the apparat tools for demoparties
When Evoke switched its party system from Partymeister to Granola, we needed a way to handle the operational “side quests” that Granola intentionally (and rightfully) leaves out.
Instead of building a new monolith, I developed the Apparat suite: a set of small, decoupled, single-purpose tools. They were successfully battle-tested in production at Evoke this August, so here is a quick look in case they are useful for your own events.
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kasseapparat
A lightweight POS and guestlist manager for the entrance desk to handle check-ins and door sales. -
tidsapparat
A timetable manager to adjust running orders on the fly and serve structured schedule data. -
funkapparat
A minimal news hub for quick text announcements (e.g., deadline shifts, pizza arrivals). -
billedapparat
A big-screen display system for the main hall. It rotates slides and sponsor banners while directly pulling live schedules from tidsapparat and announcements from funkapparat.
Under the Hood & Open Source
All four tools share the same technical foundation:
- Stack: Go backends paired with React admin interfaces.
- Deployment: Shipped as ready-to-run Docker containers for easy local hosting on party hardware.
- Authentication: Kept simple by offloading it entirely. Access control is meant to be handled externally via OIDC or a reverse proxy/sidecar like Traefik.
- Open Source: Built for Evoke, but free to use for any demoparty.
If you want to give them a spin, check out the repositories. Issues and pull requests are always welcome!