Event types, scheduling and attendance

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Dot Matrix
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Event types, scheduling and attendance

Post by Dot Matrix »

The Kitely Community Meeting on 1 February 2015 discussed how to support those setting up events in Kitely, and how to make sure people knew they were on.

Matters relating to event scheduling and attendance were discussed, as well as Getting the word out: publicising events and worlds and the possibilities of an event HUD or centralised event system and a regular events list on the viewer log-in splash page.

The discussion on the scheduling of events didn't come up with any answers, but individuals highlighted the following (these are direct quotes).

Scheduling
  • It is easier to attend regularly scheduled events.
  • If there’s more events spread out at more times, we will be able to attend more of them. We need morning and night events on the same days.
  • it is a matter of time. Many [events] are during the middle of weekdays, for me. When I'm at work.
  • I think that Roxy has had the right idea in many ways, by trying to schedule lots of events, but it can take a long time to build a following, and she is stuck between spreading things too thin and trying to find time slots that work for everyone.
  • (What about set events for every morning/evening of the week? and different sorts?) I think that would be a good idea, though I also think there would be a lot of times when there would be little to no turnout. Which isn't always a bad thing. I've made a couple of good friends by showing up to an event and having only a couple of us there.
  • Set times are nice, but a lot of times my RL schedule is chaotic, so hard to plan for specific times. So I just find myself going to an event when I happen to have time. In SL, it is usually through a group announcement. In Kitely, I tend to get event times from G+ posts.
Attendance
  • When I go to these I seem to see the same core people over and over.
  • The possible audience may not be large enough to support all the events (being) planned
  • Roxy and Seanchai both get audience from hypergrid. For many it is their first introduction to Kitely.
  • A lot of SL events I go to only have 5-10 people, so in some ways the turnouts (here) are decent, especially considering our much smaller user base.
  • SL Artists -- they expect 20-30 people
  • The problem many of us likely have is, that we need to split time in Kitely between our own activities and going to events ...and there is still rl as well (believe it or not!)
  • People shouldn't be made to feel guilty for NOT attending events!
  • Yes, no guilt. Guilt is the opposite of fun. :-)
Event types
  • I love the live music stuff, but maybe just having a DJ taking requests would be a good format for smaller turnouts. And live is cool, but we may not have the population density yet to support a lot of those types of events.
  • Most of the events I've been to in other virtual worlds were just hangouts & chats, dances with DJs, contests, so as for me, if I go to an event it's mainly just to meet new people. I don't always care about the subject matter, but I do care about this meeting :)
  • Contests, Quests, Art shows
  • Quests and hunts are awesome ways to get people to visit your sim and get folks traveling around.
  • Online classes of different topics maybe. (e.g. Hypergrid Academy)
  • There is a Harry Potter role play area coming...
  • I want more hangout social events, and contests and quests are good
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Re: Event types, scheduling and attendance

Post by Dot Matrix »

One point cropped up several times in the discussion: that some people attend events in both SL and OpenSim.

Might a mixture be a way forward for groups and individuals wanting to expand their activities into OpenSim while recognising that the potential audience pool is currently far smaller than it is in SL?

Seanchai Library is already doing something along these lines, with frequent live readings in SL on a smallish plot of land, and less frequent but still regular live readings on expanded virtual spaces embedding the stories in Kitely.

A mix could build on the different strengths of both SL and OpenSim.
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Re: Event types, scheduling and attendance

Post by Constance Peregrine »

One thing I have noted in the past that works rather nicely, is for an entertainer to be in both SL and another place [Kitely in this regard].

The repartee between grids is fun [via the entertainer] and it lets SL people know, who previously did not know, that there are other places for them to maybe look into if even just for curiosity.

Russell Eponym has done this several times. Of course it does make things more difficult for the entertainer, but the fun part overcomes this, I think.

With Russ he always says hello individually, so he would start with one or the other grid, saying that grids name, then the other.

I also think, for myself, there are just to many events now in the HG...I have to moderate myself.

Also, I prefer 1 hour events, more than that tends to wear on me.

Also, there are already many DJ events to attend, and those are fine of course, but LIVE is special to me, so I tend to gravitate towards them when I have to make a choice.
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Re: Event types, scheduling and attendance

Post by Roswenthe Blackwell »

I'm sorry I missed the meeting. Real life has been a bit chaotic for me lately.

12-2 pm SLT hits a difficult time of day for me some days - getting dinner ready, getting the family organized, and when everyone is getting off work and calling me. It's also the point of the day when I am the lowest physically. And like Dot, my RL is sort of ever-changing, so I usually don't know what's going to happen from one day to another.

Times are always going to be a problem in virtual worlds. I experienced that yesterday in a big way. Was kinda surprised by the vehemence people had about not scheduling according to their time zone. And I agree that the hypergrid is still new, and people are still learning how to make it work for them. I think the people are out there in opensim, but many have been isolated for so long that they forget they can jump away to somewhere else.

I also will admit that I've never been the biggest music event attender. There are other things I'd rather do. But there a lot of people in SL who do pretty much only that, so it's good if we have things to suit lots of different people. I agree with Dot that we shouldn't feel guilty if we can't make things or want to do something else. And I think people will start avoiding events if they are made to feel guilty about it.

As for the Harry Potter roleplay (Lumos), we still have a lot of building to do. But it looks like there's quite a bit of interest in it, so that's good.
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Re: Event types, scheduling and attendance

Post by Dot Matrix »

Thank you for your thoughtful posts.

Ros, to clarify, the points in the original post were made by several different individuals at the meeting. I'm just reporting them so that we get a sense of where people are with all this.

And I'm sorry to hear about the unpleasantness you experienced from some with regard to scheduling. Why do people feel they have to be so agressive and disagreeable?

Roxy, we can all learn from your example.

Constance, agreed -- multi-world events like that are great fun.
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Re: Event types, scheduling and attendance

Post by Samantha Atkins »

I have often thought that some enterprising soul with some skills and more time than myself should take a crack at a virtual meetup.com. All events would be held in virtual worlds and/or in google hangouts and the like. This is a much needed service. In SL I get events from about 12 groups in notices, often the same event over and over as it is of interest to multiple groups. There has to be a better way. I could create such a thing without some of the meetup.com's bells and whistles but i really don't have the time.

Especially useful would be external calendar integration.
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Re: Event types, scheduling and attendance

Post by Roswenthe Blackwell »

That's how most opensim people use Google+, but frankly, I find Google+ really annoying to use. I've had more problems with it than solutions. I also find the discussion system on G+ very awkward for any discussion over 4 posts. Forums like this are much more organized.
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Re: Event types, scheduling and attendance

Post by Serene Jewell »

Agree, Google+ is highly imperfect. But it seems to be the best we have at the moment.

The Kitely Calendar is very helpful. If you have events in Kitely, Selby Evans or Handy Low can give you access to post them on the Kitely calendar. If that is too much hassle, just send them to me and I can post them on the Kitely calendar for you.

It seems to me that each grid should keep a google calendar like our Kitely calendar and then we can all subscribe to the grid calendars we want.
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