Secondfest - did you go?

Hi there,
Unfortunately I missed Secondfest and the sims are now closed. Was it any good?

Hwyl,
Bute

Prynhawn da,

Well i briefly went and tried the maze. Unsurprisingly the sims were overloaded (>30 people) so very lagged so I didn't stay long.

Matthew

I don't know if you're referring to Second Life 4th birthday or something else.
I guess I have no clue about Secondfest myself.
I did go to concert that friend was performing for SL's 4th birthday.

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondfest

I went. I had a good time, but there were problems. Overcrowding caused severe lag and there were continual issues with video and audio feeds. Most residents were clueless as to how to stream audio and video so most of the conversation was either "how do I get this to work" or "how come I can't see/hear anything?"

The biggest disappointment was the set for Cinematic Orchestra was having technical difficulties and all but the last two songs were missed. There was also a little confusion as to what should have been playing at the "indie" tent. Many residents were complaining about having too much dance/electronica music in the indie tent when there were tents already designated for that kind of music. I personally didn't mind at all.

All in all, I had a great time. There were lots of freebies in the form of food, dance gear, and clothing. It was nice to get souvenirs like that from the event. I mainly hung out between the dance/main/chill out areas and watched the acts going on (dancing the whole time). Acts ranged from live DJ sessions to streaming "live" video (as I don't know if what they were streaming was from actual live concerts happening simultaneously or prerecorded live shows). Some acts had avatars on the stage during their sets. The DJs got some nice turntables to keep the music going.

Despite the problems, I think it was a huge success. There were so many people. During the live Pet Shop Boys set, the sims all around the main stage would not even load up. All I could do was stand in one spot and be thankful that I was still getting a non choppy audio/video set. I think this was a great start to something incredible and it'll get better as technology improves and people get better PCs. I hope there are more events like this in the future.

yes, seconded.

I enjoyed the event and yes there were problems mainly with the music/video streaming and the sims being full but, I hope they do it again.


Cheers

I went and enjoyed the live performances on Chill Island. I did NOT enjoy the taped performances at the main stage.

So it ounds like it was a great attempt but didn't really work because of the obvious probs with streaming and lag. I looked at some photos on Flickr and the design looked good, but pretty conventional - well like an RL festival I mean.
Does anyone know who built everything and if there will be another, similar event?

Cheers,
Bute

The Pet Shop Boys finale was, to be honest, a bit farcical - they played pre-recorded concert footage on the stage backdrop (apparently an edit from the PSB's "cubism" DVD), while a pair of avatars "mimed" along to the concert sound. I doubt the real pet shop boys even got out of bed for the show.

Meanwhile, the audience suffered the most horrendous lag I've ever seen in SL (0.01% time dilation from where I was watching - couldn't move, speak, IM .... or pretty much anything except camera-pan for an hour). Must've been a pretty grim first impression for the PSB fans who had joined SL just for the concert... and kind of ironic that one of the two main sponsors of the event was a CPU manufacturer, trying to push their whizzy new ultra-fast processors...

That said, some of the earlier (less well-attended) performances were pretty cool, with video feeds from a studio with a "secondfest" logo tacked up on the wall behind the acts... so at least you got the impression that those bands were genuinely part of it all. Similarly, there were some impressive audio-only performances on the "chill out island" section of the build (mainly from musicians who are already established on the SL live circuit, I think?)

The build itself was great - I thought they really caught the atmosphere of a genuine UK festival site; it was pretty immersive in that respect (I almost felt guilty to be flying around the site, rather than trudging over virtual muddy fields!).... I remember thinking it was a shame that you couldn't come along and pitch your own tent in the (no-rez) festival village, or I might've spent the whole weekend there!

So, all in all, it was a pretty neat event.... but the puppet-show PSB finale *really* sold it short. What a lame ending!!!!

Rivers Run Red.