On Sunday 26th June we hosted a benefit concert at The Villa Bar on Heart 2 in aid of 'Live and Learn in Kenya's ..... Feed a Smile Project'. Live and Learn in Kenya .... Feed A Smile Project
Tukso Okey provided the most amazing 2 hour rock/blues type 'set' in his usual unique and incredible style.
During the two hour concert 100600 L$ ( approx 400 USD) was donated by the wonderful residents of Secondlife ..... who are far sighted, upwardly mobile, early adopting, brave pioneers of this strange, collective digital dream world.
The medium is virtual but the money raised is REAL and paid for real food ...... approx 1000 meals which included sweets, bananas and milk as a special treat !
A big thank you to Brique Topaz (Feed A Smile contact in SL), Tukso and to all our guests who made it happen. See photos below.
See above the real food generated by Second Life's virtual currency and it's wonderful residents
Click photo to enlarge
The above photo includes a blackboard drawing created by one of the artistic and talented children in the Feed a Smile Project in Kenya. It shows a beautiful chalk interpretation of Dolly, Tukso and myself. I was particularly struck by the artists rendition of our dresses and bangles and hair, which really captured the essence of our current SL fashion look ! Fantastic !
Dolly and I were actually completely overwhelmed by the drawing .... what can one say.
Here are some pictures of the event taking place at The Villa Bar in Second Life. We peaked at 62 guests and then the sim crashed .... which was a real shame as Dolly had optimistically set the agent limit for the sim to 100 !
The momentum and flow of the event was seriously disrupted by the sim crash. but luckily many of the guests were patient and waited on the edges of the sim until The Villa Bar venue re-appeared about 5-6 mins later.
See pic of The Arcachon crew waiting for the Villa Bar @ Heart to re-appear
http://www.flickr.com/photos/evekazan/5874105815/in/photostream/
Why, Why Linden Lab .... is there not a 'Pay As you Go', 24 hour, EVENTS POWER SERVER option for larger get togethers and important gatherings, such as Live Music, Charity Events, anything that requires a professional level of stability during an event ?
It takes a lot of time and effort for event organisers to arange everything ' just so' and to create momentum and a buzz. It's a terrible shame to lose all that time, effort and energy and crash the sim with ONLY 62 avatars present. More is surely possible !
Intel Releasing Code for Putting 1000s of Avatars on a Single OpenSim Region This Month (With Cloud Deployment Too)!
Clearly, more IS possible !
Second Life is a compelling and unique experience as is. But if we could get hundreds of people to individual events .... parties, fund raisers, lectures, 'do's' of all kinds and especially Live Music events ..... that would be truly amazing and be the birth of a new phase of the virtual, shared experience.
There are so many people spending their real lives organising virtual events in Second Life it would be prudent if Linden Lab recognised this activity and offered some kind of 'Pay As you Go', 24 hour, EVENTS POWER SERVER' option, so that organisers can guarantee a more stable event experience.
