As some of you may know, I’m getting back into the routine of things after I had to leave SL for a time. I’ve been checking out various shopping events, and I have noticed something. At about every other event I’ve been to, people stand right at the landing point. At one event people were on voice chatting. If I did not have “Fly” enabled, it would have had been hard for me to “land” onto the sim. When I asked some people about this phenomenon, they basically said, “Oh this is becoming a thing at events…to be seen”. Really now? I don’t know about you guys, but I go to shopping events to shop, not to be seen.
Hair: ~Tableau Vivant~ Shiny hair – Naturals II
Skin: Glam Affair – Cleo – Jamaica + CLEO – lipstick – 20
Jacket & Shirt: GizzA – Spiked Leather Jacket [Ice Peach] (at On9)
Pants: coldLogic pants – tibbs.plum
Shoes: {Livalle} Europa -Slingback Platform Wedges- Sunset (for Wayward Hunt)
Shades: * S O R G O – Alcaz / GOLD
Pose: Corpus
Location: Mayfair
What bothers me about shopping events?
1. People standing at the landing point
Now, I’m reasonable. Sometimes you get caught up in trying to rez where you are walking before you take those couple of steps away from the landing point. Other times, your computer might freeze, and you are unable to do anything – never mind trying to move out of the way. But if people are carrying out a conversation right in the landing point, there should be people there to give them a bit of… incentive to get out of the way. Again – I’m reasonable, because this is not always possible. But there was one event where someone appeared to be away at the landing point. I went there before I went to sleep for the night, and went back in the morning. The person was still there.
2. No flying
There is an event out now that is simwide, and yet people are unable to fly around it. When I saw that, I tp’ed right out. This event does not seem to have any event website coverage, and I really don’t feel like reading a ton of blogs just to see what is being offered at this event. If your design requires that people do not fly around to see what is being offered, then perhaps you need to reconsider your layout. There has been only a few events that I’ve been to where not being able to fly did not make a negative impact on event. If you require privacy in the upper (or lower) regions of the sim, then maybe take the event someplace else? Make it smaller? I don’t know, but in 2015, this should not be an issue.
3. No coverage on products sold
Let’s face it – the reason why so many people are participating in events nowadays is because of cross-promotion. Merchants have even stopped making regular releases in their stores because they make more at events (even though this is not such a good idea). If the event does not make arrangements to showcase what is being featured, then why go to the event?
Within 6 months after I came on Second Life, I had learned how to look on feeds and individual blog sites to find out who had blogged the hunt items for Hunt XYZ. With major coverage sites such as Seraphim and Eloquence, there should be no reason why in 2015 an event doesn’t have pictures of the items that are exclusive to the event. The easiest way to do this is to have the stores in the event submit a vendor picture that clearly shows what is being sold, and to remind them that the better the picture looks, the more likely people will want to come check it out. But don’t go too far and change the product completely…
4. Lag due to excessive sim decorations
This is a hard one, and now that I have my new computer, I understand better why some event coordinators do this. Depending on your graphics card, you may be able to handle lots of high rez/high scripted items without your computer slowing down or crashing. So sometimes, people get carried away in the visionary aspect of the event, and not think that the average person in SL may not have a $2,000+ computer to render everything in an ideal fashion. There have been times where I get early access to an event, and it’s laggy with less than 10 avatars on the sim. I think all events should be optimized to handle large crowds in a reasonable fashion.
A good way to see if lag is due to your computer unable to handle a lot of objects or if the sim is at fault is to check the sim’s time dilation. This can be found under Statistics.
According to Second Life’s wiki,
“Time dilation is a method the server uses to cope with simulator lag. Physics and script generated lag can result in time dilation. Time dilation slows script time & execution. When time dilation is zero script execution halts.”
How does this affect you? The lower the number is, the slower you will move on that sim. If the time dilation on the sim is 0.5, you will move at half the speed you are normally accustomed to.
At the place where I work, some potential renters complained that the sim was laggy. I personally didn’t really feel it, but when I checked the time dilation, it was 0.7-0.8, which indicated that the sim was not that great (it should be at least 0.9, if not closer to 0.99). It turned out that there were griefer objects on the sim that had excessive scripts, which lagged the sim.
5. Unable to find items due to the event’s choice of layout
A while back, I went to an event which had no maps of the sim and where the stores were located, and no fly was enabled. After a while I gave up in frustration because I could not find anything. I think it’s crucial that the event should be set up in a way where people can find stores with relative ease. There shouldn’t be “dead spots” where if a person doesn’t turn just so, he or she completely miss like 5 stores. If you are going to do that, at least enable fly so that shoppers have a chance.
6. Changing the price (upselling)
When it comes to brand recognition, price of the products sold in a business is one of several components involved. For instance, many of us know that a pair of jeans in Old Navy, The Gap, and Banana Republic will be at different price points, just based on the name alone. If a pair of Old Navy pants was suddenly marked up to the same price as Banana Republic, people would not buy them, and would probably feel like they were being ripped off. But in order to feel like this, you would have to already be familiar with their brand. The same applies in Second Life.
Let’s say Store Y sells dresses that normally go for $L300 at their main store. At Event Z, the dress is being sold for L$450. The dress doesn’t seem to have substantial detail that would warrant a significant price change. A few months later, you go check out Store Y to see what’s new, and the L$450 dress is now $L300. Raising the price on something doesn’t automatically mean it has more quality.
Another scenario: Store X will sell a dress for L$70 at Discount event A, $L140 at Event B, and $L250 at Event C in a 6-week period. Where do you go to buy the dress? Or rather, where would you rather buy the dress, and how would you feel if you paid top Linden at an event for something that was cheaper last month at another event?
To me, this sort of practice devalues your item – what is it really worth? For those who say “Whatever people are willing to pay”, just give consumers a choice at which price point they want to pay, and see the true answer.
7. Similar items
Everyone has the right to look at real life trends in fashion and come up with ideas for Second Life creation. But when too many people get inspired by the same trend, it can get repetitive. Especially when the designers are being featured in events within the same period of time.
For instance, let’s say the hot trend right now in hair are ponytails. Stores A-E all debut their version of the side ponytail. All of them look great, and people might have their preferences due to quality and/or brand loyalty. Imagine if all of these stores were at the same – no, let’s say they were at different events within the same month. If you were looking for a center part ponytail, or a low ponytail, you may be out of luck if none of the designers did any additional releases at their main stores.
Now let’s say if three of these stores were at the same event. The average shopper may not realize that all of these stores had new ponytails for this particular month. But when they are all side by side, it would be hard not to notice. Sometimes people may go, “Hey! Store B copied store A’s design!” And thus, drama peruses.
8. Too many events!
I think it’s safe to say that everyone is feeling burnt out with the amount of events there are in Second Life. When the owner of Seraphim has to make this sort of announcement…
“Wow you guys, there are a TON TON TON of events coming in June, July and August. Just a general announcement…if you want Seraphim coverage and/or advertising during this time, please apply now. The creativity is super exciting, but it’s going to be so, so busy!! If you have an event or want advertising, please fill out the appropriate form on this page: Contact “
…it pretty much says it all, don’t you think?
What are some of the things that annoy you at events? Feel free to leave a comment below!
Moni's World 