Category: Events

SL10BCC: Pics of the Day, Photo Contest and two calls for assistance

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL10B-CC_WordPress

Pictures of the Day

Building work continues apace on the SL10B Community Celebration (SL10BCC) regions. To mark progress, we’ve kicked-off the SL10BCC Pictures of the Day. Each day, selected pictures will be posted on the website of the celebration regions and exhibits and people.

All you need to do is join the SL Community Celebration Flickr Group and post your pictures there. Note that by doing so, you give consent for the organisers of the event to use them in publicity  and for pictures of the day.

Want your snaps to be featured in the SL10BCC Pictures of the Day? Join the SL10B Community Celebration Flickr group
Want your snaps to be featured in the SL10BCC Pictures of the Day? Join the SL10B Community Celebration Flickr group

Those who have access to the regions can start posting now – but worry not if you don’t – the group will remain open through the celebrations for everyone to share their pictures!

Photo Contest

There are now just two days remaining in the first of our official SL10BCC Photo Contests. So if you haven’t entered, now’s the time! Honour and glory are the prizes, in addition to having your photo posted on the Community Celebration official blog, and social media (e.g. Facebook, Flickr, Twitter).

We want you to submit a photo which encapsulates all or part of this year’s celebratory theme: Looking Forward, Looking Back. The subject matter is entirely your choice – as long as it’s not of any part of the celebration regions themselves; we hope to have a further competition for that later! Instead, we want you to explore the grid (or your inventories!) and find the perfect picture which fits our theme.

Orientation Station circa 2003: a pat of SL's history. Perhaps a part of out Photo Contest?
Orientation Station circa 2003: a pat of SL’s history. Perhaps a part of out Photo Contest?

Up to two entries can be submitted per avatar name, and there are two categories for entries:

  • Category A is for photos taken using only the tools available within the viewer (the snapshot floater, windlight settings, the debug and preferences options for images, etc.)
  • Category B is for photos which have been processed outside of the viewer using tools such as PhotoShop, GIMP, PaintShop Pro and so on.

The Rules

  • No more than two photographs per avatar name
  • Competition entries must be made via the SL10B Celebration Photo Contest Flickr group
  • Entries must not show the SL10B Community Celebration regions
  • Photos must be PG – make it family friendly keep it clean and FUN or risk disqualification!
  • Competitors must indicate whether the photograph is Category A (using only the tools available within the viewer) or Category B (using tools outside the viewer, such as photo editing software)
  • Descriptive text may accompany entries
  • The Community Celebration Team reserve the right to use photograph submissions for event advertising
  • All entires must be uploaded by midnight SLT on Thursday, June 6th, 2013.

A distinguished panel will select the top twenty photos, which will be displayed at the entry point at the celebrations, where visitors will get the opportunity to vote for the one they like best.

Can You Help?

Two Second Life residents, Dizzy Banjo and Arciamay Resident are looking for people to help with their SL10BCC exhibits.

Dizzy Banjo’s Message in a Bottle Take 2

“5 Years ago, along with Lillie Yifu,” Dizzy Banjo says, “I made the Message in a Bottle exhibit at Second Life’s 5th Birthday event. It featured voice contributions from hundreds of Second Life users. Check out this video of it:”

“It was a treasured project – featured on the Linden Lab home page for some time after the event. Some residents and Lindens even told me it made them cry!”

Now Dizzy is looking for volunteers willing to record up to 10 seconds of them answering the question “What does Second Life mean to you in 2013?” The recordings won’t be going into a bottle this year, however. Instead, Dizzy says, “it’s going to use an exciting new trick which I’m sure you will like!”

If you’re willing to do so, send your recording via e-mail to dizzysbottle@gmail.com, together with your avatar name or send Dizzy a link to a downloadable version of the file if you’ve uploaded it to Soundcloud or similar.  See Dizzy’s blog for more information and suggestions on suitable recording software.

Be A Part of Gallery Celebrating Second Life’s History

Arciamay Resident says of her exhibit: “I am looking for old photos or art work depicting the history of Second Life. I’ve also have read some of the poetry that people have written describing their feelings and inturrpretations of SL.

“I’m creating a gallery so people can share their art,  poetry and photos. There will also be an area where people can relax and hopefully share their experiences in Second Life.”

To find out more and participate, please contact Arciamay in-world.

Related Links

SL10BCC: Calling the SL press!

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL10B-CC_WordPress

It’s no secret that Second Life marks ten years of being open to the world on June 23rd, and to celebrate, the global community of Second Life users is coming together in a week-long celebration across the twenty-two regions of the Second Life 10th Birthday Community Celebration.

The SL10BCC Auditorim
The SL10BCC Auditorim

The sims have already been laid out, and across all of them, people are busily putting together their exhibits, while across the rest of Second Life, entertainers are readying themselves to participate in a 24/7 round of entertainment which will run across the regions of the celebration for the entire week of festivities.

The gates to the celebration will open to the public on June 16th, when the celebrations will commence which will culminate on June 23rd in a spectacular fashion.

What mysteries await the intripd reporters who sign-up....?
What mysteries await the intrepid reporters who sign-up….?

However, if you are a member of the virtual worlds’ press or are a virtual worlds blogger, then we’re extending an invitation for you to come see the regions, photograph the builds and enjoy preview access to the celebrations on our special Press Day ahead of the regions opening to all.

To apply to be an official SL10B Community Celebration press contact or blogger, simply fill-out and submit our Press Pass application form.

Key Dates

  • June 6 – Photo contest closes
  • June 16 – Grand Opening
  • June 23 – Official Birthday day and final day of performances
  • June 29 – Sims close to the public
  • July 1 – All builds to be dismantled – sims go offline

Related Links

Sherwood tales, balloons and a lighthouse

Posted on by Inara Pey

It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in Voice, brought to Second Life by the staff of the Seanchai Library SL. As always, all times SLT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.

Sunday 2nd June, 13:30: Tea Time in Sherwood Forest

Robin-hoodJune arrives in the evergreen woods of Sherwood Forest, and with it comes a month of tales from Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, brought to us by Caledonia Skytower and Corwyn Allen, complete with original songs by Corwyn!

An American illustrator and writer, Pyle published The Merry Adeventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire (to give the book its original full title) in 1883. With it, he helped solidify the heroic / romantic image of Robin Hood witnessed in works such as Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1819). The stories Pyle built for the book were drawn from various ballads, which he drew together to form a cohesive tale, rewriting the songs to suit a younger audience and further establishing the role of Robin Hood as a heroic outlaw who robs the rich to feed the poor – a role in sharp contrast to the way in which the ballads actually portrayed him (which was principally as a through-and-through villain). So popular was Pyle’s work that it led to several more children’s books about Robin Hood over the next three decades, firmly establishing the legend as a respectable subject for children’s literature.

This week, Caledonia and Corwyn bring us How Robin Hood Became an Outlaw and Robin Hood and the Tinker.

Monday 3rd June, 19:00 – The Twenty-one Balloons (Part 1)

21-balloonsCaledonia Skytower starts a reading from William Pène du Bois’ 1947 children’s classic, The Twenty-one Balloons.

A steamship en route across the North Atlantic comes across the strange wreckage of twenty deflated gas balloons and rescue, much to their surprise, a lone man – one Professor William Waterman Sherman.

The professor had last been seen some three weeks previously, departing San Francisco aboard a giant balloon, determined to spend a year aloft and drifting on his own. Now, as word spreads that the professor has been found alive and well – and in completely the wrong ocean to the one he had last been seen flying towards – the world awaits the story of how he came to circumnavigate the globe in record time, only to be fished from the wreckage of twenty balloons when he had started with just the one.

And when he has sufficiently rested and recovered – and received a hero’s welcome on his homecoming – the good professor tells a tale most fantastic…

Tuesday 4th June, 19:00: Original Science-fiction

Join Jackson Arthur as he presents original works of science-fiction.

Wednesday 5th June, 19:00: Selections from Ermengarde the Expansive

ermengardeFreda Frostbite reads selection from her new book Ermingarde the Expansive – a fairy tale for the rest of us.

“A fire-breathing dragon has entered your realm? No problem! A star falls from the sky? Catch it! Don’t like the prince you are obligated to marry? Dump him! Your daddy’s the king and he thinks you aren’t worth his attention much less capable of ruling the realm? Prove him wrong!

“Ermengarde the Expansive had a lot to overcome in spite if being born royal. Through strength and perseverance, she grew in power, stature, and, most importantly, self-esteem. Ermengarde is the princess our daughters could and should aspire to emulate.”

Thursday 6th June, 19:00: Poe’s Lighthouse

poe-lighthouse“The Light-House” is the unofficial title of Edgar Allen Poe’s last work, written some time between May and August 1849, shortly before his death in October of that year. Tale set within the confines of an isolated lighthouse and told, as were many of Poe’s tales, in the first-person.

The story opens on New Year’s Day in 1746. A storm is underway and the new custodian of the lighthouse writes a diary entry describing his arrival at this lonely outpost. In it, he entry expresses a mixture of annoyance, anticipation and a measure of paranoia / concern as to the safety of the buiulding itself, which grows somewhat in the two entries which follow. And while there is a heading for the 4th entry, no account of the day is actually given; the page is blank.

Much has been written and discussed about “The Light-House” over the years. Was it the start of a novel to which Poe never returned prior to his death? Was it actually a short story, the last entry intentionally blank to signify the narrator’s death, thus leaving the tale already complete when Poe died?

However, Christopher Conlon wasn’t interested in dry discourse about what “The Light-House” might or might not be when he established his challenge of Poe’s Lighthouse. Instead, he set some two dozen authors, including Mike Resnick, John Shirley, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Carole Nelson Douglas, the task of continuing Poe’s work and turn it into a complete story. His only stipulation: that they use Poe’s language, his images, his ideas; that they truly work together with the master.

Join Shandon Loring as he delves into this anthology of tales, all commencing with the same subject, but each one unique to itself.

Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and additions to the week’s schedule.

In May, library guests are invited to support Seanchai Library’s featured real world charity Heifer International. Have questions? IM or notecard Caledonia Skytower.

Related Links

SL10BCC: buildings rise, but parcels lay unclaimed

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL10B-CC_WordPressSunday May 26th saw the SL10BCC regions open to exhibitors and their helpers to start building / dropping in their exhibits. Since that time, the lonely patchworks of grass and water, neatly cut by sidewalks and piers I described in my last update have begun to vanish.

Like flowers bursting into bloom at the first touch of spring sunshine, so new builds have burst forth across the SL10BCC regions. Awesome builds, multi-hued builds, towering builds, quaint builds, charming builds, scary builds.

SL10BCC - building underway
SL10BCC – building underway

Everywhere is a hive of activity, as everyone works towards the deadline of June 13th, when the regions will all be closed ready for final testing and to allow the press and blogging community to preview all of the builds and the festivities to mark SL’s 10 birthday.

Well, almost everywhere.

Sitting between the builds are unattended parcels. Sad, forlorn parcels without even a prim to proclaim that they are loved and wanted. Even after a week of frantic building, they remain unclaimed.

Given the volume of applications received for exhibitor space, this cannot be allowed to continue. So the warning is going out far and wide:

If you have received an offer of a plot at SL10BCC and have not yet claimed it, you now have less than 24 hours in which to do so! Plots which remain unclaimed after Sunday June 2nd will be re-allocated!

Unclaimed and unloved. If you have received an offer of a plot at SL10BCC and have not claimed it, you now have less than 24 hours to do so - or risk losing it!
Unclaimed and unloved. If you have received an offer of a plot at SL10BCC and have not claimed it, you now have less than 24 hours to do so – or risk losing it!

If you have NOT claimed your parcel, then make sure you do so ASAP, by following these steps (as detailed in the Event Policies):

  1. Asking for an EA (Exhibitor Assistant) in the Second Life Birthday Community group chat (there may be a delay in getting a reply, as the EAs are working as quickly as possible but are busy, so please be patient).
  2. When an EA is available, they will tell you in the group chat to check your IMs.
  3. The EA will IM you. Let them know that you’re ready to proceed.
  4. Accept the group invite to Second Life Birthday Exhibitors group.
  5. Accept the teleport offer.
  6. The EA will give you a slice of birthday cake that contains helpful notecards and other goodies.
  7. The EA will ask for the following: Parcel Name, Parcel Description, Parcel Texture (full-permissions texture), Build Assistants (Maximum of 4), Music Stream URL, Media Stream URL, Deed any objects (A land radio or media player), and Landing Point
    NOTE: You can request these at a later time.
  8. The EA will tell you who your Sim Coordinator is.
  9. Set your group tag to Second Life Birthday Exhibitors group.
  10. Rez a prim on your parcel to claim it.
  11. Have fun.

Please, please, please note (10.). If you have gone through the above steps, but have not placed a prim on your parcel, then make sure you do at the earliest opportunity!

Again, parcels which remain unclaimed on Sunday June 2nd may well be allocated to others!

Related Links

Of hellish rides, ashes and potty peas

Posted on by Inara Pey

Seven months ago, on Halloween 2012, MadPea Games opened Carneval, a phan-tastic series of rides, puzzles and games set in a ghostly fun fair which is itself an awesome and atmospheric build, and one presided over by none other than Cthulhu himself.

Now it seems that Cthulhu has had enough of the ghoulish revelry, and has decided to call “time” on the Carneval and the wickedness within. Perhaps it wasn’t wicked enough for his dark heart?

Already, fires are burning within the ground of the carnival, and Cthulhu’s minions are at work destroying parts of the build, and at midday on the 31st, we’re told the zombie hordes will arrive to wreak further mayhem before the entire place is swept away in a 48-hour Demolition Party focused on the Carneval main stage.

The fires are lit and the countdown has begun at Carneval
The fires are lit and the countdown has begun at Carneval

So, if you’ve not had time to visit the Carneval and drink-in the atmosphere (I’m not entirely sure how many of the rides are still operational, if any), you only have a few short hours in which to do so – so hurry; even without the rides being operational, the build alone makes this a worthwhile visit.

Nor is Carneval alone in facing The End. The Lost Treasure of the Inca Warrior is also closing (one that I’ve admittedly not had time to visit) after its own extraordinary run, in what the MadPea team are calling “the end of an era”.

Cthulhu's minions are already at work bringing the Carneval to a suitable end
Cthulhu’s minions are already at work bringing the Carneval to a suitable end

“Is This the End for the Potty Peas and Their Devious Developments?”

Not at all. New games and activities are promised, as the blog post announcing the closures states:

From the ashes and dust rises a brand new MadPea bigger and better than ever before.

Whole new games with immersion never seen before are on their way. We are creating together with the best of the best to take SL by a huge surprise.

To help fund their plans, the MadPea Games team are running a raffle which features a range of special items – some of which are from their well-respected hunts, others of which are one-of-a-kind offers. The raffle items are all on display opposite the Carneval stage, and will remain available through until midnight SLT on June 1st.

And a teaser has already been produced, hinting at what is coming in the future.

In the meantime, and if you’re up for getting some snaps of a truly inventive build and fancy an hour or two listening to music, dancing and blasting seven bells out of a zombie or three, why not grab your camera, put on your dancing shoes and slip into your favourite anti-zombie outfit and pay a last (or first) visit to the Carneval?

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A last chance to weave a Faire tale of your own

Posted on by Inara Pey

Friday May 31st marks the final day for submissions to the Prim Perfect / Fantasy Faire short story competition.

When I started exploring the 2013 Fantasy Faire regions, they struck me as so evocative that there were tales to be told about them – and this thought shaped my writing on the event, causing me to blog a series of vignettes of a traveller’s journey through the regions, rather than produce more review-type articles.

Lotus Valley Dream
Lotus Valley Dream

I wasn’t alone in feeling that there are tales to be told, for the organisers of Fantasy Faire have joined forces with Prim Perfect to present one last challenge for all those who wish to hold on to the magic just a little longer: to write a short story about the Fairelands of between one and three thousands words.

Tales can be set within a single region, or several, or all of them – the choice is yours. The subject matter for your story is also up to you, it can be sad or happy, wise or witty and make readers laugh, cry, gasp, nod with agreement – or do all of these things by turns. The only other stipulations (other than the length!) are that:

  • The region(s) you write about should be identifiable to the reader. There’s no need to explicitly give the name of a region in the story, or give long descriptions to make it clear where your story is set – but you shouldn’t leave the reader wondering “Is this Evensong Woods or is it Titan’s Hollow?”
  • The story must be an original piece, written purely for the competition, and not published elsewhere. By submitting a story, you retain overall copyright, but give us permission to publish the story in electronic format in Prim Perfect and on websites and social media sites belonging to Prim Perfect and Fantasy Faire.
Magnificat
Magnificat

Entries can be in .TXT, DOC or RTF format, and should be submitted via e-mail to: fantasyfaireshortstory@gmail.com.

Once the competition has closed (midnight SLT on May 31st), entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges comprising Zander Greene and Elizabeth Tinsley from Fantasy Faire; Saffia Widdershins, Honour Macmillan and Aisling Sinclair from Prim Perfect; Ceejay Writer, Editor in Chief at Penny Gaff Publications and Judi Newall, Librarian.

Results (and winning entries) will appear in the August issue of Prim Perfect magazine.

(view slideshow full-screen)