Sandbox "Trade Shows"

This isn't that much of a question - though I guess what I'm asking is "has anyone else done this". I find the search system is becoming unusable, if you are looking for a view across a range of providers of a given product - try seraching for "Elevators" or "House" for example. Setting up a trip based on the returns of a search like this, to check out the options in buying a house, is damn near impossible.

But, why not use a sandbox and have a "trade show"? in RL, convention centres get used like tis all the time - in addition to having shops, traders could all agree to turn up in a sandbox at the start of a day, drop their example wares into place and then customers can fly oor walk across the whole lot, making comparisons and buying deciosns all in one place, intead of trogging round 10 different and hard-to-find places. Then at the end of the day, the sandbox re-sets and another show can take place.

Is this a good idea? Has it been happening just FOREVER and I'm a doofus for asking? Where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction? Did you Inhale?...

Sandboxes are intended to be used for new users, who have no land, to build or learn to build.

They are not supposed to be used for selling anything, or for showcasing products with an eye to selling them later. I know that Lindens can and have responded to requests to return items left in sandboxes for those purposes.

I believe that there were some "trade shows" in SL though - I think Timeless Prototype ran a "scripting trade show" once, just not in a sandbox, and it went well, so it is basically a good idea.

A doofus Gummi? .. never!! what an excellent suggestion, an organised, local, trading event! what a brilliant idea for a local community .. a neighbourhood. Heck! it might even lure me to one of those sandboxes.
One thing springs to mind though; whereas a RL market for instance would have traders who bring their wares on a what-might-sell-best against how-much-will-fit-in-the-van, virtual traders with their vast inventories a mere click away could jam the place up with their items.
It would need some kind of administering, even if all traders agreed to some prepared conditions.
But what an exciting prospect!

Something like a half daily show with a particular theme?.... sound excellent but without LL approval and/or control, I think the stupid griefers (there are docens of them every day in the Sandboxes) will mess up the events.
I think its a excellent idea that some land owner can take to organize. For example, somebody with a big piece of land and some volunteers to manage the event and every day they propose a different theme. All the interested goes there to put their stuffs for show and sale and they can give some kind of tip to the land owner. I think it could be profitable for everybody.
The themes and schedule can be published a week or more before so all can be prepared.

SLExchange and SLBoutique are pretty good ways to shop. You can search for text in product descriptions, at slexchange they have forums you can search. For the most part, shopping in SL by walking around and zooming in on things and clicking to get notecards and stuff like that is much less efficient that searching for the items on the web .

Not that there's anything wrong with holding trade shows, so long as you don't do it the Linden operated sandbox sims.

I wonder when the OP will be holding the first trade show he arranges?

Now what about a sandbox rave that was free. That would be fun. But Lindens would have to stream music.

I appreciate SLB and SLX very much, have purchased many products from SLX in fact. The problem with that is, I'm a touchy feely kinda guy with certain things. I would never buy a house based on a picture and the builder's biased description alone. I need to walk through the house, and feel what it would be like to live in.

This is a really great idea to be sure.. Linden sandboxes are out of the question for the above mentioned reasons. There are quite a few privately run sandbox sims.. some of the owners of those might be interested in hosting such a thing now and again.

Where I think this could really take off is if the corporate folks.. the NBCs, the Ciscos, the IBMs.. would host them. Corporations sponsor and participate in trade shows on a daily basis in RL. Obviously you're not going to see a Cisco sponsored "second life VoIP show" where we all come and show off wares that aren't possible to even create..(yet).. the content of such an event would likely hold no value for the corporate sponsor, but surely the traffic to their islands would. Vendors could either pay a small vending fee, or agree to take a 10 minute guided tour of Cisco's networked home showcase.. that sort of thing..