Little help here...

I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing this either hosting events or attending them:

Folks arriving late - and by late I mean 20-30 minutes after the posted start time. (sometimes even arriving at the end of the hour!)

A marked drop in attendees at events in general.

Its my opinion that this sort of thing has happened since the advent of having no notifications at the top of each hour. Now I know there is a self-notify thingy added, but as a wise lion commented to me "ya gotta remember to look at the event in the first place"...ahh there's the rub and all that. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard at the welcome area - so how do you find things to do here? And the Big Blue Events Button is like right there on their screen.

I've been to events that in the past were heavily attended, and find them rather sparce. I've noticed event hosts resorting to TP "contests" more often than before: offering Lbucks to those who TP their pals in. And I've heard reports of more IM spamming going on to get folks to come to events.

I'm not sure what the solution might be. I'd like to have *automated event pop-ups at the top of each hour be the default, and then there would be a toggle so those that don't want to know about events can have them turned off all the time; I'm just all about having a CHOICE, instead of a blanket solution, that I think is not working so well.
(*And I mean automated, in that a Linden won't have to sit around and try to write something clever each hour - could just be a generic announcement "Cool events coming up this hour - check them out" sorta thing).
I've also seen grumbling about abuse of the events list, with folks posting basically the same event multiple times during the day. I've seen this crop up after the new system went in. Its become a numbers game kinda thing. If you post the event up more than once, you might get the same attendance in total as you had in the past when events where notified each hour. Again, thats my guess as to why this is happening more often.

I'm wondering if the cure has become more troublesome than the disease....
Anyhow, just wondering if anyone else has noticed these things. and if there are any more suggestions on how to fix it.

Brace, although I have not noticed a significant drop in attendance, I agree that people are coming in later and later. Last night I recieved two IM's after the event was over from Avvies surprised that I had gone so 'quick'.

I agree with your suggestion and would even go one further and submit that volunteers make the event annoucements. We have in world live help volunteers, we have mentors and instuctors, it stands to reason that we can get people to volunteer to do announcements?

I have noticed the samething as Brace, that there has been a drop in the number of people going to events. I do check the events button myself, but it would be a good idea in my own opinion to have an automated system that would allow for notification of the evetns at the top of the hour. Like Brace said, just something to say 'Hey check your events button.' I do believe not many people think about checking until they are reminded that it is there for some reason.

The first SL Basics class I held since the new system got 0 attendance.
I've not hosted another class since.

I suspect it's due to the fact that the Events listings are full of people advertising their clubs. There is less incentive to read them now, because you have to pick your way through all the spam.

Indeed, people are starting to advertise clubs and even land sales again.

There are just too many bogus contests and advertisements disguised as events, which is why we need an in-game advertisement board in addition to the actual events board.

On the other hand, there is more competition than there used to be; usually when I'm late for an event it is because an earlier event ran into overtime and it was awkward to get away.

Thanks for sharing info yall.

Interesting stuff, and I wanted to quote for darn near everyone, but no clue how to do that hehe.

anyhoo

1) Sio's 0-attendence at a SL Basics class.
Yes Yes Yes. I'm still noobish and I like to go to those when I can. Usually they are PACKED with new folks eager to learn things. Those have been the hardest hit I must say with this new system.
The new people are losing out with this no reminder to click the event button dealy.
It sure helped me to get into the swing of clicking that button, and yet I still forget, or get caught up in building, designing and end up missing something cool.

2) Barb and Selador commented on the sorry state of the events listings.
Yes Yes Yes. And I think its come to this in part, to the new system - as I mentioned in my initial post. You've got clubs with multiple/all day/everyday events being listed, and so forth. That in itself I don't personally mind, however, as the rules stand now, yer not supposed to be doing that but - its seems evident that people are loopholing it, and sliding around trying to find ways to boost attendance. Which has dropped overall. Due to this new system. Catch-22. here we go again.

3) Yes it would be pretty nifty to have some sort of separate events list for just pure advertizing. You could also toggle that off/on if you wished. So all the come see my new club, gosh I'm having a sale, come buy my land/clothes/animations etc would be "evented" on its own list.

Funny tho...I remember this being the primary reason to clamp down on events in the beginning....which is odd considering SL is ABOUT buying and selling - a HUGE part of it is. I've seen Philip in interviews going on how folks make a RL living from SL...we are issued stipends and a small chunk of change as we first log in....so when did this become such a BAD THING?
Bad enough so it got the whole events thing all scrambled and screwed up. A few squeaky wheels IMO is what started this snowballing, when all it really needed was a off/on toggle and auto-reminder at the top of each hour. (auto-reminder gets a toggle too - hey why not?).
Now everyone is happy, event hosts will have attendees, those who don't go to events won't even know they exist, event attendees will be notified in time to attend, people who *gasp* sell things will be happy, and the frantic scramble to entice people to places in the off-chance they remember to click that event button will eventually slack off to more normal every day listings.

Almost done babbling here. Maybe its a semantics thing. the word Events or Event. Some say a club opening up, or new additions or a sale in a store or mall, or some interesting land for sale is not an event.
Perhaps looking at it from another point of view...if you save up your lindens, finally buy that land, build your store, sweat it out in photoshop and create some cool things, get some vendors, and load everything up - I'd say you'd feel like it was some kind of event going on when you get it all done and want to let folks know its out there.

Or maybe we use the word Happenings, or Goings On, or whatever. Simple truth of the matter is, other than in-world listings there isnt any other place that reaches as many active citizens who might be interested in what you have Happening, Going On, Eventing or what have you. So really its time for a revamp that makes some kind of sense, and reflects what really is going on in SL, and not some "ideal" that only a very few folks would like to have.

Maybe all the cool people are having private parties. Invite only.

Actually, I have no clue about this, because I've stopped attending so many events. Maybe it's a cyclical thing. Maybe it's always a little dead this time of year. School just started for a lot of young people.

For me, I'm just tired of the clubs. I like dancing in RL where I'm a bit rare as a male dancer. Everyone can dance here, and it's kinda lame. There's only two styles of music that are played most often and those are hip-hop, which I don't like to dance to, and 80's, which hip hoppers don't like to dance to. Occasionally there's a goth or semi-goth dance. I'd like to see modern-rock/alternative clubs, but still I'd just go to listen to the music. People always think I'm a stick in the mud for not dancing, but those dances get so boring. I'd rather be engaged in something meaningful.

I switched to trivia contests, which are cool, but YOU HAVE TO BE A SPEED TYPIST!! I'm smart, and I occasionally have the answer, but typing it in fast enough is really tough.

That's my opinion, and that's my challenge. Make events where people can show their personalities. People want to connect.

I agree. Yes Rock, trivia is often a speed competition. I have much improvement to do in this area as I type with two fingers and am not altogether happy with what I could do compared to, well, home row. I don't know if I could adjust though -- maybe it's too late in the game for me.

But for those who don't like "typing contests", buzzer games are an option. I like trying them because I have extremely slow reaction times and look at it as a good way to practice, not to mention the socialization between the questions where people get to do what you described in your last two sentences.

I'm a touch typist, fear my 1337 skills =)
Heck, I cant even write manually anymore.

I think a big problem is the fact more and more events are being dragged out longer than they used to be. Very often now a contest doesn't even start asking for votes until at least an hour has passed, stretching it to 1.5-2 hours; often I will plan on going to another event during the 2nd hour but may arrive late due to the previous one over-running.

I don't attend as many events as I used to. Seems like all that's out there is "Sexiest av contest" or "dance contest", or "HALLOWEEN PATRY SEXIST AV WHILE UR HERE CEHCK OUT OUR SLOT MACHINES AND SHOP IN OUR STORE" type of events. There are some good ones, but they seem more buried in crap now.

As for being late, I appreciate when hosts start on time, even if people are still filing in. I try to get there on time, and if I'm late I'd expect the event to have already begun. And I also ask of everyone, please don't ask where you are or what is going on! Do your homework. Or stick it out a few minutes to figure out the rules; chances are the host will repeat them. If it's a contest and has already begun, guess what...you're too late! Stick around and vote, but don't expect the already-busy host to stop and explain it for the fifth time just so you can hear it.