Silly Little Country

TU Dresden - Party Campus!

Last week I was in meetings at the Technical University of Dresden, meetings booked before the hosts knew there was to be a giant student party on campus that week, in fact on the Wednesday.
The party was to start at 5:30 and our meetings were to end at 5, so this seemed no issue, even as the stage was being set up near our meeting rooms. What we had not taken into account were the sound checks, which started around 1 pm. Normally sound checks are horrible experiences, with someone behind the microphone making "One, Two, Three, ..." sounds in some awful breathy way.
We in the meeting were torn between the need to keep windows open in warm weather and the need to maintain some quiet. In the end we kept the windows open, and let the sound in, partly because the sound check featured some bands actually playing their stuff. Very unusual, and I really liked one of the bands (as did everyone else).
I have since learned it was "Juli", and that bit of education told me this was quite the student party - they are a leading German band (and as I listened I could hear why, and I am still looking in Prague for some CDs of theirs), and apparently were sharing the stage with others at the same level (whom I cared less for).
I went around as we headed off for our evening exploring the party site before the party started, wondering how it would compare with a similar event at a Canadian campus.
I think I found some differences.
Note that a primary sponsor is AMD Saxony, with the slogan "AMD : Clearly The Smarter Choice" (I am not sure what choice is at issue).


Now these students need beer (Radeberger is the big brewery just outside Dresden):

and apparently they need Jaegermeister!

More entertainingly, there was a small army of people outfitted like these guys (pardon the blurry shot) - they are selling cigarettes! They were doing pretty good business as I watched long before the show started - and those flags make them easy to find.

My favourite scene was the following, with this team knowing it has a lot of work to come, so it is time to rest!

posted by Alan Adamson @ 4:08 PM