The fifth annual Fantasy Faire is due to kick-off on April 20th and run through until April 28th inclusive. While the website has yet to be updated and the theme for this year announced, the team behind the event have issued an in-world announcement that store registrations for the event are now open.

Fantasy Faire 2013 will run across ten regions, offering a showcase for all of fantasy-related creations and activities across Second Life, as well as featuring special events, fundraising, concerts, and other activities all in aid of Relay for Life and the fight against cancer. Last year, Fantasy Faire 2012 raised $25,000 USD for RFL; the hope is that this year, even  more can be achieved.

Store Options

The announcement outlines the options for content creators wishing to participate in the event:

• Featured Creator Store (L$8,000): 30m x 25m store with 700 prims. These are centrally placed near the region sponsor’s store and region landing point – SIX units available per region
• Featured Creator Store + Event Sponsor L$33,000: As above, but with advertising at all events including the Fantasy Faire Hunt, on the FF blog, on Fantasy Faire radio & in any promotional materials
• Themed Store (L$2500): 25m x 15m store with 350 prims – TEN units available per region
• Event Sponsor ONLY (no store) L$30,000: advertising at all events including the Fantasy Faire Hunt, on the FF blog, on Fantasy Faire radio & in any promotional materials (can be combined with either of the store options above, if desired – EIGHT available for the event.

Creators wishing to apply should complete the Fantasy Faire Store Registration Form.

Special Notes on Participation

• Creators applying for store space must provide at least three new and exclusive (for the duration of the Faire) items for sale, the proceeds from which go directly to Relay for Life. Vendors for these items will be supplied to merchants by the event organisers, who also ask that merchants consider offering four such exclusive items
• All creators participating in the Faire are asked to consider donating one new item to the Fantasy Faire Hunt – see below
• The regions will be open for set-up on Thursday 18th through Friday 19th April, and all take-down must be completed by April 30th
• All content for this or any RFL event must be PG. No adult content allowed (although there is a special allowance for skins). Event liaison personnel can help with any required verification of suitability
• No copyright or trademark infringement (includes real life or virtual name brands, logos, sounds or graphics that aren’t owned by exhibitor)
• For the full set of participation guidelines, including notes on prim allowances, lag management, etc., please refer to the Fantasy Faire Store Registration form.

The Fantasy Faire Hunt

This year’s Fantasy Faire will include an immersive, story-driven hut which will take place on a dedicated region. The Hunt will run alongside the Faire and also remain open for a few weeks after the Faire has closed. The aim is to provide an entertaining and memorable event which can help raise additional funds for RFL, and to this end work is already underway writing, scripting and building the experience. To help the event achieve its goals, all content creators participating in Fantasy Faire are asked if they would consider designing one new item specifically for the hunt and donating it to the event organisers as a hunt prize.

Related Links

• Fantasy Faire Store Registration 2013
• Fantasy Faire e-mail contact: FantasyFaire-at-gmail.com
• Fantasy Faire website
• Fantasy Faire on Plurk
• Fantasy Faire on Flickr
• RFL USA (American Cancer Society)
• RFL UK (Cancer Research)
• RFL of SL website
• Fantasy Faire 2012 coverage in this blog
• RFL coverage in this blog

Fantasy Faire 2012 has closed. It’s been an amazing week: 9 sims of stunning builds – eight representing the incredibly diverse nature of fantasy and role-play in Second Life.

In all, some $25,080 USD has been raised through the nine days of the Faire for Relay For Life. However you look at it, that is an amazing total, and represents the generosity of Second Life users.

For those who have yet to visit the sims, there is still time: they’ll remain open until midnight SLT on Monday 30th April – and they really are worth a tour.

For my part, I’ve had great fun exploring the sims, taking photos for the articles here and visiting the various stores. I did stupidly miss out on a couple of things in the silent auction I intended to bid for, but I’ve no-one to blame but myself for that.

To all involved in the event, organisers, support teams, sim builders, sponsors, creators, entertainers and everyone else many, many thanks for your hard work and efforts; it’s been a great event, and now looking forward to 2013!

Here are a few highlights, courtesy of SL machinimatographers:

Related Links

• In-world contacts: Elizabeth Tinsley or Zander Greene
• Fantasy Faire website
• Plurk
• Flickr
• American Cancer Society Sim In Second Life
• Relay for Life website USA
• Relay for Life website UK
• Fantasy Faire 2012 posts in this blog

Important Note: due to the service outage on Thursday 26th April, Fantasy Faire has been extended by one day. 

Siren’s Secret is the second build at this year’s Fantasy Faire by Elicio Ember, the other being Nu Orne. It takes us from the deep jungle to the wide sea, and a design that, like The Tides, has Atlantean echoes. But whereas The Tides is suggestive of an Atlantis of legend, Siren’s Secret takes a more alien / science-fiction turn; indeed, anyone who has seen the TV series Stargate:Atlantis may well feel a certain familiarity when looking on the style of architecture here. Again the echoes are faint, but they are there, and walking along the flood walkways I would not have been surprised if I’d come across a Stargate and DHD sitting in a corner…

Which is not to say this build isn’t in any way original; as I said, the echoes are faint. In fact, I have to admit that it is perhaps the build that draws me most strongly. This is in part because it does mix fantasy and science-fiction so well, but also because of the manner in which the build extends below, as well as above, the waves, encouraging those who visit to explore what lies beneath as well as being tempted by the creations on offer.

The sim is sponsored by Booshies, housed in an imposing store directly opposite the main teleport area, on the other side of which site the Jail and Bail cell. Around the sim, under the sweeping gaze of the crystal-powered lighthouse (which Elicio has donated to the Faire’s Silent Auction alongside the lighthouse from Nu Orne), you will find stores with a distinctly aquatic feel: Bibi’s coral reef shop, Mermaid Treasure & Boutique, Pacific Sunrise, Mer-chandise Cove and more besides.

Booshies themselves are a new range of breedable about to be launched in Second Life and are the subject of an interview with their creator, Booshie Resident, on the Fantasy Faire website. The website also carries an interview with Elicio Ember, in which he discusses both Siren’s Secret and Nu Orne.

One of the things I like about Siren’s Secret is that it naturally lends itself to being photographed at night – so I make no apologies for the number of night shots that follow…

The following is a stunning machinima from Fantasy Faire by Marx Catteneo, which magnificently capatures the architecture of the various regions of the Faire. So much so that I had to share it here.

Important Note: due to the service outage on Thursday 26th April, Fantasy Faire has been extended by one day. 

Teleports

• Devil’s Locket
• Jungle Bungle
• Meandervale
• Nu Orne
• Shadow’s Claw
• Shifting Sands
• Siren’s Secret
• The Tides

Important Note: due to the service outage on Thursday 26th April, Fantasy Faire has been extended by one day. 

Devil’s Locket is a build by Lauren Thibaud that is a little hard to describe. It brings together a mix of influences in the form of an tropical-like environment, complete with volcanoes, a lagoon-like body of water and whitewashed stone buildings.

Sponsored by Maxwell Graf and Rustica, the sim features a wide range of stores in its oddly exotic setting, where some things are not always obvious to the eye – particularly in the “lagoon”, where a strange metal structure rising from the waters gives a hint that there is more to be found…

You can read an interview with Lauren Thibaud and one with Max Graf about their respective involvements with Fantasy Faire on the Faire’s website.

Jungle Bungle is a strange name for a land that appears to have popped out of a mix of fairytale worlds. Here you will find a wonderful world of colour presided over by human-like trees and throughout which are carvings of exotic creatures that might have escaped from forgotten tales by the Brothers Grim.

The sim is the work of Mayah Parx, who is interviewed by Dagmar Haiku on the Fantasy Faire website, and who is also the sim’s sponsor and owner of the Epic Toy Factory. The sim is very much one that deserves to be photographed using the default Windlight settings it provides – which is largely what I’ve done here, even at the risk of spoiling some of your pleasure when you visit.

As you wander the Smartie-like (candy-like) trails through the sim, you’ll be led past a marvellous group of shops reflecting the fae nature of the region and will also come across the aforementioned wood carvings and other little wonders and treasures. One thing you’re sure to be unable to miss, as it rises from near the middle of the sim, is the great entwined bulk of a beanstalk as it climbs into the sky, dwarfing the little floating islands beside it. Walk around it and witness the fate of the giant, head-first in a roiling lake of … chocolate….

Jungle Bungle is, like most fairy stories, both whimsical and dark. While the colours are vibrant, and the stores open to all, the lowering sky and the creatures carved in wood lend a more sinister feel to the place. But then, fairy tales are both the stuff of dreams and of nightmares…