| MCH 2022 | Created: 31.05.2023 19:35 Last modified: 31.05.2023 20:10 |
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In 2017, I was visiting the SHA 2017, a "Hacker camp"
in the Netherlands, and afterwards I wrote
a
lengthy blogpost about what I did not like about it. Now in 2022, the successor event took place at the end of July: The MCH 2022 ("May Contain Hackers"). And so I think it's time for an update - did things change compared to last time? They did, and in fact they changed so much for the better that it makes me wonder whether Orga read my SHA2017 blog entry. The first part of this post will be a direct comparison with 2017. The second part is about new things that I found interesting. This blog post is "a little" late (10 months after the event), but hey, better late than never? The coin systemAt SHA2017, the bar and the food court insisted on using a system of plastic coins. You could only pay with these plastic coins there. You could only get multiples of 10 coins == 10 Euro out of machines, either with cash or credit-/debitcard. You could not change the coins back, so any leftover coins at the end of the event became worthless plastic waste, and they would keep your money. It felt like a ripoff that I would expect at a commercial festival, but not at a not-for-profit hacker camp.This was completely changed for MCH2022, and it was a massive improvement. There were no more plastic coins. Instead, two ways of payment were possible:
The standard contactless was extremely convenient, and used by most people, and the QR-codes were for those concerned about their privacy. You could buy QR-codes for arbitrary amounts of money with cash - and only cash. Everytime you paid with the QR-code, the amount you paid would be deducted from the balance assigned to the QR-code, until there was none left. Now you may say: Wait a minute, isn't this the same thing as the plastic coins before? And in a way it is, but with one mayor difference: You could get the remaining amount of money on the QR code back at any time in cash. The system was not perfect though. I did not pay with QR-code, so I do not have any first hand experience, but other critisized that you simply could not buy them before Day 1, and you could not recharge them - they could only be charged once. I was a bit irritating that the pop-up supermarket was not at all connected to the payment-system. It only accepted cash (which the food vendors all weren't permitted to do!) or certain debit cards. No credit-cards at all, and not even most non-dutch debit cards, only those that still had Maestro. (Yes, there was a pop-up supermarket right next to the food court, and it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It also sold sliced bread.) The food court...was inadequate, just like at SHA 2017. Not because the food was bad, but because it lacked both choice and capacity. It also had extremely weird opening hours that were never even published - for example, I once could not get anything to eat at 13:00 because nothing was open yet?! I also missed "The Holy Crepe" that had served pankakes at SHA2017. So sadly, no improvement there.The terrainThe terrain was exactly the same one as at SHA2017. Orga likes it very much, because it has a lot of infrastructure already in place. Including but not limited to: A few toilets and showers. Water and Drain connections for additional toilets and showers all over the field, they only had to place the containers and connect them up. Even some fibre cables across different parts of the site were already in place. It is very spacious. And it has its own harbour, which is pretty cool.At SHA2017, the biggest problem was that the terrain was just very bad for camping. Large part of the ground consisted of sea clay. Water did not drain there at all. That meant that after a rain shower, the water would stay there for a very long time. Even one day after a rain shower there were still puddles in many parts of the terrain. When people said they would need rubber boots, at first I thought they were joking. They were not. Now while the location had not changed for MCH2022, it was said there had been significant improvements made to the drainage of the terrain since SHA2017. I'm willing to believe that. There were significantly fewer und smaller rain showers at MCH2022 than there where at SHA2017, so it wasn't really stress-tested for a fair comparison, but everything dried off very quickly after the rain. If I had not known it, I would not have believed this was the same terrain as on SHA. I also critisized in the 2017 post that the fields on the sea-side of the dyke were not put to good use, despite them having a nice sandy underground with good drainage, because they were not provided with electricity or network. They were fully utilized for MCH2022 - at least those that weren't occupied by the scouts. And I was whining that there were only very very few spots for campervans in 2017. That also changed for the better, and by a lot. They still were permitted only on three fields to which they would be assigned, but there were many more spots, and thus tickets weren't sold out within 3 minutes. This was fine. The parkingParking was NOT in the same field that was used for SHA2017, and was in fact a little closer to the first tents belonging to the event, but other than that, not much changed. There would be only parking for a few cars on site, so for the event a whole parking lot had to be built in a field nearby. At SHA, this quickly deteriorated into an absolutely horrible mudfest, despite the large metal plates that made temporary roads. At MCH, it did not, but that is probably mostly because less rain fell. The only part that got pretty muddy was the main way in, the rest was rather fine (considering the fact that it really was just a meadow in the woods). A parking ticket still was 42 Euros, just like at SHA2017. The path to the actual event was lit a bit better this time and also only half as long, but what was not ideal was that it was directly next to the main way in for the cars for about 50 meters.The luggage shuttles were great, and they actually had that thought out pretty well: There were a few reserved parking spaces right next to the shuttles stop, so you could temporarily park there to unload all your stuff (putting it on metal plates, so not in the mud), then drive away the car to a proper parking space, then load your stuff onto the shuttle. For the teardown, a few (IIRC 6) pickup points on the field were defined, and you had to carry your stuff there then wait for the shuttle. That obviously scaled a lot better than picking up people individually, while still keeping the distance you had to travel on foot reasonable. There was some waiting time on the shuttle for both buildup and teardown, which was to be expected, but it still worked pretty well. There did not seem too many people driving the shuttles, so it might have worked even better with more volunteers - yes, I'm well aware that I could have and should have volunteered myself in time, so it's partly my own fault. The restrictionsWere probably similiar to the ones at SHA2017, but I did not pay close attention this time.However, I did not notice random heaps of fire-extinguishers all over the place this time, so it seems they at least dropped that nonsense. The teardownI did not have to do much teardown myself this time because we had no village, but at least one thing I critisized in 2017 was handled a lot better: Like at SHA2017, they requested that the site be vacated by 12:00 the day after the official end of the event, which is fair, because if you have a very long drive home, you simply cannot do that on the evening the event officially ends. However, at SHA2017, shortly after the official end, the power was turned off and the toilets locked, which I critisized as a massively bad idea, because it forces people who simply cannot go home that night to walk to the single open toilet that is 2 km away in darkness. This did not happen at MCH2022. Power and even the WiFi network stayed on until around 9 or 10 the next morning. That IMHO is pretty much the perfect way to handle this. You're not inviting people to stay longer than needed, but you give them opportunity to stay as long as they need to to get home safely.The factory firmware for the badgeThere was again a brand new badge, like at SHA2017, but other than at SHA this time the factory firmware worked properly.The weatherLike most of Europe, large parts of the Netherlands were under a massive dry spell. On driving there, I could hardly believe my eyes - large areas next to the highway were completely sunburnt and brown. That was something I have seen in far more southern countries but which I would never had expected in the Netherlands.The area where MCH was was not that dried out, probably because it was close enough to the sea. And there were a few small showers during the event. One day it was clearly too hot, so I spent most of the day in the shadowy village tent. But overall, the weather really was nice, almost perfect. What else - COVIDNaturally, COVID19 massively influenced the event.Firstly, this was suppossed to have been MCH2021 - but it simply wasn't feasible in 2021, and cancelled in February 2021 due to the massive uncertainty. All tickets were refunded. In hindsight, that was a very wise decision, because that summer the Netherlands experienced quite a surge in the infections and imposed a few restrictions. It would also have meant problems for visitors from e.g. Germany. The situation was entirely different in 2022, and so the event did take place after all, one year later than planned. Planning resumed, and new tickets were sold. In fact, by the time of the event, the Netherlands had adopted a very strong "we don't give a FSCK anymore" stance, so there were no restrictions in place anymore. Coming from Germany, which sadly had not reached that state at the time, this was very enjoyable for me. As a result of that, the direct effects on the event itself were minimal. Of course, Orga tried to keep the big tents well ventilated. And surely some people did get infected, although in most cases they probably did not catch the infection on site, and an area behind the Orga tent was provided for those amongst them that could not immediately get home to self-isolate there, so they could stay there relatively isolated until they could get home. But naturally there were indirect effects, and quite a lot of them. Many people I know refused to get tickets, because "it's going to have to be cancelled again anyways". Others did not want to go there because "OMG COVID". As a result, only very few people from my circle of friends and acquaintances visited the event, maybe 20% of those that visited SHA2017. We were not enough people to form a proper village. Another indirect effect was with the terrain: Because it wasn't booked a very long time in advance as usual, there were already other events booked on it at the same time. Now that isn't much of a problem with regards to space, the "Scoutinglandgoed" is really big, and it could accomodate all events in parallel without feeling crowded. But it meant there were a lot of scouts from one or two scouting-events around. And they also occupied parts of the fixed on-site infrastructure, like the new adventure-house (that was not built yet at SHA2017), and the meadow behind it, which was in the middle of and thus completely surrounded by MCH2022. As a result, scouts were expected to go in and out all the time. And because the public cycle- and foot-path that goes through the middle of the terrain wasn't closed off either (like it was at SHA2017), that basically meant you could have visited the event without paying, because nobody ever cared to check your wristband, it simply wouldn't have been practical - they would have needed way too many checkpoints. The only thing that was checked was arriving cars - but with a bicycle or on foot you could have just gone in. What else - Misc
EOFSo how was MCH2022?Overall, I'd say it was a pretty good event. Sure there is room for improvement in some areas, but it really was better than SHA2017. I will gladly visit WhatEverItIsCalled2025. |
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