Events

A computer party held in Finland every summer since 1992. It began in a school in Kauniainen with over 700 visitors and Future Crew's Unreal winning the PC demo competition, moved to Kerava and then to Helsinki, and by the late 1990s drew thousands, many of them to play games. Its organisers formed a company in 1995, added a winter event in 2007 and became part of Telia in 2018, and the demo competitions still run.

Breakpoint was a demoparty held in Bingen am Rhein, Germany, from 2003 to 2010. Its competitions put C64, Amiga and PC work before a shared audience while keeping hardware and size categories distinct. The organisers ended the series after its eighth event, explaining the work required of the volunteer team.

A demo party held in St Petersburg since July 1999. Its first results split the competitions between the PC and Amiga on one side and the ZX Spectrum on the other, and in 2025 it still ran ZX Spectrum demo, graphics and game competitions alongside entries for Soviet-era computers.

A demo party held in Gothenburg, Sweden, between 2010 and 2019, run by the groups Genesis Project and Up Rough with others. It gave the Commodore 64 and the Amiga equal billing, with separate demo, music and graphics competitions for each; Fairlight won the C64 demo competition six times and Spaceballs the Amiga demo competition three times.

A Swedish computer festival started in 1994 by two 14-year-olds in a school canteen in Malung. It moved to Borlänge in 1997 and to the Elmia exhibition centre in Jönköping in 2001, ran demo competitions alongside its network gaming, and holds the Guinness World Record for the largest LAN party: 22,810 visitors at DreamHack Winter 2013.

The fighting-game tournament that began as Battle by the Bay, a Street Fighter contest at an arcade in Sunnyvale, California, in 1996. Renamed Evolution in 2002, it produced 'Evo Moment 37' in 2004, moved to Las Vegas in 2005 and drew 9,182 entrants in 2023. It has changed hands three times since 2021: Sony and RTS bought it, Sony sold its stake in 2025, and RTS, by then owned by Saudi Arabia's Qiddiya, took full control in 2026.

Computer & Video Games announced its Golden Joysticks in July 1983: five awards for British software, voted for by readers. Ultimate's Jetpac was the first Game of the Year. The ceremonies moved from a Mayfair restaurant to a Thames riverboat, an army barracks and the Kensington Roof Gardens, EMAP widened the vote to its other magazines, and the awards still run today under Future, voted for online.

A demo party held every Easter from 1997 to 2002 in the Heidmarkhalle in Fallingbostel, northern Germany. It joined two parties first held separately in 1996, the PC party Mekka and the all-format Symposium. Visitors came for the Amiga, PC and C64 competitions, and its organisers banned Quake to keep it a party for sceners. Breakpoint took over the Easter slot in 2003, and Revision in 2011.

An annual gathering of Quake players that began in a hotel in Garland, Texas, in August 1996. id Software took over running it, turned it into a free four-day event with a bring-your-own-computer LAN hall, tournaments and John Carmack's keynote, and by 2004 it drew more than 5,000 people. It is still held near Dallas every August, run by id's owner ZeniMax Media, which Microsoft agreed to buy in 2020.

A demo party held every Easter since 2011 at the E Werk in Saarbrücken, Germany, started when the Breakpoint series ended in 2010. Its organisers, including former Breakpoint and Mekka & Symposium people, called it a completely new event, not a successor. It runs competitions for the PC, the Amiga and oldskool machines such as the C64, was held online from 2020 to 2022, and its organisers call it the world's biggest pure demoscene event.

A computer party held in Norway at Easter since 1992, and in the Vikingskipet Olympic ice arena at Hamar since 1996. It began as a demo party run by the groups Deadline and Crusaders, and its Amiga demo competition was won by Wayfarer, Desert Dream and three Spaceballs demos in a row. By the late 1990s about 4,500 people came each year, most of them to play games on the network.

A demo party held in Denmark every December from 1991 to 2002, mostly in the town of Aars. It drew 1,252 visitors in its first year and about 2,500 in its second, and its Amiga demo competition was won by State of the Art, Origin, Nexus 7 and Closer. By the late 1990s gamers outnumbered sceners, and 2001 was the last year it held proper demo competitions.

Walter Day opened the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, in 1981 and began declaring world records from behind its counter. Magazines printed his tables, Life photographed his players, and a network television show filmed his 'Video Game Olympics'. The arcade became a record-keeping organisation that Guinness World Records relied on, and in 2018, under new owners, it stripped Billy Mitchell of his Donkey Kong scores, which led to six years of litigation.

A Commodore 64 demo party held in the Netherlands since April 1995, first in Utrecht, then in Gelderland and, since 2010, in Someren. It has run irregularly: yearly in the late 1990s, every two years from 2004 to 2018, and again in 2023, 2024 and 2026. Its demo competition has been won by Booze Design's Edge of Disgrace, Oxyron's Coma Light 13 and Censor Design and Oxyron's Comaland.