> AmiGBG 2002 - a report about the fair > By: Kjell Breding, chairman of AmiGBG > A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DAY'S EVENTS The first visitors to the fair found their way to the premises already about half an hour before the grand opening. By this time some of the exhibitors had arrived, but far from all. Still some work remained in the premises with arranging the placement of computers and showcases. When the clock had become 12.00 more visitors started to arrive to the premises, most of the exhibitiors were also done with their preparations by this time. It was time for the fair to begin. In the seminar area a loop with classic Amigademos was spinning throughout the day, this loop was started at 10 o'clock in the morning. The only time the loop was not spinning was when the seminars were being held, once an hour. At 12.30 the AmiGBG chairmain Kjell Breding opened the fair with some brief greetings and the information that Elbox unfortunately had to cancel their trip to AmiGBG in the last minute on account of illness. Sad but true. By this time even more visitors had arrived, and the premises started to be crowded in the exhibitor area. The atmosphere was great already, and it was going to be even better. The first seminar of the day was going to be held at 13.15 by the Gothenburg Computer Group (GDF) but it was unfortunately cancelled on account of that the speaker could not make it to the fair. The following seminar was however held as planned. At 14.15 Adam Chodorowski from SUA held an interesting seminar about AROS that seemed to be appreciated by everyone in the audience. There were however some problems with the sound system which made it hard to hear everything at times if you were sittning in one of the back rows. At 15.15 it was time for A-rec to enter the stage. Mikael Engström told us with passion about his site Amiga Recensent (Reviewer), a source that contains a lot of information if you are interested in reviews of Amiga hard- and software. Let us hope that the number of reviewers and reviews increase even more during this year. The last seminar of the day was held by Michael from Cloanto, Italy. Michael's seminar was professional as always and he showed us how you can runt most versions of AmigaOS emulated under Windows by using the software Amiga Forever 5. In connection to this seminar it was announced by the AmiGBG chairman that the norwegian Amiga magazine Amitopia had decided to contribute with some money to a selected developer. From the stage Martin Blom/AHI was first announced as the chosen one. This was however incorrect information that was corrected later on in the end of the fair. The correct information was that Amitopia had selected the arranging organization AmiGBG as the winner of the prize so that a new fair can be held next year. A very nice initiative – we thank Amitopia from the bottom of our hearts for this friendly gesture! At approximately 17.15 the lottery draw took place from the stage. All visitors that had attended the fair took part in this lottery since they had payed the entry fee to the premises. Two prizes were handed out, one copy of Dangerous Streets and also a copy of Napalm After the draw people started to leave the premises, but still many people were lingering around for a while. It was almost like no one really wanted the day to end! > THE EXHIBITORS The fair had fifteen different interesting exhibitiors for the visitors to visit on the fair. A brief summary of what the different exibitiors were showing on the fair follows here below: AHI/Martin Blom - Martin showed AHI and also presented the new drivers for the SoundBlaster live! ACG - Sold some advertising stuff such as stickers, pins etc. Naturally they also informed the visitors about their association. A-Rec - showed his excellent site Amiga Recensent (Reviewer). AmigaRulez - Mattias had a lot to do with his commitment in AmiGBG, but he also had time to answer questions about his site AmigaRulez. Amitopia - A Norwegian Amiga magazine that also was the official fair magazine of AmiGBG. Sold a special fair issue of the magazine and showed the first issue of Amitopia. Cloanto - Michael demonstrated Amiga Forever with his customary enthusiasm! Explosives, Brother! - Christian and his colleague demonstrated the application Audio Evolution, a very professional program that shows that the Amiga is also a computer for the professional musician. GDF - The gang behind the Underscore party showed among other things a lot of demos from last year's party and also received a lot of preliminary entries from people interested in taking part in their activities. GGS-Data - Gunne sold Amiga hard- and software to the visitors. A lot of people gathered around the GGS-Data showcase during the entire fair. Kaliko - showed us existing and coming Amiga DE-games. Together with his colleagues Johan Rastén had a lot to do during the entire day. Onyxsoft - another exhibitor that was demonstrating Amiga applications and games. Swedish Atariclub - Mille Babic and the other guys showed us that you can still use the Atari computer for several applications. They also announced the Nordic Atarishow that is going to be held in June 2002. S.U.A. - The guys from Stockholm in the Swedish Usergroup of Amiga showed AROS (Amiga Research OS) and sold some old classic Amigamagazines from their collection. Syntax Society - Nice guys from Skåne (a district in the southern part of Sweden) that let the visitors test a lot of cool PPC-games such as Payback and Freespace. They also told the visitors about their user association. Tompa BBS - Tompa stood beside A-Rec at the same table and showed his Nikom BBS. This BBS has several hundred active members. > SUMMARY AmiGBG 2002 was exactly the success that the organizers had hoped for. Between 400 and 500 persons visited the fair, it was a very pleasing outcome since this was the first Swedish Amiga fair in four years! A lot of visitors and exhibitors thanked the organizers after the fair for a nice arrangement. This was very nice, and it certainly gave the organizers some new energy to possible future events. The fair also offered the visitors some news and new developments, a progress report about Amiga OS 4.0 was available in the AmiGBG helpdesk for those who were interested, Martin Blom demonstrated the new drivers for the SoundBlaster live!, Kaliko showed previews of their coming releases and GGS-Data showed and sold the latest hardware for the Amiga, among other things the Mediator PCI 4000. AmiGBG would like to take this opportunity to thank all visitors, exhibitors and assistants that made all of this possible. Thank you very much everyone!