Im Sorry.

I just want to say im sorry, for any misunderstanding I ever had with anyone; and any hardships that were ever created, it was never my intent. Just understand I care about you guys truely and everyone having fun. I know it's hard to sometimes express oneself without offending others or being offended weather intentially or unintentially. As I speak I'am in utter distraught and my heart aches so much I cannot put into words. The reason I have felt so strongly about this economical issue is because I have friends that I truely enjoy being with at Club Erotica and I feel so much pain thinking that what little I have left in life they have helped me enjoy it and I didn't want to lose the feeling of being a part of a family with friends.

I understand Phillip probably has his reasons for these dicisions and maybe there is more behind it than we all know. My concern for this community has cost me something in real life that I cannot change. I have made a sacrifice just being here in times when I shouldn't have and it's my fault. I will remember those friends I had and you as a community. I cannot go on much longer I just wanted you all to know, that I'am sorry. Take care and I wish you well.

I don't understand why you think you're going to be losing friends or that club.

I could see why you'd lose the club if the club owners aren't flexible and/or creative enough to come up with ways to attract crowds again (if they even NEED to... they might be able to attract those that -really- "love" the club, like you, just by holding events with no prizes... if you love the club, you'll go no matter what, right?), but the economic changes themselves will not close down the club... lack of flexibility/creativity might.

I'm sorry you feel so terrible, Blake. *hugs* Just remember that whatever's going on in RL is always the most important thing. SL will always be here for you and if it causes you undue stress remind yourself that it's supposed to be fun. When it stops being fun, you can safely say that it's time to take a break.

Hopefully you'll be able to sort out whatever's going on. I don't really understand how Phillip comes into all of this, but I hope you feel better soon!

Events hosting does not just happen coz people hang out and decide hey, while were all here let's play a round of... nah. just like in rl, where arts and culture events take planning, structuring and organizing, in sl they do too. the issue is that the middle managers, the people who actually host those events, now have no renumeration because clubs don't recoup enough on dwell to pay hosts. The only way hosts will be paid is if Actual Events Attendees, or business people in the community, pay them to host. Otherwise, people who build content in terms of events are to do this as unpaid work for the fun of it. and i'm sure people who build sofas do it for the fun of it to at some level, but i know they like to be paid too. It is a way of someone saying that you have created value and that's great. What Robin Linden has told us is that you did such a great job creating content that we have a thriving events community. so now we're going to quit helping. The difficulty here is that there is no substantive or sustainable system by which events hosts can be compensated for the value they create. Right now, the only way our club owner can pay events hosts after the 17th is if he shells out dough out of pocket, and why should he? If people want events they will now have to pay for them and not be paid by them. a huge shift in the public mindset is being asked to happen immediately or there will be no events. trust me on this, i have seen this in the rl world and even the most rightwing governments have maintained funding for arts and culture because the actual benefit of it cannot be sustained in any other way without in fact posing threat to the very nature of the thing.

Content creators that use prims, textures, scripts, etc etc get no compensation unless they sell their wares. Event hosts can do the same thing. Charge for their content. If your event is interesting, people will pay for it, just as they pay for other content they choose in SL.

Club owners are not "middle managers", because LL was never "upper management". The event award system was never intended to be the support network for clubs.



Well then doesn't that say that there's something wrong with the way clubs are operating right now?



Hey! That sounds like a great idea! Being flexible like that is good!



Ok! We've got enough children here! Lets throw them all out into the pond, and whomever can actually swim back to shore gets to live!

Sounds like survival of the fittest to me. The good clubs will stick around. The bad clubs will vanish. If no clubs survive, that must mean that none of the clubs were any good.



Sure you do. Right click the land, select "Charge for entry".



Not true. He can charge for entry.



Oh, I believe you! Don't worry, I'm rooting for that very thing to happen. The unfit should not survive, the fit should survive. Natural selection is a wonderful thing.



I'm sorry... you're comparing strip clubs and escort services to arts and culture? Heh. That's rather humorous.

Since you are so Creative, open a Club and run it before you Judge others.

Blake, there are plenty of creative clubs out there. You can't expect the cookie cutter clubs that just spring up to cash in on something that offer nothing different, or interesting, that only reward friends of the club owner in contests, that plays the same crap music over and over again to survive indefinitely. People don't come to something just because you build it - you have to make it interesting for them. The places that do that will survive perfectly fine, and honestly, the closing of those that don't is hardly a bad thing. Hopefully they will move on and try something new.

I know that you are a really sensitive person - I have gotten that from your many posts. I am sorry this is hitting you so hard, and I sincerely hope it works out for you. Part of the freedom we have in SL is to make it whatever we want it to be for ourselves - I think you will find ultimately that after an adjustment period, the community will support the events it is interested in, and the places that are interesting. So there are not 10,000 copy cat clubs, but only a handful of really well done ones - is that such a bad thing?

Blake:

not once in ur post did u mention that u would be missing events, or a money ball at club erotica.
u do state ur sense of belonging and kinship with others at that place. this seems healthy enuff. so ur stance is that if money balls aren't spitting and events aren't being posted somehow this affects ur crowd? you are saying the people u care about have to be paid to associate with each other?

marilyn

Precisely... and I don't think that can be the case. Each time I've looked at the map there are still a healthy number of little green dots at all the usual places - because they like being there, because thats where their friends are. I don't think that money is much of a factor at this point.

If entry fees come in, that may be a different matter, but at the end of the day, whether people go will be dictated by whether they feel that what they are getting for their money is worth what is being charged. But people have to get out of the mentality that they should be paid at events just for attending. Quite the reverse is true - someone is going to effort to entertain you (in theory ). It's no less 'content' than someone selling you an object or clothing. I hope these changes begin to instill that mindset in both hosts and event goers.

So far, not much has changed as a result of anything. Time will tell if the impact will be great or not, and whether thats a positive or negative thing. I don't see any point in anyone getting up in arms about anything yet. It's way too early to tell.

Blake,

I didn't realize there was a class of event hosters, independent of the club owners themselves.

Is it a matter of getting a venue to hold your event? Maybe an event model can form with the clubs offering event space for free with the event hoster being sponsored by an outside entity.

I am in the process of getting a private island, and while I won't have a club on it, I do want to drive traffic to the island. I know I, or someone else, can host events on the island, but it really won't be built for that.

I would be interested in hiring someone to put on an event at another location and mention it was sponsored by our island and show some signage. If the club owners are willing to allow you to host an event simply for the traffic/dwell, then maybe this could work out.

What does a hoster make? Is it L$250-500 from the linden event money or is there something extra. Would you need an additional couple of hundred $L for prize money/money ball?

Do you see something like this allowing you to keep hosting?

I'm one of the middle managment She was talking about I don't hold a club I host events at a friends club. So I don't get dwell for hosting an event. I'm working out a way to still be able to hold events and not go broke. I like hosting and doing fun things like trivia. People just have to adapt to new things, if not they can just find something else to do.

Blake, please find someone in RL to talk to. What you may or may not be contemplating is NEVER the answer.

Blake it really seems to me that you're putting the cart before the horse and reacting to things that haven't actually happened... and with a lot more melodrama than is warranted by the situation. Adapt and adjust and try not to be so doom and gloom. It's a big world full of thousands of people to make friends with. Don't limit yourself by believing it all depends on one club. Hang in there

Don't worry Blake you are a member of the Feted Inner Core .. you can do no wrong.

Ew. No thanks.

I certainly hope that people will pay for it. But the difficulty is that, currently, no mechanism exists for them to pay. If they pay to attend the event, the money goes to a complex group of people who pooled resources to make the club. This is not likely to be the person or even one of the persons actually hosting an event always. The only way currently that an Events host has for making money is by asking for it from a club owner (who doesn't recoup enough on dwell to actually pay even a quarter of what the Lindens paid and still make anything on the event) or to ask for money at the door.

What we need is a security type script that will kick visitors off of a property after they have been given X number of minutes to pay the cover charge. The cover charge is then split according to some ratio between events host and club owner(s). Right now all I can do is beg for tips as the Events Host. This is problematic as people grapple with the idea that "wait, didn't You used to pay Me to come to events? I have to pay You now?" Do I stand and argue with someone as my event is running? (since I run sceners competitions, the answer is clearly no: i have a million things to do during events such as set up props for the coming scene, answer latecomers questions about if they can sign up to scene or what the scenario is, take votes for who was best performer, tp people, etc etc etc.) Do I beg repeatedly for people to tip me? Do I wheedle, whine and threaten to not host anymore if they don't, undermining the jovial atmosphere of the event as a whole just to try to make my buck? Do you see my problem? Imagine if Vendors didn't have an automatic exchange of goods for money. Imagine you had to rely only on good will for people to pay you AFTER you had given them your item. Would many pay? Isn't it good that an automated mechanism exists for you and others interested in building and selling?

Anytime one makes policy that will have a significant effect on a marginalized group, it is wise to plan WITH that group to adjust to changes. Any attempt to actually do this would have highlighted the difficulty of paying the people who do the actual organizing roles in events construction, organizing and hosting.

One does not have to be a club owner to be an events host. In fact, many events hosts were hired because they saw ads and came to run events for club owners. When one pays for a paid event, one pays land owners who are quite often not the same as events hosts.

Interestingly, also, arts and culture can include an astonishgly wide array of phenomena, including phenomena that falls within the parameters of adult entertainment. Certainly many of my favourite writers would have been so regarded.

And as for dwell not paying what it costs, one can make the assertion that, rather being an inidcator that something is wrong with clubs, it is an indicator that something is wrong with the dwell formula.

Persephone,

While all the things you are asking for are not yet in SL, you can charge timed admission to your land. It is built in. You sell passes for a set time for a set amount of $L. Those lots have green bars around them instead of red.

As for the fees being distributed among all group members, this is the way you want it. All of the owners should get a piece. This is why a lot of clubs have two groups. The owners have one and the vips, etc. have another. The land should belong to the owner group. If your land belongs to the vip group, they will also share in the money when you sell your land

Since when? :\

Big old hugz((((((Blake))))))Big old hugz

Feel better ok

Cat