Another Roskilde Festival is coming soon, slowly but steadily, and this one will be my 18th Roskilde Festival in a row. I have been visiting this Festival ever since 1982 and I have seen it grow from 48.000 visitors to 90.000 and shrink back to 70.000 (thank you for that). After all these years I want to give you a feedback on the festival and I want to tell you a story ... a story that is closely connected to the Festival, a story about friendship, about meeting people from other countries, about a certain "Roskilde Festival feeling", and last but not least about understanding other people from other countries and developing friendships

.....This is the story about US! US being "the worlds best chatgang". I think you should know this story, because it is a special one, and it has only happened because of the Roskilde Chatroom. But lets start with the Festival itself: Its my most liked Festival :-) and here are only some reasons.Its an engaged organisation behind it. People work there for fun, music and social intentions not for money, which gives a nice atmosphere and which makes a real BIG difference to other festivals/concerts arrangements. It's not only about music. There are street performances, Theaterplays and Comedies going on all the time. If you walk around on the Festival area you never know what will happen to you... that alone is a reason to stroll around. There have been so hilarious things going on, like 2,5 metre tall alienlike dressed up people, starting to examine a totally drunk person, taking away his beer, inspecting and "analysing" it ... after that they started inspecting the crowd gathering ... great fun :-)

Another reason is, that you never know what kind of music you will get to hear. This happens to me quite often: I walk over the area, pass a tent, a band is playing, I stop and listen a moment ... and if the music is to my liking, I get my programme out and take a look which band it is ... and listen to them for some time. I have become to like quite a few new bands over the years this way. Where else do you have this wide range of music to choose from, but at Roskilde? I even took a look at some techno Bands, which I would have never done otherwise. Its well organised, which means lots of toilets (although there can always be more of these), drink- and foodstalls, pharmacy, handicapped facilities ...People ... its incredible ... this amount of people and so little fighting ... Roskilde Festival is so friendly ... even if a drunk swedish guy shouts: "I piss on Denmark" every time he has to pee ... no fighting, not even arguing. This is only a selection of reasons why I love Roskilde Festival, and I just wanted to let you know in order to give you some kind of feedback on your hard work.

The Festival itself is really about meeting people ... known ones and unknown ones from different countries. Normally during the Festival, I experience short and really nice encounters and a couple of friendly words, maybe a couple of beers and we will get drunk side by side ... but very rarely real actual friendship will come out of this. Through the Roskilde Chatroom things have changed ... here it is possible to meet people from different countries (like it is at the Festival itself) .. but through Cyberspace we can meet again and again......throughout the year, day as night, and not only once a year at the actual Festival!! And its a fascinating chat, because of the people that turn up there .. they are Roskilde Festival visitors .. which means they are not hostile, we have this one great thing in common. They are friendly and always give a warm welcome ... . I have experienced that various times myself. The above mentioned seems to be the great difference compared to other chats. Often you hear of hostility between people and their discussions on other chats (I have never tried another chatroom, to be honest, so I pass on this information only).
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Now, to come back to the chatgang story from my point of view: Sometime in April or May 1999 I entered the chatroom for the first time and met there a guy from Norway, called Wolf and a girl from Canada, called CDN girl. We started chatting and only a few days passed and I got to know other people as well, who had already been at the chat weeks before me... . It was great fun and we were joking around and after a couple of weeks we decided to arrange a chat meeting at the festival. Thursday 15.00h at the bridge. We were going to meet in actual Real Life (RL)!!

This is how dorte (d_grrl) from DK described it on her homepage:
It happened in the year of 1999, when a bunch of pööörv people met in a chat room in Cyberspace. The purpose of meeting was then unknown, but while the space was the very famous Roskilde Festival chatroom, the group of electrons decided to meet up in RL at the festival.

The Chat-gang is (Nov. 1999):

More people have been visiting the chat, but the above are the ones who actually met.
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Finally we all met: Cat was standing with the yellow Cat-sign (one she had mailed us a pic of a couple of weeks before the festival) by the stairs crossing the train tracks. Actually, it was rather odd to meet a bunch of people, whom you've never before seen in RL (Real Life). The only thing everyone of us knew, was that we liked each other on the chat... and then of course... we all loved Roskilde Festival. Meeting the gang was great. The Swedes and the Norwegians arranged the good, cheap beers... cheap Carlsberg eh!!! (directly bought on RF (Roskilde Festival) campus.. for me that was above legal price level... but they were happy!). During Roskilde Festival 1999 we met a few times. It was nice, great, and wild, almost like online, just a lot better!!! Unfortunately, we didn't get to meet up with Piercing Queen and Dark Grief during the festival (They met each other, though without us :-) It was really nice in the sun on the grass with plenty of supplies of Carlsberg. After Roskilde Festival, which of course was excellent (even though the critics might state different) we started chatting again. This time it was even better... we became more and more fond of each other. It turned into a chat with old friends.... including everything... personal problems, joys, and sorrows alike. We just lobe each other.

Until here it is a nice but not too exciting story (although living it was lots of fun :-)), but now we showed we have more in common than "just" the Festival ... . We are good at partying, but we are also good at talking, sharing thoughts, feelings, problems and happy moments. We are also good at helping each other, giving assistance to people in need, supporting people in their personal or work problems. I found some VERY good friends here
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But here Dorte continues the story ...: During the summer we were online night and day. Dark Grief, whom most of us hadn't met in RL yet, and Püffi suggested we should arrange a mega RF-chat party. It was first meant to take place in Odense, Denmark, but the final decision was Tønsberg in Norway at Cat's place. We did a lot of planning, since most of us are just students or less rich people. Püffi sponsored a car, fuel, and beers from Germany, through Sweden, to Tønsberg. Grant took a flight from North-Norway to the south, and Beth was sponsored by Wolf to take a flight from Finland..... for this one evening only!!! The rest of the people came by car from Oslo. Talking, hugging, crazy people, good music, and lots of beers!! The toughest of us insisted they stayed up until 7am (they didn't drive 14 hours to get to Tønsberg!!). Noone went dead of beer, Danish or German, but without mentioning any names.... someone had to sit at the loo for about two hours (according to rumours) because of Connie!! Did we all sleep in each other's arms that night??? The tragedies, the comedies, and the dramas of the chatroom were transferred to RL... a bit frightening. But supposedly it only means that we mean a lot to each other! Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to get Benny, Joey Boy, Tigress or Cdn to come to the party in Tønsberg. Joey had to work (poor thing), Cdn is kind of far away (Canada) and Tigress is pregnant - a chat-baby... the first one!!! (And the beautiful babyboy Sebastian was born 3rd of March 2000 - cat)

Another Chat-gathering is planned next spring in Sweden at Piercing Queen's place. We have arranged a savings account, that supports people who otherwise cannot come to the parties. Purpose: To get everyone to the parties!! Can't wait till the next one!!! No one is tougher than us!!!!

This is what Dorte from Denmark wrote on her homepage, (thanks for letting me have it Dorte)
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Can you imagine what my "RL" friends said, when they heard I was going to Oslo for a weekend, by car ... driving 2.400 km, which took altogether 26 hours for both ways? They called me crazy ... but it was worth every Penny and every minute I spent on it !! As the first chatparty was a big success we thought about having another one in Sweden at PiercingQueens place .. and we did!

We gathered at her place in Klippan from 4-6 of February... and it was even better, we had two nights to party and to talk. In between these two chatpartys some of us - fredde (S), PiercingQueen (S) and Dark Grief (DK) - went to Oslo in November to meet the "Oslo-section" and for a Madrugada (N) concert. D_grrl (DK) and Piercing Queen (S) went to Malmö visting Fredde for a Bloodhoundgang concert. And fredde and PiercingQueen and maybe some more will go to Oslo again around Easter for another smaller gathering ... . These Swedes are just lucky .. they are right in the middle of everything ... for them its only 600 km to go to Oslo and just 300 km to go to Roskilde. So, we keep in contact all the time, and not only through the chat, but also through personal meetings, letters and phone calls ... .
All this wouldnt have happened without the Roskilde Chat, so thanks again for putting it up :-)

New people keep coming into the chat. Great people like heksesanne and ZapArt from Norway, Lamb and FC Kølle from Denmark, but I guess its going to take until RF 2000 until we all actually meet ... but its only just over 4 months to go ... Meeting these people at the chat - and in Real life - gives me the typical Roskilde Feeling, one of freedom and friendship ... so because of the chat and these great people I have the "Roskilde feeling" many times a year, not only once :-) And that is sooooo nice.

So, finally: Thanks again for all your work and efforts. We really appreciate that !!!!

THE END

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