Bot-Free Camping

What got me into SL and kept me for a while there was I had to place to go to play games, chat, and earn little L when all my money went towards things like land, tier or real life expenses and I just needed little extra for things like texture uploads or to shop.
I didn't know about Calla's but I wish sometimes their was more places that provided not just a place to get few L but place to go, talk, perhaps play a trivia or scramble game or something similar that was open 24/7 and always had interesting people to met, place to hang when you're not into doing the usual.

Hmm they're actually employees then

No, they're minions. You, as a Benevolent Evil Overlord, should know that!

I'm interested in this discussion because I'm building a store, and I've considered using a small set of camper positions for a very specific purpose. At the time I began to consider this, it was to solve a particular design issue, not to generate traffic numbers, and in fact I don't know much about traffic calculations but doubt that my, say, three camp seats would give me much traffic.

Here's my potential use: My store is going to sell animations, and will have a particular physical design theme (I won't say what, it's not done yet, lol). Anyway, I thought of using a set of maybe three camper positions as a 'living sculpture' in a prominent location. The sculpture would be artistic, kinetic, and accomplish a specific design goal, while the campers who choose to sit there would basically be paid to be theatrical workers or extras. If I can swing the scripts, I even thought of giving the campers their own tip jars, which when tipped would advance them through a cycle of different animations. I'm thinking along the lines of the costumed 'living statue' buskers who work tourist spots in major cities. My ultimate plan would be to have freebie skins/costumes available to the campers, and have the payouts only work if they wore the outfits... but I don't know yet how scriptable that is. *shrugs* A question for a different forum.

I like this idea, because it gives customers something interesting and creative to look at while shopping (when occupied), but saves me the hundreds of prims it would take to build an animated sculpture. Instead, I just pay some warm bodies as 'actors'.

The idea fits my store, but now I'm worried. Will this create lag? Will their presence sour the stomachs of customers who hate campers? I plan to try and minimize bots by putting a max payout per day on the seats, or periodically have the camper have to interact with the script or something (I know others do variants on this).

So maybe my idea wasn't so brilliant. Lol.

This sounds like a really interesting concept Synthia. I like the idea of it a lot.
It may create lag, especially if you are using scripts and things, but Im not sure so someone else will have to help you with that. I just wanted to say that i liked the idea.

No it sounds cool to me just don't over do it, I can accept a few alts being used as manequins to display product as a fair need for them. Most of the population are a bit oblivious to traffic scamming I suspect. And really the lag factor depends on other things just as much as AV's. A few aren't going to be a problem.

Once an avatar is fufilling a useful function (independant of traffic or dwell), they are employees, rather than campers.