party ;)

For this years Underground Conference I decided to go international. Not because I want a much bigger party (I don't). UC always has been and will be a party for the "real" sceners, for the hardcore freaks nobody understands in the "normal" world out there. But those ppl do not only exist in Germany, they exist all over Europe (and the rest of the World). Unlike the past, I'm now also able to let the Party grow a bit as a lot of people are willing to help and my personal situation is good. At this point I want to thank all the helpers of the UC's in the past and the future. Yes, uc4gw will be bigger than the previous UC's. But we will limit it to 150-200 persons, so it still stays a small, friendly party. As before, you won't see local lamers or quakers. You will meet lots of interessting people from different sub-scenes and countries, you will be able to enjoy crazy and funny competitions. This is Underground Conference, and it will ever be.

Yours,

Scamp/Vacuum^UCF