With SL9B now behind us and July opening before us, Second Life moves towards the central event of the Relay For Life in SL season: the Relay weekend.
This year, the weekend will take place over the 14th and 15th of July, and will feature 36 regions of campsites and five regions set aside for events. As with previous years, the regions will feature the Relay Track, giving participants the opportunity to wall through the regions, seeing the wide diversity of campsites and builds, and donate to RFL SL.
RFL Relay Weekend: sims on-line and under development
Events are still being planned, but the broad outline of activities have been announced:
Saturday July 14th:
10:00: Opening Ceremony
11:00: The first lap of the Relay is a Survivor / Caregiver honour walk – please line the track and celebrate our heroes.
21:00: REMEMBER – The Lunimaria Ceremony: a solemn occasion in remembrance of those and their loved one who have lost the battle against cancer or who are still battling it. The sims will be darkened. there will be readings and inspirational music. All are invited to participate and asked to walk the track in silence
Sunday July 15th:
06:00: FIGHT BACK: collect a RFL Hope Cape and Fight Back Flag and join-in pledging to save a life this year – your own, a family member, a friend or that of someone you don’t even know as yet
10:00: The closing ceremony: celebrate and pay tribute to what has been accomplished and all that RFL in Second Life stands for and has achieved over the years.
To date, RFL SL has raised over $1.5 million dollars since 2004, with almost $300,000 having been raised through events already held in SL this year.
Note this is a multi-page article, please use the page options at the very end of the piece to page bath and forth.
The fifth annual Second Life Science Fiction convention is well underway, having started on the 27th June and running through until Sunday July 1st. I’m a little late getting to it due to a number of reasons – including not receiving any PR material this year. However, given science-fiction does poke the geek in me, I hopped over to the regions ahead of the start of a busy weekend of events.
This year’s event covers six regions, and is again in aid of the American Cancer Society / RFL in SL, presenting a host of exhibits to tour showcasing SF in SL as well as running a series of live events.
The promotional poster for the event
Chief among the live events are special appearance by Jonathan Frakes (William T. and Thomas Riker from Star Trek: the Next Generation and later ST incarnations) and Garrett Wang (Harry Kim from Star Trek Voyager), both of whom will be appearing over the weekend.
Also putting in an appearance was Richard Hatch, the original Apollo from Battlestar Galactica and who also featured in the reimagined series as the manipulative revolutionary / terrorist Tom Zarek. Mr. Hatch was on stage on June 27th, just after the event opened, so I’m afraid I missed him in terms of getting the word out.
Each of the six regions has its own arrival point, each of which has a wealth of information on the events – including links to convention guide (presented in PDF format & sadly lacking in URLs). The format of the guide will be instantly recognisable to anyone who has ever attended a Sci Fi convention in real life, which is a nice touch. However, if you are specifically interested in attending the presentations by Mr. Frakes and / or Mr. Wang, I would suggest you head for the North region’s teleport point. Details on the appearances by Mr. Frakes and Mr. Wang can be found just to the east of this, complete with a ticket booth, which links you to the SL Marketplace where you can purchase a ticket to attend either or both events, at a cost of L$100 per attending avatar.
The venue for the guest speakers is the spherical Council Chamber which sites next to the ticket booth and promotional posters of the guests. Other main stage events will take place in the ground immediately outside the sphere, on the east side of the teleport arrivals area.
The Council Chamber
The regions themselves are well-defined in terms of the ratio of open space to exhibits, helping to reduce overall lag. For those who visited SL9b, there are some familiar friends here – such as Novelli Nior’s TARDIS ride. If you didn’t get to enjoy this unlagged at SL9B, it’s immediately worth a visit here.
Journey through the Galaxy aboard a TARDIS
There is quite a mix of exhibits across the sims, with some promoting content, others role-play groups and some – like the TARDIS ride – offering a lot of fun. Some are imaginative ways of promoting adult-oriented material in a distinctly inoffensive way which should raise a smile even if you’re not into the adult theme itself…
Today is the last day for people to see what has been the most amazing gathering of talent coming together in one place to celebrate what makes Second Life so diverse, exciting, thought-provoking, fun, relevant, vibrant and – despite all comments to the contrary alive.
If you have not done so already (or even if you have!), please visit the sims before they close: there are some marvels to see, some of which I’ve tried to cover here, and others have as well. Go see the amazing stages; all of them have been marvellous, and I wish the Main (Lotus) Stage and the Lake Stage could be preserved.
I’ll likely have a couple of follow-up posts on SL9B in the near future. Now’s not the time to be analytical though. Just go and enjoy the last few hours!
Thanks once again to everyone who made this all happen. Here’s to SL10B!
The entertainment at SL9B may well be over, but the regions will remain open until 23:59 SLT on the 27th June 2012. If you haven’t visited already, now is the time – there are many great builds still to see and opportunities to learn even more about the rich diversity of SL’s community.
I had hoped to write a couple more pieces on the celebrations and the people over the weekend, but the practicalities of RL coupled with some pressing needs elsewhere in SL meant I had to shelve them. Instead, here’s a quick tour of some of the exhibits I really like – some of which may well form the basis of future articles in this blog.
SL9B marks a turning-point for celebrating SL’s anniversary. Linden Lab no longer involve themselves (although it was good to see members of staff visiting the regions), and festivities are in the hands of the residents of SL. This year’s core event was put together in just a few short weeks and demonstrates exactly what the community can achieve when it sets its collective mind to it. However, there is an understanding that not everything was perhaps done as well as it could be, or there may have been things missed out.
To help understand where the team got things right or wrong, or where things might be improved, everyone who participated in or visited this year’s SL9B regions is invited to provide feedback. Please take a couple of minutes to complete the form and let the organisers know your thoughts. It won’t be possible to respond to every comment received, but do feel free to leave your email in case we do need to talk – but every comment received will be read.
I’ve used “we” several times in my coverage of SL9B (notably in the more “official” announcements leading-up to the event), but the fact is I’ve played a very small role in things. There has been a huge team behind making this happen, all of whom have put in far more effort and work than I. So I’d like to extend my thanks for the event and for undertkaing such a huge task at such short notice to:
Doctor Gascoigne, KT Syakumi, Diana Renoir, Budster Bashly, Saffia Widdershins, Honour McMillian, Crap Mariner, David Abbot, Bo Tiger, Will Webb and all the others in the various core and support teams – the EAs, the greeters, the helpers, the gofers and technical staff – with a special thank you to nEoStreams for the provision of all the required live streams.
Thank you as well to the builders and exhibitors and their sponsors and to all who took the time to visit SL9B and who contributed to the Flickr stream and who wrote about SL9B in blogs and reports.
And a very appreciative and special thank you to the sim sponsors: Dream Seeker Estates, Fruit Islands, Kitty CatS and the anonymous donor of six regions, without your generosity, none of this would have happened.
SL9B by night
And finally, some closing words from the SL9B spooksperson, the Prim Reaper himself…
Today, the 23rd June, SL officially turns nine – nine years of open, public access!
A tradition at all SL Birthday celebrations is that of the time capsule, and this year is no exception. The time capsule contains items donated by SL residents, which are placed on display at future SLB celebrations.
SL9B Time Capsule
Like every year, we have created a time capsule for you to add a memento of your time so far in SL – and there is still time for you to drop an item into it if you haven’t already. To do so:
Make sure your item is either FULL PERM (preferred) or at least COPY / TRANSFER (NO MOD items can be accepted, but may cause problems when being placed in future displays)
Make sure permissions are set not only for the item itself, but for any items (scripts, etc.) that it contains – one script not properly set can turn your item in a NO COPY / NO TRANSFER device that will be rejected when the content is reviewed after the event
Don’t donate a HUGE item – remember, it may well be displayed in the future!
Visit our SL9B time capsule and right-click on it to EDIT it, open the CONTENTS tab and drag your item from your inventory and drop it into the capsule’s contents (CTRL-D may be required to drag the item into the capsule’s contents)
If you get a “No Entry” sign, check the permissions on the item and its contents.
Today is a very special day at SL9B – because we are holding our first charitable benefit this year.
Dream Seeker Estates had designated June as the month they would support the charity Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS well before they came on board as sponsors of SL9B. We decided that in return for their support, we would have a day of fundraising for their chosen charity.
So today you will find special donation jars at the the stages, the auditorium AND the Welcome Area. Please give generously, to show your support of this important cause – and to show how support for such initiatives is, for Second Life residents, every bit as important as celebrating the Birthday.
About BC/EFA…
Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS is one of America’s leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. By drawing upon the talents, resources and generosity of the American theatre community, since 1988 BC/EFA has raised over $195 million for essential services for people with AIDS and other critical illnesses across the United States.
BC/EFA is the major supporter of seven programs at The Actors Fund, including The HIV/AIDS Initiative, The Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative, The Al Hirschfeld Free Health Clinic, The Actors Fund Work Program, The Dancers’ Resource, The Stage Managers’ Project and three supportive housing residences.
BC/EFA also awards annual grants to more than 400 AIDS and family service organizations nationwide.
With SL9B now behind us and July opening before us, Second Life moves towards the central event of the Relay For Life in SL season: the Relay weekend.
