We had our first Laptopbattle in Stuttgart last Saturday. It was the fifth Laptopbattle in Germany so far. We put in a lot of energy and time to organize this battle, so our expectations where quite high.

After six months of organization we had eight contestants for this great event:

* nq, Munich
* Wesen, Karslruhe
* tylth, Stuttgart
* tranqui, Munich
* KABELTON, Graz/Austria
* Hollaender, Mannheim
* Spleen, Mannheim
* Ter Roshak, Munich

Two months ago I was about to give up the battle, because we had only two contestants and no press coverage. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but we found the remaining 6 contestants and so I continued to push Stuttgart’s first Laptopbattle.

For the visuals we had two VJ’s Sebastian and Julia. And for the after party we got
Kenny C from London. One of our judges from Berlin could not make it, so we where left with two judges: Karl and Tom. They decided to pick a third judge from the crowd.

The event started a bit delayed as our technician and judge from Berlin could not make it. After an hour or so fighting with the sound setup we started sometime around 11:30pm.

Then the hardest part begun: the battle! As organizer I have contact to each contestant and after each round I was happy and sad at once. I was happy for the guy who made it to next round and I was sad about the guy who got kicked out. The other sad part as an organizer is that one cannot really enjoy the event, because there are so much thing one has to care about and look after.

Despite the great stress I can recall to be impressed by the great visuals and nq’s first round. nq started with some texture and no beats at all. The people expected an ambient track or something, but suddenly nq kicked in a great bass, which also kicked the crowd. Also Wesen’s show by controlling Ableton Live with his wii controller while dancing in the crowd was great.

The result:
In the finals we had nq vs. Hollaender. The judges could not decide who to win, so we made it an audience decision. It wasn’t that unfair as nq and Hollaender had no close friends with them at the battle. Finally the audience chose Hollaender to get the first place. Second came nq and KABELTON made third.

Why we are doing Laptopbattles, somebody could ask. We do it to push electronic music to the next level. Here in Germany we still suffer that techno and electronic music is connected to acts like Scooter. In Stuttgart we had a lot of people never heard of artists performing live on their laptops and they got curious and came to see what it is about. We also to bring people together and to build contacts. While organizing this battles I learned a number of new things around electronic music like netlabels, em411, the STFU, various new artists and I am sure that there is a lot more learn and discover.

The battle is a frame to have a nice event and to present and represent electronic music and the people behind it. The battle format is also good for attracting sponsors and media. I still have to work on sponsors and media.

The future:
In Stuttgart I got the impression that the Laptopbattle as an event works. We had > 200 people joining the party. However, I still could not figure out how to break even with the financial part of the event. Either I have to organize it on a much lower quality like in a bar or I have to look for partners and expand the Laptopbattle in Germany. My secret goal is to lead the Laptopbattle in Germany to the German finals with the winners of eight different cities. So far we have three cities: Munich, Mannheim, and Stuttgart. For next year I plan Frankfurt.

http://laptopbattle-stuttgart.de/?lang=en
http://www.alx-soft.de/main/music/overview/071110_laptopbattle_stuttgart/