Hey everyone, here’s the rundown of EvE Amsterdam from my perspective. There might be some things that I miss out, because I am exhausted and my supply of cap boosters has ran out (More on cap boosters later)
Wednesday 12th June:
Pings go out, and I start taking the Jump Bridge network from Newcastle to Amsterdam. Turns out my travel advice from the airline wasn’t accurate, as they hadn’t factored in that my ticket allowed one hand luggage item, and an accessory. This meant that all of the things like deodorant, shower gel etc was confiscated at the airport. I was then told by the airline that it would be fine on the return trip as it was more relaxed.
The flight was fairly chill, and I started on the wine while en route. AJ picks me up from the airport, and we head out to Amiomia’s, who kindly offered me a couch to crash out in exchange for volunteering at the event. AJ and myself get some supplies on the way, and a few bottles of wine is consumed before we call it a day…
Thursday 13th June:
Pings go out at around 8am ish, get ourselves organised, AJ takes Amiomia to the train station so she can travel out to the venue, and then we start packing up the van with all the studio equipment. We all arrive at the MACA (Moving Arts Center Amsterdam) at roughly the same time. Amiomia advises there are some things she needs to wrap up, such as some graphics, name badges etc, so she heads to her office to work, AJ and I start unloading the van. Some of the team from MACA arrive and we start discussing plans… Well, AJ does. AJ starts working on moving some of the fiber optic cabling for the studio, and I start working with the interns on unpacking the gaming pc’s provided by MSI. Unfortunately, there was another event on in one of the other rooms at the venue, meaning we couldnt get access to it until much later in the day, which limited what work we could do.
I went for a short break to get supplies (we’d been working easily for 6+ hours solid by this point) to get some cap boosters (energy drinks), and left the interns to continue unpack the pcs and start moving the boxes into storage. They had connected all the cables too when I returned, and advised that we had 2x pc’s that wasn’t working. AJ came in to support briefly, and after the interns left asked me to change the load balancing to make sure we wasn’t drawing too much power from a single socket. Unfortunately, I could not make sense of how the everything had been connected, which meant I had to disconnect everything and start from scratch. Its surprisingly time consuming doing this for 10 pcs, when the cabling is difficult to reach, and not too kind on an old mans back/knee’s either!
This takes us until roughly the time that the other event started finishing and we had access to the main room. Modules are starting to take some serious overheating damage from all of the work done so far, meaning that legs/feet/back were all very sore. Luckily, AJ had some other volunteers there to help with the rest of the things he was needing to do. We also identify that the pcs are missing some random bits like cables or mic’s. Aj does some online shopping to replace these.
We go home, everyone is exhausted and we crash out pretty much immediately. All in all, this was somewhere around a 14-15 hour day.
Friday 14th June:
Pings go out, but there was still too much damage needing repaired by the citadels, so snooze buttons may have been abused to give more time for reps to land. We all get to the venue for about 9am, myself and a few other of volunteers such as AJ’s family worked on putting up posters and other decorations, as well as other misc activities that needed doing. We also identify that some of the pcs aren’t set up correctly for us, so this results in windows needing reinstalled… Great, thats going to cause some problems.
Its starting to get close to the time for the event to officially start, and things still aren’t ready. We now have scouts appearing at the venue, but they wasn’t initially let in due to everything not being ready. The decision was made shortly after to let them in because of the weather, but we enlisted them into helping us get things ready. One of these scouts had brought stuff with him and was able to help us get the remaining pc’s up and running.
We’re still not 100% ready, but the decision is made to light the cyno and let people enter the building. We have volunteers at the entrance welcoming people, giving out their passes etc, and people are free to have a look around in Jita, the gaming room, and the main hall where all the presentations would be. Amiomia is still working on last minute things for the event, as well as putting some finishing touches on presentations
I start mingling with those attending and let people know Im one of the volunteers in case they need help, and on a few instances I find the odd person by themselves, so I introduced them to some of the others already there to help ease the nerves. This is mostly as there’s nothing really left for me to do. I notice the bar is open, so I do what is expected of me and get myself a beer.
AJ is now getting the finishing touches set up on the studio, and is ready to start broadcasting the event, so we finally get going, and CCP show up a bit before this. Amiomia does the opening ceremony before doing the eve quiz, and I end up on CCP’s team for this. This is the first time I’m interacting with CCP on a more personal level, as most of the interactions I have are around the arranging of eve meets. It was so much fun watching them come work together to come up with the funniest answers to the question rather than the corect answer!
The quiz wasn’t actually wrapped up in terms of what questions would be asked until we got to the venue, and discussed this quite a bit while driving to the venue, and from what I understand, even Cpt Armarlio was sending suggestions via discord at the time. Some of the questions were about some of the more less known lore, so it was really impressive to see that one team score 17/20… CCP and I scored an impressive 2/20!
I then do a mini presentation about arranging eve meet ups, and talk about my own history in eve, then facilitate other players who want to say a few words about their background in eve on stream.
We take a short break, and karaoke starts. Given the late start and subsequent delays due to the unforeseen circumstances, this is a bit shorter than planned, but people were free to entertain themselves via playing the eve board game in Jita, or using the gaming pcs. People were advised however that using these may result in whatever they were doing at the time being broadcast on the main screen and twitch.
We wrap up and head home for the day, all in all another 15-16 hour day in all.
Saturday 15th June:
Pings are going out in the morning, and its clear that everyone is exhausted. We take a slight detour via Mcdonalds for breakfast (Even in the Netherlands, this appears to be a tradition). Cyno’s are lit and we get things moving for day 2 of the event.
We identify some other things that need fixing, so Amiomia has to leave to attend this in the office, and Im picking up the 21 yrs of eve Amiomia opens up with a welcome speech, however there was some technical difficulties also needing resolved, so we’re a bit delayed in getting started. Amiomia does the presentation after Im mic’d up and ready to go after agreeing to do this on her behalf the day before, and not remembering doing so. Admittedly, the combination of exhaustion and beer may have influenced my memory!
Kshal does her presentation on empowering your community, and I facilitate a QandA with the audience and those watching by twitch. CCP then come on and start showcasing the SKINNR tool. Lionear and RaymondKrah also do a presentation on eve workbench.
With the presentations out of the way, Bombrun then leads an NPSI fleet for those in attendance, whether thats using the gaming pcs issued to us, or by attendee’s using their laptops. I dont have much information regarding this, as I take a much needed break to buy even more cap boosters. In both times I visit the shop to buy energy drinks, Ive pretty much cleaned out the shelf of all of them. RL cap boosters are far more expensive than in game ones!
The party then gets started, and announcements are made that Lionear had donated quite a bit of money to buy people drinks at the party. During the day, we also had another volunteer walk around selling raffle tickets for the event, with the proceeds going to an ongoing project to pay for one lucky person to go to fanfest next year.
The raffle is drawn, and there a few few notable things during this point of the event.
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Someone at the last minute donated 5 shots of tequila as prizes, and one (un)lucky winner won 2 out of the 5!
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Possum, who was obsessed with winning the pink keepstar, wins one of a different colour, as well as a few other prizes, which was expected considering how many raffle tickets he bought. He then trades some of these prizes in order to get the pink keepstar, though I dont recall who that was with.
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CCP Lumi says it would be really funny if she won the dramiel before the raffle started, and then goes on to win it. (The repackage button on the client needs enlarging, as it taken a while for this to be repackaged and safely put into a secure cargo container for transporting the following day)
The end of event party starts to get into motion, and Im now made an honorary member of 6th Empire courtesy of Fieryred, and Im giving my obligatory pair of cat ears. I do a round of the venue taking pictures and taking part, and spend some time talking to CCP Lumi, CCP Tigershark, and a brief time with CCP Mirage. Unfortunately, I did not get much of an opportunity to speak to CCP Stroopwaffle.
After the party dies down, we head back to our staging system and crash out for the night. All in all, approx another 14/15 hour day.
Sunday 16th June:
Pings go out, but Amiomia/AJ are exhausted, so abuse the snooze feature. Once we’re ready, we then go and and order food from Mcdonalds, and it takes them quite a while to make it because we might have gotten a bit greedy and ordered a lot more…
Scouts start arriving to the venue before we got there, and started laying siege. (Well, by siege posting memes about wanting to be let into the venue at least). Its clear everyone is still tired from the night before, so we start handing out coffee to people who want it and give people the option of what they’d like to do for the day. Some chose to watch the clear sky movies, (we were hoping to get some information about clear skies 4, but wasn’t able to get any details to showcase). others opted to do a bit of gaming, and the rest just chilled in jita either talking or playing the eve board game. I offer to lead a pvp roam for those there, but the eve launcher decided it had other plans, so we all do a workshop about what we can do to help new players settle into eve.
I am so sore and tired by this point from all the activity, that Im trying not to sit down for too long because I was likely to fall asleep. The event finally comes to a close, and we ask if anyone is happy hanging back to help us repackage everything used for the event, and quite a few people offer. Amiomia and AJ offer pizza for anyone who is happy to stay back. We’re really glad that people did offer, otherwise we would have easily been there working until 1/2am. Once we wrap up with that, everyone is relaxing and taking a few minutes, and a couple of people ask if they can support with the anchoring of a fortizar for their corp in game. We end up hanging back for about another hour and a half chatting with everyone to accommodate this, and at one point Im fairly sure I do fall asleep momentarily.
We eventially leave for the night just after midnight. Another 14 hour day for us.
Monday 17th June:
Somehow Im up early and not able to get back to sleep, and AJ’s questioning my sanity over whatsapp from their bedroom. He gets up, and we have a cup of coffee before Amiomia comes, and we all say our goodbyes. AJ drops me off at the train station, and I go into the city to meet up with those who hadn’t yet travelled home. Now, I will be honest, I can’t recall everyones names, but it was awesome hanging with you all, and if you were there and I dont mention you, you’ll have to let me know your char/discord names.
Possum, Fieryred, Daddy deep, Someone called Yaen, but I can’t recall your in game name. I know there was a few more of you there at the time.
At around 12.30 local time, I start making my way to the airport and head home. As of the time of writing this, Im out of capacitor and boosters, Im in hull, and about to let autopilot direct me to the docking bay in of my bed.
If you were one of the attendees, I would love to hear your stories and experiences. Im also confident when I say this, that Amiomia/AJ would agree, but I would love to hear your feedback, what did you like, what could have been done better? The venue, services, facilities on offer etc.
Also, for the guys who attended, Im not sure if I’ll be able to make Eve london yet, or if there will be an eve manchester later in the year (but I will work on both), but if I do not see you beforehand, I can’t wait to hang out with you all again at fanfest!