This query makes me think more of ongoing exhibits. Think of the many art shows, music festivals, community fairs... events that last an entire day, a week, a month. There will be a host at the beginning, maybe at certain points throughout, but most of the time the exhibit is left open for people to find and use at their leisure.
From my own experience, I'll be having a boat show this weekend, but there will be only two hosted segments at the beginning and end, so those were the only two times I could list in the event calendar. But the boat show is a competition that is ongoing over the weekend. Some people are going to miss my two event announcements because they were busy at those particular times or living in a time zone inconvenient for the hosted portion. However, the boat show will still be there for their enjoyment whenever they do find the time. I just have no way of being able to tell them that using the event calendar as it is now.
I also think of the recent Dreams Community Fair or the Arcadia Gaming Expo, two events that were ongoing for weeks. Lots of buzz when they start, but easy to forget they still exist as the time passes. Someone would mention one of the events in passing, and my brain would click as I think "Oh yeah, that's still going on? I completely forgot."
There are lots of exhibits that are exactly the kind of content that I think Linden Lab appreciates, but the means to promote them just isn't there. Come to think of it, there are many fantastic sims and building structures that could do with more exposure, but to do so you must pay and pay muchly for them to be noticeable at all in the classifieds.
And to speculate, I think Linden Lab really doesn't want to spend time figuring out a way to promote all of this rich content. What would be their dream is someone who develops an amazing resident-run event calendar that addresses all of these concerns. The more hands off they can be in regulating the content within world, the more Second Life becomes a platform service they provide but is maintained by the masses -- much like an ISP providing the means for someone to see the internet but the ISP does nothing to provide the internet's content.
Okay, that turned into an entirely different rant, but to get back on point, I can certainly understand wanting to promote an ongoing exhibit. Perhaps if the event calendar got a second feature -- click to show ongoing events. All a person lists is start/end time and the event will stay listed until it reaches the end time. Oh, but I can see the yard sale/tringo abuse already...
