On 22 and 23 April 1995 a community centre in Utrecht hosted a party for one computer, the Commodore 64. Reflex’s Radio Napalm won its demo competition with 756 points. The party was called X, and it kept going. Thirty-one years later, in June 2026, X was held for the seventeenth time, in the village of Someren in the south of the Netherlands, and 179 people voted on the demo that won. Booze Design showed Edge of Disgrace there in 2008, Oxyron Coma Light 13 in 2012, and Censor Design and Oxyron Comaland in 2014. In September 2026 the users’ chart of C64 demos on CSDb, the scene’s database, placed Coma Light 13 tenth and Edge of Disgrace twelfth.
Fast facts
- First held: 22–23 April 1995, in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
- Machine: Commodore 64 only; the 1997 edition also had PC competitions.
- Organisers: the Dutch group Success + The Ruling Company (SCS*TRC) from the start, joined by the Dutch group Xenon in 2000 and by Silicon Limited in 2006, according to CSDb.
- Where: Utrecht (1995–1996), Eindhoven (1997), Hengelo in Gelderland (1998, 2001, 2004 and 2008 by CSDb’s listing), and Someren in North Brabant since 2010.
- Editions: 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, every two years from 2004 to 2018, then 2023, 2024 and 2026.
The 1990s
CSDb lists two groups behind X’95: Focus and Success + The Ruling Company, a Dutch cracking group founded in 1994. Three of that group’s founders, Burglar, CBA and Nightshade, were among the organisers, and Burglar and CBA were still on the list in the 2010s. The next year’s party, again in Utrecht, is where Crest released Krestology, which CSDb records as the winner of the demo competition. In April 1997 the party moved to the auditorium of the Technical University in Eindhoven and was run jointly with the group Nostalgia as X’97 Takeover. Its results file lists thirteen competitions, only three of them for the C64, and No Name’s Holy Refuge won the C64 demo competition with 19 points to Xenon’s 17.
X’98 moved to Hengelo in Gelderland, in September. Booze Design’s Soul won the demo competition with 65 points, well clear of Smash Designs’ Scream on 37, and the results were signed by Burglar of SCS*TRC as “head of jury”. Reporting on a Polish C64 party in September 1999, the English edition of the German magazine GO64! called it “the famous X’98 that had been really fine” and added that “the X’99 is cancelled anyway”.
Around the millennium
X came back in November 2000 as X’2000 – The Reunion, with the Dutch group Xenon among the organisers. Xenon’s Arcanum won the demo competition. At X’2001 the winner was Resource’s Soiled Legacy, in a field of eleven demos; the results file also lists an “Intro Remake” competition and one for the C64 game IK+.
After a gap of three years the party settled into a two-year rhythm. At X2004 a jury of ten people who were not competing gave the grades, and Focus’s Dialogue won the demo competition with 84 points to Chorus’s 80. From 2006 the results give an average score for each entry. That year The Wild Bunch, a joint demo by Focus, Horizon, Instinct and Triad, won with 8.071.
From Edge of Disgrace to The Star Wars Demo
At X-2008 Booze Design’s Edge of Disgrace beat Oxyron’s Natural Wonders 2 by 9.346 to 8.854, among thirteen demos, and went on to win the Scene.org Award for the best demo of 2008 on an oldschool platform. In 2010 the party moved to its current venue in Someren, and the tenth edition’s demo competition went to Another Beginning by Offence and Prosonix, according to CSDb.
At X’2012 Oxyron returned to its old series with Coma Light 13, which won with 8.967. Censor Design’s Wonderland XI came fifth. Two years later the two groups combined, and their Comaland won X2014 with 4.7848 to 4.7595 for Booze Design’s demo, listed in the results as The Booze Demo and released as Uncensored. X 2016 went to Bonzai’s The Phoenix Code. The closest finish came at X 2018, where Censor Design’s The Star Wars Demo won with an average of 9.272 from 224 voters, against 9.259 from 228 for Bonzai’s Unboxed.
After 2018
The next X came five years later, in June 2023, still in Someren. Performers’ Next Level won the demo competition with 9.528 from 199 voters, ahead of Mojo by Bonzai and Pretzel Logic and Censor Design’s Wonderland XIV. CSDb records Fairlight’s 13:37 as the winner in May 2024. In June 2026 Elysium’s The Lab won with 9.520, and Crest, a group that had won X thirty years earlier with Krestology, came seventh with Meet Crest.
Demo competition winners
| Year | Demo | Group |
|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Radio Napalm | Reflex |
| 1996 | Krestology | Crest |
| 1997 | Holy Refuge | No Name |
| 1998 | Soul | Booze Design |
| 2000 | Arcanum | Xenon |
| 2001 | Soiled Legacy | Resource |
| 2004 | Dialogue | Focus |
| 2006 | The Wild Bunch | Focus, Horizon, Instinct and Triad |
| 2008 | Edge of Disgrace | Booze Design |
| 2010 | Another Beginning | Offence and Prosonix |
| 2012 | Coma Light 13 | Oxyron |
| 2014 | Comaland | Censor Design and Oxyron |
| 2016 | The Phoenix Code | Bonzai |
| 2018 | The Star Wars Demo | Censor Design |
| 2023 | Next Level | Performers |
| 2024 | 13:37 | Fairlight |
| 2026 | The Lab | Elysium |
The winners for 1996, 2010 and 2024 come from CSDb; the others are in the organisers’ results files.
Sources
- X-95, results (web, secondary copy of the organisers’ file): C64 demo competition and points. https://files.scene.org/get/parties/1995/x95/results.txt
- X’97 Takeover, official results file (web, secondary copy of the organisers’ file): dates, venue, hosts, PC and C64 competitions. https://files.scene.org/get/parties/1997/x-takeover97/results.txt
- SCS*TRC’s X’98, final competition results (web, secondary copy of the organisers’ file): dates, place, demo competition, “head of jury”. https://files.scene.org/get/parties/1998/x98/results.txt
- “North Party No. 4” party report, GO64! (English edition), September 1999: X’98 and the cancelled X’99.
- X-2000 and X-2001, results (web, secondary copies of the organisers’ files): demo competitions, the “Intro Remake” and IK+ competitions. https://files.scene.org/get/parties/2000/x00/results.txt and https://files.scene.org/get/parties/2001/x01/results.txt
- X2004, results (web, secondary copy of the organisers’ file): the jury and the demo competition. https://files.scene.org/get/parties/2004/x04/results.txt
- X2006, official results (web, secondary copy of the organisers’ file). https://files.scene.org/get/parties/2006/x06/results.txt
- X-2008, results (web, secondary copy of the organisers’ file): 13 demos. https://files.scene.org/get/parties/2008/x08/results.txt
- Scene.org Awards, archive for 2008, “Best demo on an oldschool platform” (web, secondary). https://awards.scene.org/archive.php?year=2008&cat=best-demo-on-an-oldschool-platform
- X-2012, results (web, secondary copy of the organisers’ file). https://files.scene.org/get/parties/2012/x12/results.txt
- X2014, official results (web, secondary copy of the organisers’ file). https://files.scene.org/get/parties/2014/x14/results.txt
- X 2016, X 2018, X 2023 and X 2026, competition results (web, secondary copies of the organisers’ files): demo competitions, scores and numbers of voters. https://files.scene.org/get/parties/2018/x18/results.txt and the matching files for 2016, 2023 and 2026.
- CSDb, group entry for Success + The Ruling Company (web, secondary): founders, founding date, country. https://csdb.dk/group/?id=133
- CSDb, event entries for every edition from X’95 to X’2026 (web, secondary): dates, venues, organisers and organiser groups, and the demo competition winners for 1996, 2010 and 2024. https://csdb.dk/event/?id=30, https://csdb.dk/event/?id=76, https://csdb.dk/event/?id=1610, https://csdb.dk/event/?id=3294 and https://csdb.dk/event/?id=3485