The official archive · 1927–2025
99 years of slop.
Every Slopfest since 1927, documented by the committee: the theme, the venue, the guest of honour, the attendance and one surviving artifact per edition. Photos, programmes and hangover stories from past editions are always welcome.
- 99 editions
- 23,218,505 attendees
- 1 city
- 0 good ideas
More proof: the old websites
From 1996 onwards, every Slopfest with a website had a terrible one. The Slopback Machine preserved 11 of them for future generations, against everybody's wishes.
The 1920s 3 editions
The Robot Was a Costume
The first Slopfest had one robot. It was Dr. Kranzl in forty kilos of tin.
Synchronized, More or Less
Picture and sound had finally been matched. The committee took this as a personal challenge.
Ceci N'est Pas une Slop
A painting of a pipe is not a pipe. A festival about slop is, unfortunately, slop.
The 1930s 9 editions
The Ninth Planet (Pending)
A new planet was found. We booked it as a special guest before anyone checked.
This Festival Cannot Be Proven
Some true statements can't be proven. Our attendance figures are among them.
Brave New Buffet
Mass-produced people in a novel. Mass-produced Krapfen at the buffet. Progress everywhere.
Actually Eighteen Inches Tall
The monster was a small model filmed very carefully. We relate.
The Monster Was a Toy Submarine
A blurry photo, a famous monster and a toy boat. Every genre of slop in one picture.
Both Happened and Didn't
Until someone opens the minutes, Slopfest 9 is in a superposition of great and terrible.
Infinite Tape Night
A machine that reads symbols off an endless tape. We supplied the tape. It was not endless.
Mirror, Mirror, Answer Confidently
Our magic mirror did not know who was fairest. It answered with great conviction anyway.
Copy of a Copy of a Copy
The first photocopy read '10-22-38 Astoria'. Ours read 'Slopfest' and got worse each time.
The 1940s 8 editions
No Slopfest was held from 1939 to 1945. From 1946 to 1952 there were two a year.
- #13Deleted to free up tokens.
The Giant Brain
The press called ENIAC a 'Giant Brain'. We built one too. It was a large cardboard box.
- #14The AI refused to restore it on moral grounds.
Eleven Winners, No Losers
The first Cannes festival gave its top prize to eleven films at once. We gave ours to everyone.
- #15Filed under "Q" for "quality". We never look there.
Developed in Eleven Minutes
A new camera printed its own photos in a minute. Ours took eleven and came out brown.
- #16Negative eaten by the office cat.
First Actual Case of Bug
The first computer bug was a real insect. Ours are metaphorical, and far more numerous.
- #17Photo lost in the Great Slop Flood.
Twenty-Three Minutes a Side
A new record held more than twenty minutes of music per side. Our speeches got longer at once.
- #18Image withheld pending a lawsuit from the Sachertorte people.
The First Language Model
Shannon built fake English out of word statistics. The committee had been doing it in speeches since 1927.
- #19The only copy was taped to a Würstelstand. It rained.
Fire Together, Wire Together
A psychologist proposed that brain cells used together grow connected. So did our guests.
- #20Photographer forgot to remove the lens cap. Twice.
The Zither Would Not Stop
One man, one zither, one tune, eleven hours. Quantity over quality, in its purest form.
The 1950s 13 editions
- #21Deleted to free up tokens.
Ten to the Power of 120
Shannon counted the possible games of chess: about 10^120. We played three, badly.
- #22The AI refused to restore it on moral grounds.
Can Machines Think? (Doors 7 p.m.)
Judges chatted with a hidden human and a hidden machine. They preferred the machine, a typewriter.
- #23Filed under "Q" for "quality". We never look there.
The Machine That Only Played Nim
A computer built for a festival could play exactly one game. The committee related to it deeply.
- #24Negative eaten by the office cat.
Klaatu Barada Prompto
A robot that stops when you say the magic words. We now call this prompt engineering.
- #25Photo lost in the Great Slop Flood.
Eyes Where the Mouth Goes
A new toy let you stick any face on a potato. The committee did the same with its portraits.
You Are My Avid Fellow Feeling
The first computer-generated love letters were signed 'M.U.C.' Ours were signed 'the committee'.
The Missing Link Was Glued On
A famous fossil turned out to be a forgery. Scientists were shocked. The committee took notes.
Solved in Three to Five Years
Machine translation was declared nearly finished in 1954. So was the festival website.
Pastel, in Excess
Pastel gowns, Alpine meadows and a waltz every eleven minutes. Our first theme color was 'Sissi pink'.
A Two-Month, Ten-Man Study
The founders of AI planned to crack it in one summer. We gave ourselves one evening.
Beep, Beep, Beep
A metal ball circled the Earth saying one thing over and over. Our keynote speaker took notes.
Walk, Talk, See, Write
A newspaper said the Perceptron would one day walk, talk and be conscious. It sorted cards. We loved it.
Same Waltzes, Now on Television
The New Year's Concert went on television with last year's waltzes. We saw a business model.
The 1960s 10 editions
A Solution Looking for a Problem
The laser was called a solution looking for a problem. We have described every sponsor this way since.
Daisy, Daisy
A computer sang its first song. We asked for an encore. It only knew the one.
Thirty-Two Cans of Soup
Warhol painted 32 cans of soup. We served 32 cans of soup. Critics called one of these art.
The Original Original
A hotel and a confectioner settled who owns 'Original'. An hour later we launched the Original Slop-Torte.
10 PRINT SLOP, 20 GOTO 10
A friendly new programming language arrived. The committee's first program is still running.
Double It Every Year
Moore predicted chips would double every year. We applied it to attendance, then to cake.
And How Does That Make You Feel?
A chatbot turned every sentence into a question. The committee hired it as press officer.
Blurry Figure, Walking Away
A shaky, minute-long film proved everything and nothing. Our entire aesthetic, in 1967.
I'm Sorry, Dave
A computer politely declined to open a door. We now call this 'alignment' and charge extra.
LO
The first message on the internet was meant to be LOGIN. It crashed after two letters. Soft launch.
The 1970s 10 editions
Welcome to the Uncanny Valley
Almost-human robots are unsettling. Our greeter is 94 percent human and nobody stands near it.
QWERTYUIOP
The first email probably said QWERTYUIOP. Its sender couldn't remember. That's the right amount of care.
An Island From Scratch
Vienna began building a 21-kilometer island out of dug-up riverbed. Generated content, but for land.
The First AI Winter
A report said AI had overpromised, and the funding froze. So did the ice rink, which was on purpose.
43 Quintillion Wrong Answers
A cube with 43 quintillion positions and one correct one. We prefer the other 43 quintillion.
The Pet Rock Pavilion
A man sold over a million rocks in boxes. We had rocks. We had boxes. We lacked the vision.
The Word Is Coined
A biologist invented the word 'meme'. We could not wait for the internet, so we started early.
Six Million Forms of Communication
A golden robot claimed fluency in over six million forms of communication. None of them was Viennese.
Unsolicited, Since 1978
The first spam reached a few hundred inboxes. Our invitations reached every letterbox in Vienna, 11 times.
The Answer Is 42
A supercomputer thought for 7.5 million years and said 42. Our program committee took a similar approach.
The 1980s 10 editions
Eats Everything, Learns Nothing
A yellow circle ate dots in a maze until the level ended. We built our buffet around the idea.
Music Television, All Night
A new channel promised music videos all day and all night. We had one video and a lot of night.
Read This Sideways
A professor proposed :-) to mark jokes online. We still use it to mark our schedule.
Bury It in the Desert
Unsold game cartridges were buried in a New Mexico landfill. We had the same problem, and a meadow.
I'll Be Back (Annually)
A cyborg from the future promised to return. So did we, every year, invited or not.
No Straight Lines
Vienna's new landmark has wavy floors and no right angles. Our tables had been like this for years.
Amadeus, Amadeus, Amadeus
A Viennese pop star topped the US charts by repeating one name. The purest hook ever written.
Pronounced Correctly
A new image format arrived with 256 colors and a pronunciation war. We took both sides, loudly.
It Was Meant to Count Us
A program built to measure the internet copied itself until the internet slowed down. So did our clicker.
Vague but Exciting
Tim Berners-Lee's boss wrote 'vague but exciting' on the proposal for the web. We printed it on the tickets.
The 1990s 10 editions
Nothing Here Is Real
Photoshop 1.0 shipped. The festival photos from that year show twice as many people as attended.
Just a Hobby, Won't Be Big
A student announced a free operating system and promised it wouldn't be big. We say that every year.
Merry Christmas, Sent Early
The first text message said 'Merry Christmas' three weeks early. We sent ours in October, to be safe.
Nobody Knows You're a Dog
A cartoon noted that online, nobody knows you're a dog. Our guest list has been unverifiable ever since.
The Dog Did the Real Work
A German Shepherd solved the cases and the humans took the credit. The origin story of every AI startup.
A Collector of Broken Laser Pointers
The first eBay sale was a broken laser pointer. The buyer said he collected them. Our kind of market.
The Dancing Baby
A 3D baby danced across early inboxes. Ours was rendered at the TU and had too many joints.
- #71Filed under "Q" for "quality". We never look there.
Checkmate, Eventually
A computer beat the world chess champion. Ours beat the coat check attendant, twice.
- #72Negative eaten by the office cat.
It Is Learning (It Is Not)
A furry toy seemed to learn English. It was programmed to pretend, which is still the business plan.
- #73Photo lost in the Great Slop Flood.
A Glitch in the Matrix
A film suggested reality is a simulation. The committee confirmed it: the same man walked past twice.
The 2000s 10 editions
- #74Image withheld pending a lawsuit from the Sachertorte people.
Nothing Happened, Expensively
The world spent billions preparing for the Y2K bug and nothing happened. We have never been prouder.
- #75The only copy was taped to a Würstelstand. It rained.
Citation Needed
Anyone could now edit the encyclopedia. Anyone did. Our festival history was never the same.
- #76Photographer forgot to remove the lens cap. Twice.
The Robot That Cleans Up After Us
A robot vacuum finally arrived. It took one look at Slopfest and went back to its dock.
- #77Deleted to free up tokens.
Everyone's First Friend
A new social network gave every user one friend to start with. We gave everyone Tom.
- #78The AI refused to restore it on moral grounds.
One Gigabyte Is Not a Joke
Google launched free email with 1 GB of storage on April Fools' Day. Many assumed it was a prank.
- #79Filed under "Q" for "quality". We never look there.
Really, Really, Really Long Trunks
The first YouTube video was 19 seconds at a zoo. Our whole 2005 program was 19 seconds at a zoo.
- #80Negative eaten by the office cat.
Pluto Is Still Invited
Astronomers demoted Pluto to dwarf planet. Slopfest does not demote. Pluto keeps its VIP badge.
- #81Photo lost in the Great Slop Flood.
Never Gonna Give You Up
The internet started tricking people into a 1987 music video. We played it in our cloakroom in 1987.
Nine Pages on Halloween
On 31 October 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin whitepaper. We were busy that night too.
- #83The only copy was taped to a Würstelstand. It rained.
Infinite World, Low Resolution
A game offered an infinite world made of blocks. We offered a finite trade-fair hall made of boxes.
The 2010s 10 editions
- #84Photographer forgot to remove the lens cap. Twice.
Two Pizzas, 10,000 Coins
Someone paid 10,000 bitcoin for two pizzas. We offered bitcoin too. The pizzeria wanted cash.
Ten Hours of Nyan Cat
A pixel cat with a Pop-Tart body flew across the internet on a rainbow. We played it until sunrise.
- #86The AI refused to restore it on moral grounds.
The Machine Learned Cats
Google's neural network watched YouTube and learned to see cats. The committee watched YouTube too.
- #87Filed under "Q" for "quality". We never look there.
Much Slop. Very Quantity. Wow.
A Shiba Inu surrounded by Comic Sans became the meme of the year. We printed the program in Comic Sans.
- #88Negative eaten by the office cat.
Rise Like a Phoenix
Austria won Eurovision. The committee has been attempting the key change in the office ever since.
- #89Photo lost in the Great Slop Flood.
Blue and Black, or Not
Half the internet saw a blue dress, half saw a white one. We draped the venue in it and let them argue.
- #90Image withheld pending a lawsuit from the Sachertorte people.
Gotta Catch 'Em All
A phone game sent millions outside to catch creatures that weren't there. Our dream, realized by others.
- #91The only copy was taped to a Würstelstand. It rained.
Attention Is All You Need
A Google paper proposed that attention was all you need. The committee agreed and asked for nothing else.
- #92Photographer forgot to remove the lens cap. Twice.
Portrait of a Blurry Gentleman
An AI portrait sold at Christie's for $432,500, signed with a math formula. We signed ours 'probably'.
- #93Deleted to free up tokens.
Too Dangerous to Release
OpenAI said GPT-2 was too dangerous to release, then released it. We did the same with the afterparty.
The 2020s 6 editions
- #94The AI refused to restore it on moral grounds.
You're on Mute
The festival moved into a video call. Everyone was on mute. It was our quietest edition, and our best.
- #95Filed under "Q" for "quality". We never look there.
Five Thousand Days of Content
An artist made one picture a day for 5,000 days and sold the collage for $69 million. Vindication.
- #96Negative eaten by the office cat.
Count the Fingers
Anyone could type a prompt and get a painting, with excellent lighting and seven fingers.
- #97Photo lost in the Great Slop Flood.
Spaghetti, Eaten Incorrectly
An AI video of a celebrity eating spaghetti became the field's benchmark. The pasta has not recovered.
- #98Image withheld pending a lawsuit from the Sachertorte people.
An Eighth of a Cup of Glue
A search engine's AI suggested adding glue to pizza sauce. Our caterers asked if this was a menu note.
- #99The only copy was taped to a Würstelstand. It rained.
Vibe Coded
An engineer coined 'vibe coding', where you forget the code even exists. We have been forgetting since 1927.
