Second life celebrate its 12th year as an open virtual word on Tuesday, June 23rd. Ahead of that, starting at 12:00 noon SLT on Sunday, June 21st, Second life residents are invited to join in with a full week of entertainments and events as a part of the Second Life 12th Birthday Community Celebration.
The regions are now ready – all 15 of them – and the stages are set. Exhibits from individuals, groups and community from across Second Life have been created for people to see and enjoy, and a host of entertainers are ready to bring music and dancing and more to the four main stages spread across the regions, and to special shows and events through the week.
As always with the birthday celebrations, there really is a lot to see and do across the regions, and the exhibit builds offer a mix of the breath-taking, the sublime, the wonderful, the stunning and the fun.
One of the things I love with the SLBCC events are the main entertainment stages. Each year, individual builders and teams come together to create a set of stages which are always amazing to see. This year is again something special, with the return of Toady Nakamura and Flea Bussy leading a team to build a truly amazing main stage for live entertainment, Kazuhiro Aridian once again providing a futuristic DJ stage, Miktaki Slade presenting another distinctive cake stage occupying the corners of four regions, and Cube Republic bringing us a remarkable build with in Ixtlan stage.
As well as these, there is the Dreamitarium, housing the auditorium which is hosting a range of talks and events, including those sponsored by Prim Perfect I’ve already highlighted, together with the time capsule display and a display on the history of the growth of the SL grid.
To help find your way around, do visit – or start your time at SL12BCC – at the Welcome Centre. Here you’ll find information on entertainments, stages, and attractions with takes the form of direct teleports, landmarks and links to the SL12B events schedule pages. You’ll also find s truly haunting and impressive build by Walton F. Wainwright (Faust Steamer) – make sure you wander through it under the region’s default windlight, and climb the hill to the rear of the railway station.
Art is well represented this year, with Ziki Questi, Frankx Lefavre, Mistro Hifeng, Livio Oak Korobase, and Ginger Lorakeet – to name just some I’ll be looking at during the week. Of course, a birthday wouldn’t be the same without gifts, and visitors can pick theirs up at Spectacular and at Impressive.
Given the amount of sheer hard work that has gone into all the preparations, it is perhaps unfair to pick-out favourites among the core builds within the SL12B regions. However, I’ve already confessed to loving the Dreamitarium, which houses the auditorium and forum stages, and I would not be being entirely honest if I failed to admit to finding the main (live performances) stage and the Ixtlan stage incredible. The wealth of detail in both is wonderful – make sure you find your way into the caverns of Ixtlan, and do tour the main stage area very carefully – there is a huge amount to discover, and touches of Toady’s and Flea’s humour can be found throughout (I love the selfie-taking frog 🙂 ).
I’ll have more to come on SL12B as the week progresses. For now, I’ll leave you with a video of the four main stages – let the celebrations begin!
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 