Stop Complaining

Gosh Captions goes over REALLY well... Trimming has such a great av for hosting it too. It reminds me of Candid Camera in tone (not in execution), because of the bashful spiritedness of it all.

I have had Timmy as an event host for my events for three weeks now, and he's an excellent host. Steady, friendly and funny, with a great ability to excite the crowd, so I can voucher for his abilities as a host. He hosts for me daily, at 7.30 am, and the sim is almost always filled up. These events are held twice per day, and Timmy's, even if it is early in the morning, is by far the best attended.

In fact, he is a big part of the reason my place has been steady at top 5 this month. But my events are funded by me having a strong economy from sales, so my events are not for everyone to hold.

I think his post was more directed to the naysayers that say that commercial events are not events. And frustration over things like why he can't host events to get new merchants to his own mall, or offer potential tenants a sightseeing of his new condos, which is not allowed, according to the rules. These naysayers' latest fad is to complain about too many Tringo events, and they managed to get LL to mess up the event system with stupid restrictions that had no effect whatsoever on the # of Tringo events, so that's kinda where his point came from. He can't host the events he wants to host, they are not allowed. And the events he can host are not attended.

Both Timmy and I feel that as long there is a host present to take care of the guests, it qualifies as an event, whether the event is 100% commercial or not. If LL gave him the opportunity to host commercial events, he would also get the ability to make enough money to host more 'popular' events, and maybe even be able to hire hosts.

These things aside, i think that the best way to actually get the event calendar 'working' again, is if we are able to set up automatic reminders on the kind of events we are interested in, whether they are commercial or not. If it is too big to browse, just automate it. As a merchant foremost, I for instance would have preferred to get a notice of every new mall opening event when I was in-world.

To get this working, we need a revamped calendar with a large set of categories, and no censorship on what qualifies as an event. A host present should be enough, if you ask me. If you are looking for a condo for rent, just check that category to be notified when a new complex opens, if you like Tringo, check that, and if you like trivia or show and tell, check that. Show and tell is one of my favorites, and it would also be one of the categories i checked. The simple fact is that the event system is borked right now. The latest fixes did nothing to fix it.

And I want to second the "consistency" motion. It would also help if events were scheduled far enough in advance that you could make an effort to be on line outside your regular hours if need be--I'll stay up late for Jeopardy and Captions!

To say that one tried an event and it didn't work and that therefore means that there is no interest in non-slingo/bingo/tringo events is false reasoning. There are many variables that might have accounted for that event to not work. We have Bingo/slingo/tringo all over the place in part because people like it. (yay for them, genuinely. ) But also, we have them all over the place because events hosts quit running stuff that didn't make them money. As I have explained arduously in other threads, it can't make money without the events host begging, and after awhile begging falls on deaf ears.

To make events work, Events hosts need box office scripts, they need participants who are willing to pay for what they get (not expect to be paid) and they need the return of events host monies. Please take time to vote for the return of events host money.

That people who are interested in something other than tr/sl/bingo or club happenings have stopped checking the event schedule is not new. The event schedule is generally considered to be broken with even LL admitting this. Timmy has taken the time to develop alternative events and put his money where his mouth is. He's had confirmation here from attendees attesting to this. A discussion about ways to improve awareness, communications, development of a network, etc. would be a good thing right about now.

I think for my events, I get an average of about 15 people...with arts events seeing more like 10 people. I consider this healthy since that's about all the sim can handle. (Perse has put her money where her mouth is too, subsidizing these events in the hopes that eventually folks will start tipping events hosts or making them break even with returned Linden support.) How we get folks is doing a regular slate of events so that people expect things to be happening at the Spa and ask hey what's going on. We also send out two week calendars with our events slate posted on them on notecards to our regular crowd (this is a bit of a job, but has seemed to pay off in attendance). Also, of course, like other venues, we use our group as a way to advertise and remind folks of events. This 3-fold approach seems to work, but it wouldn't if we didn't regularly run events so as to make it a regular thing for people to check us out.

My guess is that is why Perse is running them out of pocket. It keeps people expecting great events at the spa and keeps them in the habit for a time when this will break even (we all hope).

Is there an anti-business crowd in SL? heh. I only know one person who actually is anti-business in SL, and that person doesn't run Any kind of business or events venue. *is pro-business, but also pro-community culture, and pro-fun!*

I agree that consistency is the key. If a few folks show up to an event, and seem to really enjoy it, have it the same time next week/next day, and you will see word spread, sometimes slowly, and your attendence will increase. Though you made need to throw in some variety or suprises from time to time.

I've found that often, the key to a successful event is the host. If you can make folks feel at ease, make them laugh a bit and generally show a real interest in what is going on, you will be successful.

I've been to far too many events where the host rarely even speaks to anyone, explains nothing, and seems to just want you there for dwell.

As far as tips and such go, I will often remind folks to rate/tip the hostess if they had a good time. Events are now (and for me always were) almost always a losing money activity if any prize cash is involved. I've always lost money on events, but did them for the fun and enjoyment they might bring to patrons.

If I gave the impression that I failed to appreciate this, my apologies. You guys are putting time and/or $ into your establishment and its events. I wanted to point out that you have more in common with Timmy than not. You have presented some good suggestions here. Where is everyone else? Threads which have discussed withdrawal of event support have gone on forever with everyone jumping in with an opinion.

Event hosts are told to put on quality events and people will come. So? Timmy asks, where are the people?

"Too much tr/sl/bingo and naked avi contests" is the mantra du jour. A club shuts down amidst the cheers of the masses; how many posts were in that thread? In a subsequent thread, an attendee of that club asks if she is missing something since all she sees is tringo and clubbing. She asks what everyone else is doing that is so much fun and recieves hardly any response.

This is the place to discuss event hosting. It would truly be a good thing to see this group pull together your collective creative minds address this issue. What can be done to connect with an audience which is interested but has tuned out the venue provided to advertise events?

Good event hosts were making good money, now they're playing Tringo, and thats why events have gone down the pan and it's as simple as that.

Now consider the rest - Dancers were hired for those events,lots of those are out of work now and are also playing Tringo

Escorts made a living at events - same as above.

Add DJ's to the list.

You wonder why everyone is hosting Tringo? Because its the only way casual players can make money now.

You cant just tear something down and leave nothing in it's place and that in effect is what they did with all the changes to events.

Charging people entrance fee's will not work and the reason why is very very simple.Because you will ALWAYS have someone with lots of rl cash going to GOM to make their place No1 and those who cant afford that get kicked in the teeth.

Event support allowed everyone to compete on more or less even terms but now its simply a case of the have & have nots.Basically if you can afford to buy L$ from GOM then your going to the top of the charts - if you dont have the money to go to GOM then I'm afraid your stuffed.

And thats the reason they should NEVER have changed the system because now the rich get richer and the poor play Tringo and it's utter bollox.

Sox, if content creators are making their way in the world solely be their hard work, and event hosts are making it by getting handouts from LL, how is that an even playing field? Furthermore, the cost of one cup of Starbucks coffee would buy enough L$ to attend 50-100 events. $4! So you're trying to tell us that if someone can't come up with $4 in exchange for the ability to attend events for a month they should be rewarded for it by being given free money? Sorry, that doesn't wash. Your "woe is me, I deserve a handout" routine is getting a little stale.

Let's see: Best Furry Contest had 22 participants. Story teller contest have 2 story tellers and 3 audience members. Free Slots had 27 participants.

Me thinks I see a pattern here. Why doesn't any one else?

I get the point completely. Pay to play tringo and club events have a following. Those who are not inclined towards these activities do not support alternative events. Why? It may well be to a lack of awareness if they have stopped consulting the events calendar. So, now what? Any suggestions on how to connect with the segment of members who don't bemoan the predominance of tringo and club events yet do not support alternative activities?

sorry. got it backwards

EVERYTHING SOX SAID.

Chip, if they gave me $500 for putting on an event, let me tell you I would be EXCITED to put on an event. You wouldn't believe the clever ideas I would come up with, and there would be events at my house in Andromeda!

But - you see - as it is, there is NO INCENTIVE for me to spend the time and effort doing that. No sense at all in me thinking up fun and clever things to entertain the other players.

So . . . guess what! I'm not doing events. I am making things instead. I am selling things.

Why? Because there is built-in incentive to make things and virtually no incentive to hold events.

What is the incentive for making and selling things? Well, it is free to make things and you make money from selling them. Simple, simple, simple. It's all profit, minus the time. I have made money from selling things and it hasn't cost me a dime.

Would I make money for holding an event? No. Because you can't make money from holding (99.95% of) events. I would spend all the time and effort, but it would be totally philanthropic.

That is why I am not holding events. That is why I'm doing what you do - making things.

So you can stop talking about this totally misguided notion of us wanting things "handed to us on a platter" when they are ALREADY handed on a platter to YOU and to ME, Chip, for making things.

Why should events holders and entertainment and culture people be expected to pay out of their own pocket at GOM and reap NO profit for their efforts, when content creaters like you and me do nothing but get richer by the day for content that was free for us to make in the first place? (Minus the cost of uploading textures.)

I would also point out that making things is a nice, solitary activity one does on one's own time. Hosting events - isn't.

So the situation isn't that people want money handed to them on a platter for holding events and providing content that is something other than objects and scripts.

People just want the playing field leveled so there is some INCENTIVE for providing event content, just as there is already PLENTY of incentive for providing object and script content.

coco

They shouldn't. That's the whole point. The people who attend those events should be expected to compensate the hosts. The subsidies aren't going to come back. In order for event hosts to receive fair compensation for their efforts we need to cultivate a mindset where people don't expect to get something for nothing. I'm not trying to say that event hosts are the ones expecting handouts. I'm saying that by building their events around giveaways and prize money and not charging admittance they're enabled those people who do expect everything for nothing. Eventually people who want to host regular events are going to have to let go of the subsidized past and head into the "you get what you pay for" future. Event attendees should be expected to pay to attend most events. It's as simple as that. But if people don't start working towards that becoming the accepted way of things then we all miss out on the wealth of events we'd have to choose from if hosting events was a viable way to at least break even, and not the money losing proposition it is now.

For my response to this, see the thread on "Stop Paying People to Come to Events."

coco

I agree that people should pay for events they attend. why don't they now? well the issue is certainly complex. One reason is because an event host shoots him or herself in the foot by charging cover as long as others offer events with no cover. Another reason is that one would have to charge a minimum of $25/person to recoup the amount that subsidy paid hosts (which wasn't enough, but at least it was something). The most troublesome issue of all, though, is the lack of a boxoffice script.

When one goes to an event irl, one goes to a lovely building, a sense of excitement is in the air, and one is given a program as well as a ticket when one forks over one's dough. One isn't told, at the border, pay $25 or you won't be allowed on the land. If one was, i doubt people would go to events irl. Without some kind of equivalent box office mechanism, hosts must do this work by hand and it takes two people. I have tried charging at the door and asking people to pay me on 4 separate occasions. It was a nightmare without a 2nd person to help. So this means, in order to pay for the 2nd person, the cost to recoup goes from $25 at the door to $50 at the door.

I've tried to do events by just asking for tips. People love me as a host. They flock to my events, but they are singularly unwilling to pay tips. They are under the mistaken impression that dwell will cover it. If they only knew how little dwell actually amounts to, even when events are well attended. It certainly isn't enough to pay hosts $250/event when dwell for a whole day never generally gets more than $175 at the spa. (that's with running two events, except for rare occasions when we hired DJs who cost $500 when dwell is only worth $220 on that day).

I don't know how to make events a winning proposition without charging $50 per person at the door and then, I suspect attendance would be very low.

One problem with your assertion, though, is that you assume builders aren't subsidized when they actually are. They are subsidized in respect to being able to sell the same chair over and over and over again without any more materials cost. They also get free lottery wins of space for vendors. Isn't that subsidy? *scratches her head* Finally, they get access to volume. Events hosts do not. We have sim crashes when more than 20 people try to buy our product. irl one can fill a stadium and recoup costs that way. isl, one can't even fill a little bar without sim crashes. To say that the formula is the same for events and 3d content is simplistic.

I've been unwilling to join this discussion in case my guests think they're donating more than they need to. But I run Primtionary events, on average probably around 4 nights a week, and the donations (entirely unsolicted apart from a donation pot which I never draw attention to) usually cover my costs. Overall, I break even, entirely through the goodwill of regulars who donate prize money back to the pot. It is possible.

Our experience at the spa has not been so great with donations. We tend to get a very few very generous donations and very few smaller donations, but not enough to cover costs. We quit giving out cash prizes, so it is obvious that the donations only go to cover the host incentives. Perhaps people are willing to donate if they think some of the donated money will be redistributed among guests, but unwilling to donate if they believe the money just goes to the host. I wonder...

It seems to me that folks seem overall to believe that the host should be hosting "for the fun of it" or "out of the goodness of his/her heart" but donating to a raffle ball or pot is okay because that money goes back into the hands of guests in part at least. Does that seem an accurate reflection? Or am I way off?

Well I think it is a couple of things that come into play. Some of this is my own experience and some is just what I have heard others say.
A) I only get stripend. I can't afford to just hand out tips randomly. It's ahrd enough to buy anything as it is.

B) I won't donate unless I get a chance of getting something back.

C) Forget that these people are rich they don't need donations.

just a few off the top of my head.

I am one of those people who is constantly on the fence and who could fall in either direction. I have been on this fence for a year now peering over on both sides - and I think I have finally formed an opinion!

Back in the early day I can remember looking in the Event Calendar and seeing lots of building contests: There were Egg contests, pumpkin contests, flower contests, 6 prims and 1 script contests, vehicle contests. There was also many many classes throughout the day: You could always find a Intro to Building, Intro to Particles, Beginners Scripting, Advance Scripting, a How to make Money, How to make a Vendor, How to Rotate textures. And sprinkled throughout the Event Calendar you could also find Snail Races, the Hamster Races, the Fishing Tourneys, the Water Polo, the ARchery contest, the Tribal Drums. And when I wasnt in the mood for one of those fun events, I could look up at the tabs and find some Nice Picks of some cool builds to go explore. I was so excited over the variety that was available I even hosted some events and followed suit. The money I got from Lindens I gave away to the winners as so did everyone else in those days.

Right in the middle of my new found excitement, Waves and I put together Survivor SL and strung together all these different events over a 12 week period. The timing sucked as thats when LL decided to quit paying. But we marched on and so did may contributors that paid out lots of cash and prizes. Let me tell you it was a lot of work organizing all that. And after all that organizing, advertising, and excitement - we averaged a dozen people a night and paid through the nose thousands. Additionallyl, I was conducting classes twice a week and averaged 15-20 attending class. I got paid for that and it felt good. I felt I contributed to events and classes and I was compensated. I was one proud and happy avatar.

Now I browse through events and see very little thats exciting, or interesting. Im bored of Tringo, bored of the clubs. I make a few things, sell a few things, build a few things, and once in a while host an event. I will go and hunt up a friend or two to chat with them and look at their stuff. I have nothing in my Tabs that tell me where the cool builds are to visit, so sometimes I go explore, sometimes I dont. Sometimes I just log off cuz there is nothing new and exciting that keeps my attention, of if there is -- I cant find it.

At first I didnt care that Lindens quit paying out host support. I could get money if I wanted it. But what I have found over the course of time, is that I had lost my incentive to organize and be creative with a contest or class. Sure $250 does not seem like much - pennies in RL really. But its the principle. . . it is exactly the fact that Mommy and Daddy Linden gave it to us to give away. They wanted us to be creative, they wanted us to inspire, they wanted us to gather the crowds and have fun. But Mommy and Daddy Linden dont care any more, they wont even give us the measly $250 to hand out. So now I dont care, and my hunch is - many many creative hosts dont care anymore either. Too easy to go sit in a Tringo chair, joke and chat, work a puzzle, and maybe get lucky and win a game or two, and then eventually get bored and log off.

At first I didnt care that they took away Top Picks, looked like it wasnt very well managed and some players got an advertising advantage over the rest of us. But now. . .. wheres all those neat builds at? Isnt anybody building any cool thing anymore? I see some on the front page and some on the forums, oh well. . . . maybe not.

Im very thankful for the creative people left out there that try to provide the "different" events. I call them "different" because they are not the clubs or the Tringo which is now the norm. Its sad though, because when I first started playing SL, the "different" ruled. Timmy, my hat is off to you and Cherry, and all the others who try and squeeze their cool different event into that mess of an Events Calendar in he hopes that someone will see it and attend.

If I could have 3 SL wishes:

1) Give us back the money - we need to feel the love - we need to know you care.
2) Put filters, more tabs, more choices, something!! Damn clean up that Events calendar!
3) Bring back top picks - we want to explore the cool builds again.

The morale to this story, How many more players over the course of time are going to feel this same way I do (bored and discouraged) and just go find some other game to play.