A demoparty is an event that gathers demosceners and young computer artists.
A typical demoparty is a non-stop event lasting over a weekend, providing the visitors a lot of time to socialize. The competing works, at least those in the most important competitions, are usually shown at night, using a video projector and big loudspeakers.
Creations presented at demoparties can be very artistic: their content is often surreal and pictoresque while the way the demos are realized exposes some extremely high skills for software artists, as well pixel artists and 8bit musicians.
A successful event of this kind is held since 8 years now in Germany: the Breakpoint will happen also this year in April and apparently for the last time. This can be a unique occasion to experience such a crowded and pulsating event hosting hundreds if not thousands of digital artists to compete - mostly for the fun of confronting each other skills and making new friends in the so called "Scene"
Demoparties started to appear in the 1980s in the form of copyparties where software pirates and demomakers gathered to meet each other and share their software. Competitions did not become a major aspect of the events until the early 1990s.Copyparties mainly pertained to the Amiga and C64 scene. As the PC compatibles started to take over the market, the difficulties in easily making nice demos and intros increased. Along with increased police crackdowns on copying of pirated software, the "underground" copyparties were gradually replaced by slightly higher-profile events which came to be known as demoparties. However, some of the "old school" demosceners still prefer to use the word "copyparty" even for today's demoparties.
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