No interesting events anymore

Very sad - there are no events of interest anymore. If you have a look on the calendar you may cry:

Time Event Host
10:00PM ***YARDSALE PRICES IN NEW STORE*** Meri Fermi
10:00PM SPORTS - ALL MAJOR EVENTS Tata Witte
10:00PM INVENTORY BLOW OUT SALE Blackheart Batz
10:00PM LEATHER AND LACE EVENT @ RAZORS EDGE Josie Pickles
10:00PM SLINGO AT CLUB KANALOA Wisteria Wilder
10:00PM ~~A TAKE ON SIMPLICITY GRAND OPENING~~ Felicity Sneerwell
10:00PM 100L OR LESS CHARITY YARD SALE Simone Stern
10:00PM INDOOR YARD SALE Marod Pierterson

...and so on . If you filter the events for "Arts and culture" you get the following four lines:

Time Event Host
11:00PM THE HEAVENLY GARDENS AWAIT YOU Paula Smashcan
11:00PM THE GRAND WELCOMES YOU Paula Smashcan
11:00PM MAGNIFICENT ART AT THE MAGG Paula Smashcan
11:00PM RELAX IN THE SPHERE Paula Smashcan

Its definately dead - nothing of interest. Just boring.

Where are the interesting places without the casinoes and sex clubs? Where is art, culture, education? Where is the real UNDERGROUND like in my town (RL) at the railway station? Is there anything else? Why should I spent time in second life? Real live has more interesting things. I'll just go out for a dinner with my friends - yes - and eat something. And hear what they say, not just read. After this I'll go to a museum of modern art (RL) and really see something interesting. Not just commerce and sex and casinoes. And - mention it - they show more than clothes, tatoos and new faces...


I've posted this message into another forum already - sorry, I haven't found this forum before.

Ummmm...Are you reading all the entries? I did a search under Arts and culture and it took me all of 10 seconds to find...

Sculpture Show - A 3d Art Experience
Art Exhibit Opening at Rebirth
Exhibition of top New York Artists
Open Art Critque

etc...etc...

Let's see what's under education....Lots of Building classes.....a Vegetarian Group/Class....Scripting classes....and even a Yoga Class.


Are you sure you're looking at the entire calendar...or just the first few events? Because all the results I listed were for today.

SW, I find your post more reflective of your state of mind rather than the state of sl. Like building or creating spaces in sl, we are limited for the most part by our own imaginations, so is our enjoyment of the creations of others. I would suggest if you want more "meaning full" creations or environments or activities and can find none, then you have spotted a "niche" that needs filling. Have at it, get busy and become a solution and not a another "I want everything I want, and you better give it to me" underdeveloped personality. I don't mean to be mean (lol), become a party and not a wallflower complaining the party is lousy.

Think the guy has a point.
Ive been here 3 years and watched a steady decline of none profit motivated events slide to almost none exsistant.
Back in the day, there were events like Primtionary and trivia quizzes seems the only social places these days are clubs and cassinos you only have to look at the popular places to see sex is the biggest 'interest' in SL now.

Once over popular places was Linden owned land and places residents built that other ppl went to just to explore and meet up.

For the last 2 years Ive been too busy to interact with SL outside my store but since taking on a FT manager Ive found myself feeling lost and bored.

Kinda sick of talking business and textures to ppl I meet so I fly about looking for events I can have fun and meet ppl but not being a club dweller Im at a loss.

SL has become like ebay. All sales and no social.

Or at least it appears that way to someone for all intents and purposes has been out of the social scene for a long time.....

The classes are geared towards making money...everyone wants to make money or spend money

Yes, 3D animated EBAY. Endless miles of empty palaces. Stirred only by the occasional whir and click of vending machines. It cannot last. Why buy a new dress if there is no party?

I put "party" into the event search, All, show mature, and got one result.

The description of the party said "Come down and party dance and make some Free money!!!!"

Hmm.

SL has a very enjoyable live music scene

Imogen Sim : its always got people willing to just hangout.

ignore the hype and just act like its still 1985

As a new person to SL, I to search for something meaningful, educational, social and PG!!!!

I know we can better enrich our lives in RL by pulling together and offering our knowledge to each other. I encourage you if you have the time, and have something that you enjoy and would like to see, try to put something together.

We can sit and talk about the lack of it............OR we can get up and do something about it!!!

I see the great potential in SL. So I rented a large plot of land and am building a center to hold meetings, classses and gatherings of those things that interest ME!!!
(Weight loss classes, Nutrition Classes, Christian Social Gatherings, Bible Studies, ect.....Basically anything that interests me, I'm going to try to find some teachers, guest speakers and host some events on the subject)

Hope this inspires you to start your own group or host your own event!!!
Aislinn Jewell

But for those of us not rich enough to buy our own land/set up our own centre etc - we need to be able to FIND these events. I keep looking and in my nearly 3 weeks on SL have found a couple of interesting discussions and a couple of art galleries and museums - BUT you have to really work hard on the searching, and I think a lot of these events are notified to the members of "their" groups and not to the general SLublic. That is a great pity. Aislinn I'll look out for your events.

Dancing in clubs is fun but only for so long. Shopping palls, specially when you have little to spend. We need more things to do that preferably are about meeting people, which is after all why most of us SAY we play SL.

It seems to me that the problem is not so much a lack of events but an abundance non-events cluttering up the events calendar. If all the classified adds like "textures for sale" or "we have camping chairs" where in classifieds and not in events it would at least be much easier to find actual events.

Seems to me you got ignored here.

There's even a whole category for Live Music, and it's still not overly polluted by crap yet. There are several venues that only cater to live music and are not casinos, or meat market clubs. If you're bored, and haven't been to a show here, go. Real live musicians playing and interacting with people in real time. By and large most of these events are really good social events as well, as there is often lively text chat going on during the set. At this point it's also not a problem to find someone new to listen to, since there are now loads of really good performers out there (and a few that are not so great, if you find one of those, turn off your music stream for a few minutes and search for another show).

I agree with Kaklick. Sunday afternoon/evening I went to 1 blog party and several live concerts... 12pm SLT until 8pm SLT, or so. (No, I wasn't on for that entire 8 hours, I came and went for certain events I'm sure that some days have more events than others.

One reason so few cultural events are publicly posted is because LL refuses to do anything about griefers. You post an event on anything that gives anyone with a grudge a chance to protest, and your event turns into a nasty spat at the least, or a guerilla war at worst. Anything important to do with business, you get SLLA, Terrorists of SL, Anarcho-communists, and other groups protesting, shooting, and bombing your event. Anything to do with furries gets a worse response from /b/tards and Patriotic Nigras, up to sim crashings that last hours. Anything political gets similar responses.

Nobody wants to become a target, so people are more inclined to promote their events with notices on relevant groups. People are thus acting out of fear, i.e. terrorism is taking hold. LL needs to act to stop this vicious cycle from ruining our community. The only way they will act is if we, the paying residents of SL, stand up as one and demand an end to griefing.

There is definitely truth to a decline in event quality. Yes, there are still some good cultural events out there, but they are not growing in number along with the commercial ones. The number of educational events also seems to be declining -- not just in the percentage of the total, but in absolute number. (Yes, I'm in a small way a contributor to that decline; I was a Linden instructor and I am still on the faculty of the Academy of Second Learning, but a busy RL has left me little time for teaching recently.)

The discontinuation of dwell payments and Developer Incentive are surely one factor. It's harder to cover the cost of owning land without those payments, so people who might have sponsored cultural events (which generally don't produce any revenue) are less likely to do so. LL killing payment of instructors might be a factor in the decline in education, though that is less clear, as sponsorship arrangements have taken up a lot of the economic slack for teachers.

The educational games like Primtionary also seem to have mostly disappeared. I think the fact that they (like anything that draws a large crowd of new residents) are griefer magnets is the main reason. When your game gets destroyed every time you try to hold it, you stop trying after a while.

The live music scene is alive and well and seems to be growing. But most of it happens during the evening SLT/PST. Residents who live outside the Americas aren't likely to find many music events that happen at times when they can attend, except perhaps on weekends.

Finally, we can speculate whether the intelligence/creativity/quality level of Second Life residents is declining. I suspect that, on average, it is. The early adopters of SL, like the early adopters of all Internet technologies (and probably of most things off the net, for that matter), were all from the very top end of the scale; to be able to pioneer this medium, not to mention deal with the crude state of the software as it then existed, they had to be. As time goes by and the masses find SL, the average level falls from that early peak. (It remains well above average; I doubt that SL draws many residents from the bottom half of the bell curve.) With a smaller percentage of the population being brilliant creative types, there are inevitably a smaller percentage of brilliant creative events.

Ok then, have your ways, its all for shit! Lillybeth shut down your textures store (since it must now only be used to construct non event , casinos & meat markets, not too mention its a store that is commercially geared ). Just because somebody offered money at their event does not say it wasn't a good event> With everybody and their mothers wanting their own "club" its not hard to see they will offer almost anything so they don't sit alone at a party they trew like a junior high school dweeb. I too was an instructor, and we agree most of what I see is questionable these days, however the Harvard Law professor I saw few days back and the Canadian Journalism professor I saw yesterday both streaming live video feeds from their respective school didn't appear to be bottom fishers . I don't go out often but I did get invited to a blues gig a few days back, my poor computor could not hang with the lag so I didn't stay (there were approx 40 there). I bring this up because it was mainland where we are crippled from having events with over 40 avi's. Good thing the Proffessor (& Mary-ann) have an island to work from , rofl. There may be another more bsic reason for what appears to be less and less meaningful events, the growth of sl. There is a pretty good learning curve for all of us that aren't the "Top Eshalon (please), The overly commercial aspect may be more a real life condition, I woulld certainly rather make a rl living wage on SL and not have to contend with driving, underpay and seeing the third world that has taken over the US along with the rl griefers .

but I digress, you all are right, don't improve the condition by adding any meaninigful content where you see none fly around get disgusted and then come vent here. Shouldn't consider a roundtable or cooperative to create a palatable solution. But, I need to ask if not you all who have the skills , the resources, the money from your successfull enterprises and I dare say some that have the islands, then who?

Please, overlook the grammatical inconsistencies, operatorheadspace refusing to allow me to edit, lol.

I feel the need to remind folks that there is a non-profit in SL that supports meaningful events in SL. They grant 10k a month to folks with great ideas. Applications are available from myself, Penelope Phoenix, and any of the members of the FFRC group.

With 10K, anyone can create a fun event and I'm happy to provide a reasonable piece of land to hold it on.

So, YES there are many great events happening in SL, I just finished putting together a rather successful grand opening art show. I've attended some great gaming at Arcadia 1 and 2, (check out Frootcake and Dangerzone for some fun, social time!). I've toured the island of Cocololo in a balloon and I've been to many Blitz Building events for new people at NCI. I don't go to clubs much...maybe 3x a month, and I enjoy tons of meaningful events in SL everytime I log in.

I encourage you to change the way your mind is set and make a new decision: SL is just like RL...it's what YOU make it.

I have to agree with Kak martin, there is great live music in SL. If you look in events under live music you will find some great stuff (and some not so great stuff). There is great conversation going on along with the music. If you don't like one there are many others you can attend. They also go on all day most of the time. So if you look, there are things going on that are not all sex and games. Give it a try.

I have also been skydiving, surfing, skiing, boating, etc.

Another thing to try is to join a group that is involved in the type of events you are interested in. There are some great Artist groups out there. You might here about things through your groups that are not on the events calendar.

Most nights now, I can't decide what to do, because the choices are so varied and rich. I have to echo those who mentioned the Live Music scene. I have enjoyed listening, and have made friends by chatting while the concert went on.
AND, as an instructor I know that most (American) hours there are at least 3 classes from which to choose.
I know that there are a lot of events that take place that are not on the Events listings, and require membership in a group. For example, as a member of the Elf Circle I get announcements of activities no less than 2 times per day.
SL is what you make of it, so have fun~~~!!

i have an art gallery...i can't be there 24/7....i have a real full time job....plus...i can only spend so much time on a computer....but i do try to host an event at my gallery once a week to chat with people and to ask questions. i'm also trying to attract people who would not normally go to the art galleries with fun stuff like mud wrestling for a chance to win free art....and i will probably have a dj spin there soon.

feel free to look me up (anyone). or just look up ornaglyph in search and you will find a landmark. no one has to buy anything...my style isn't for everyone...but i can say for sure that it is definately different than most anything else on there.

Also I miss the edugames prim challenges . Now I notice that they pretty much just have tringo classes. sometimes they do primtionary....sometimes jello boxing (now that is fun).

I think there's plenty to do in SL. If the events calendar frustrates you, check out some of the 'net-based blogs about Second Life, and some of the SL publications. These are a couple I read:

Natalia's SL Diary - place/event reviews & kick-ass tutorials.
New World Notes - place/event reviews
Second Life Herald's Game Reviews

SL has always been a commercial platform, the difference is that the Lindens USED to pay incentives and dwell, they used to pay more in stipens, they used to support by paying 500Ls per class or so for schools and teachers to help new people along.
Now since they arent subsidizing any content crators, we are all on our own. If you are making money here in SL you NEED to help people who host nice events and schools here in SL so more people can learn. Its pretty much that simple.
Lindens have abandoned us and now if we care at all about SL we need to help the things we enjoy along.

Here's one way to filter the event list:

Second Life events listed at eventful.com, heavily filtered

This filters out words in the events list using the following "-slingo -tringo -sex -sexy -sexiest -sale -sexiest -nude -latex -bet -win -money -outfit -sale -party -demons -pots -casino -club -poker -dom -sub ".

One can use their own list of filter terms to suit their own preferences.

If you find something you like in the results, you can copy some of the event name and then you should be able to find the event in the SL event search dialog.