A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU TO THE MUSIC COMMUNITY PERFORMERS

I have seen so many thank yous to the committee members and teams of Relay for Life,  many of you are part of those teams...but I have one very special thank you to give.

This year's Relay for Life was the best ever in the total of USD raised.  The spirit of Relay is more overwhelming than words can describe.  Every week throughout Relay I have seen events put on by the various teams and committee members.  Behind all of it I saw a group of people that truly helped make the relay become the best ever.  I attended more live music events sponsored by venues and teams.....but there was a quiet giant in there....the music community.  As performers, you donated your time, your tips.  To many of you performing in sl is a way to help keep a roof over your head, to see you give up the opportunity to make money with your performances,  to bring your groups, no matter how large or small....to challenge those audiences to match to donate...

I could not keep track of the number of performers that I saw everyday when I looked at events in the event board.  Each of you that donated so much, that have said to me, if there is anything I can do to help, that offered to do performances....though my response was the same....that I am not a part of that committee....I still know how very giving your hearts were.  Each time I heard a performer talk about challenging the audience and that they would match it....it was awe inspiring.  Laughing, of course you caused me to dig deep within that linden wallet.... I am not only proud to be a part of this community, but even prouder that so many of you are friends.

On that note I say a very special thank you to the music community, to the venue owners, the fans, and the performers....for you truly helped play a huge part in the success of SL's Relay for Life 2011.

A DIFFERENT PATH

Today, I need to take a moment and talk a little about Relay for Life.  Though it is not considered music community...maybe to some...I still believe it is, because I have seen soo many of the music community open their hearts and support this so worthy cause.

On that note I do want to share the schedule of events as everyone walks the relay and takes this time to celebrate what has proven to be a record breaking year for Relay for Life in Second Life.  There is something for everyone.

SATUDAY, JULY 16


SILENT AUCTIONS START

BREEDABLE SILENT AUCTIONS START

ART SHOW/SALE STARTS

SCAVENGER HUNT BEGINS

SOO MANY FUN ACTIVITIES

THEMED LAPS


The Four Seasons Theater--it changes with each performance--Space is very limited!  Reserve your seat now!!

  2PM SLT -- THE BEATLES  Everyone loves THE BEATLES....Join us on the dance floor as we take that walk down memory lane with the band that started it all for us..... Space is limited, so im Still Braveheart for your tickets today. All proceeds go to Relay for Life 2011.
  4 PM RUNNING LADY PRODUCTIONS--The best in Machinima
  6PM SLT -- VIRTUAL BUFFET OF SHORT PLAYS -- Join the Avatar Repertory Theater as we present a seven course meal of full productions of the seven winning plays from the Virtual Short Play Buffet; Love in a Virtual World by Mark Lindberg Back Burner by J. H. Brown Zombified by Arthur M. Jolly Drenched by Sandra Hosking Monsters by Elford Alley NOLA Goodbye by Jane Pendergrast The Gospel According to Bowser by Dan Borengasser SPACE IS LIMITED--IM STILL BRAVEHEART FOR YOUR ADVANCE RESERVATIONS

Country Music Stage

 Performances start at 1PM and run hourly

Live Music Stage

Performances start at 1PM

DJ Stage starts at 1PM SLT


LUMINARIA CEREMONY STARTS AT 9PM SLT


Sunday July 17

FIGHT BACK CEREMONY 6AM SLT

CLOSING CEREMONIES 10AM  (but the fun continues)

LIVE AUCTION 11:30 AM (rl and sl items...  http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY11SL?sid=149337&type=fr_informational&pg=informational&fr_id=34810

SCAVENGER HUNT CONTINUES

SILENT AUCTION CLOSES AT 3PM SLT

RAFFLE DRAWS  7PM

BREEDABLE SILENT AUCTION CLOSES 7PM SLT


The Four Seasons Theater--it changes with each performance--Space is very limited!  Reserve your seat now!!  im Still Braveheart in world for tickets

1PM SLT ALICE IN WONDERLAND BROUGHT TO US BY THE DRAMATIQUES
4PM BON JOVI

Country Music Stage
Performances start at 7AM SLT

Live Music Stage
Performances start at 7AM SLT


I truly hope to see all of you there sometime over the weekend.

A special thank you

Out of the ashes so to speak....

I am the type of person that looks for the positive in everything.....I found it throughout this entire mess involving Live Gig Alley....I found a positive.  A reminder of why I love this musical community.

Whether you like live gig alley or not, venues, performers, and fans are communicating better than ever.  There is a unity that is overwhelming.  So many performers have im'd and given their support venues coming together in common bond... I have not seen this type of unity since Mankind tried to get everyone to use his cover charge system.

Thank you SL Music Community, as always you make me so proud to be a small part of this community.

An explanation

I chose to remove my last post because while it was a meandering of my thoughts and a trip down memory lane...there was nothing substantial to base it upon. Rather than have anyone take it out of context, and start rumors or drama, I chose to remove it.    One thing I attempt top do, whether I be right or wrong is honest, direct, and ethical....I truly avoid allowing personal what if's to come into play here, and that is what I had started to do, allowing things I knew from my history with the sl music community to be discussed here.  I was wrong to do so.

My take on the "updated press release"

Here is the updated press release I was given...and then you will see my response.

Live Gig Alley

Live Gig Alley – UPDATE

It has come to my attention that some venue owners and performers are concerned that Live Gig Alley will act as a remote virtual venue, taking traffic away from their venue.  Owners and performers alike need to know how Live Gig Alley will benefit them.

To address questions and concerns, please allow me this opportunity to relay what Live Gig Alley is all about and why it is important to you.

The short answer… It’s "The Ultimate SL Entertainment Connection"

Live Gig Alley does not take traffic away from any entertainment venue. In actuality, quite the opposite is true. Live Gig Alley increases traffic to venues and in no way poses a threat to venue owners, entertainers, fans, entertainment managers or anyone else. Live Gig Alley is an enhancement to live entertainment.

As with any business, there are pros and cons. The pros include a one-stop location to find/discover/locate a live performance to attend, a place aiding collaboration among performers and the opportunity for venue owners to sample many performers in a very short period of time.

Upon arrival visitors are suddenly presented with hundreds of mini booths that performers have rented. These mini booths will hold a maximum of 2 occupants. Booths have a menu system, providing the event seeker with a direct teleport to the live event, in progress. Teleporting to events is the basis of Live Gig Alley.

Each booth also has the performer’s picture and a Tip Jar. Having a Tip Jar available is good for venue owners. Elaboration on that is provided below. Each booth, displaying a flashing red light, will typically signal that the musician renting that booth is live on-stage right now, at some venue, somewhere in SL. To find out if that particular musician is to their liking, visitors step in the booth and can only listen to what is going on.  Should that performer not be what they seek, they move onto the next live performer's booth and so on, until they find a live show to teleport into. Again, people do not come to Live Gig Alley and simply stand around listening to live performances.

Availability to tip the performer is in place for one main reason. A vast majority of fans will see the tip jar and in a split second think, "I will tip them at the show but not here..I already like this performer and I don't mind tipping, but only if I am having a good time there". In reality, that Tip jar further helps trigger the act of teleporting to the event. Also, should tips be generated from Live gig alley (and yes, it does happen now and again) steps are in place to have tips directed to the performer's designated avatar, so as to not interrupt them. This added feature of promoting  teleporting to the venue is a positive for the fan, the artist and the venue owner.

In summary, you come to Live Gig Alley to locate a live performance to attend and teleport to your chosen venue, to be with other like minded people. People want to interact with others, so they teleport. It's only natural.

The cons number all of one and it has already been addressed. Early on, we recognized the possibility for a visitor to temporarily slip through the cracks and listen to an entire show. For the offending avatar, the opportunity will be short lived. Anyone found (and records are kept) camping out for what is deemed an excessive amount of time, in any one booth will be banned from future visits, without question. Additionally plans are in place to automatically disallow such activity without the need for human intervention.

In summary, Live Gig Alley is exclusively a connection service to entertainment throughout SL. Live Gig Alley is long overdue and a much needed addition to SL's entertainment industry and will expand to encompass the entire SL entertainment industry, all the while maintaining its current business model, to remain a benefit to everyone.

Performer stream URL’s will be hidden.
Tip Jars will remain in full view and operable.
Teleporting will be even more simplified.

It is my desire that some of your most important questions and concerns have been addressed. All venue owners concerns are paramount to the Live Gig Alley ownership and management team and we welcome the opportunity to address concerns with you. Please feel free to send me a notecard with any specific concerns and so we can arrange to meet and discuss them.

Regards
NANCE Brody – Owner, Live Gig Alley
Voice Doobie - Marketing Director

My response:

Live Gig Alley does not take traffic away from any entertainment venue. In actuality, quite the opposite is true. Live Gig Alley increases traffic to venues and in no way poses a threat to venue owners, entertainers, fans, entertainment managers or anyone else. Live Gig Alley is an enhancement to live entertainment.  I have yet to see how it does this as there is no tp to the venue.


Upon arrival visitors are suddenly presented with hundreds of mini booths that performers have rented. These mini booths will hold a maximum of 2 occupants. Booths have a menu system, providing the event seeker with a direct teleport to the live event, in progress. Teleporting to events is the basis of Live Gig Alley.  During prime time, a visitor would have so many booths to visit that the shows would be over by the time they decided where to go.

Availability to tip the performer is in place for one main reason. A vast majority of fans will see the tip jar and in a split second think, "I will tip them at the show but not here..I already like this performer and I don't mind tipping, but only if I am having a good time there". In reality, that Tip jar further helps trigger the act of teleporting to the event. Also, should tips be generated from Live gig alley (and yes, it does happen now and again) steps are in place to have tips directed to the performer's designated avatar, so as to not interrupt them. This added feature of promoting  teleporting to the venue is a positive for the fan, the artist and the venue owner.  Now this really throws me for a loop.....if anything...i would think tipping at the venue and the performer would be the goal.  The section about not interrupting a performer....wow, if anything the performer should want to thank the person that tipped them....unless they do not see it because tips are being diverted and if so are the performers receiving the full tip or is it split somewhere in there.


This added feature of promoting  teleporting to the venue is a positive for the fan, the artist and the venue owner.  I did not find a way to tp to the performer that was on the air when I was at live gig....

Performer stream URL’s will be hidden. This is a lie..I demonstrated that last night
Teleporting will be even more simplified.  Not seeing any teleporting system in place


It is my desire that some of your most important questions and concerns have been addressed. All venue owners concerns are paramount to the Live Gig Alley ownership and management team and we welcome the opportunity to address concerns with you. Please feel free to send me a notecard with any specific concerns and so we can arrange to meet and discuss them.  I specifically asked them to meet with venue owners....it was refused.


This press release did not address many of the concerns....and in speaking directly with Voice, I did not feel as if I received one direct and honest answer.  If someone is unable to be honest and direct, then quite often there is something to hide.

OH wow what a discovery

I must admit it was so nice so Nance to have to use so much space to say things.  Guess it is my turn.  Though I am a bit surprised about her comments as her partner had given me the updated press release to post and I would have without the commentary.  But open a can of worms and you get my honest opinions.

There is an extremely well known performer that every time they come up with something the question in the back of our minds is what is the real agenda and how is it benefiting them.  Most of you know me well enough that I don't need to use names. If you don't go back through my blogs it is not hard to figure out.

I do believe there is a distant cousin out here...because this is what I saw.  What could be a good idea is turned into a way to line wallets of one performer and her business partner.  While we are striving to keep the cost down for venue owners, performers and audiences I saw something that will truly make two people money and use the music community to do so.

Performers are charged $250.00L a week.  there are tons of those.  Streams are given out freely....and I received no lm to the venue that the performer was playing at....though I did not need it...the stream was there, I could take it home and listen.  Laughs then again, even if the performer was not on air their stream was advertised so all i would have to do is take the stream information, and drop it in my land or home etc.  OHC,Beth Odetts, Chance, and Laidback....all your streams were there to see yet only one of you was performing (these are the only 4 I looked at).  By the way Laidback, you sounded good, but when I was going to tp to whatever venue you were at....this is the response I got -- NFO READER:  "Tuesday";
[20:53]  INFO READER: NO GIG SCHEDULED
[20:53]  INFO READER:  Tuesday, resetting script.

.  I stood on the platform with Voice Doobie and could have fit a couple more on there, at least three other people.    Then I started doing the math and I did not get a full count of all the boards.....but of the ones I did and I believe i missed a few..50,300L a week or 201,200L for 4 weeks...that is off of the fans that could be tipping performers and venues, and venues and performers which are having a rough time anyway.   Looking at the numbers of what they have set up there...I felt like someone there thought money can be made off of the music community, and they in turn use each of us to line their wallets.

As much as we love music, I felt as though I was talking to someone that found a way use use the venue, the fan, and the performer to profit, and do so by imitating a well respected member of the music community, yet added the tipping on and the live streams.... 

The more they charge people, the less that goes to the performer.  Contrary to what a lot say about liking the interaction with the people on the venue, that is usually the same handful of people for each performer.....read profiles, you can see all the time, I don't follow local chat so im me, or I have im'd people to say hi when I see they are online, and they are at work with the music playing.  From a venue owners standpoint, we see all kinds.  not everyone cares as much about the interaction.  So that argument goes both ways.  Would we, as venues, lose those that come to our venue while they are at work, or just want to quietly dance with a special someone.  They would not need to, they could park their avi at their home and drop the stream, or dance on their deck with the stream dropped.

Most of you know me well enough to know how strongly I believe in the growth of sl music.  How passionate I am about it.  I get angry when I see people trying to take advantage of every single avenue in this community...I think of a get rich quick scheme....playing on what most are so very passionate about.  Ya know how after you get done talking to a "used car salesman" mentality (not meant to insult the good ethical used car salespeople) ( oh please, I hear the snickers now:) ) but after you get done talking to one you feel like you need a shower.  That is how I felt tonight after seeing all that.

WOW all that and I haven't even hit the press release yet.  but it is late...and I need that shower.

NEVER A DULL MOMENT

While I have been wondering about what to write about...lo and behold it fell into my lap.

A few minutes ago I was informed of a new company...smiles, you know me well enough to go down and check it out....but first i did get permission to copy and paste this notecard i received:

Titled:  Does this impact YOUR venue?  Are you concerned?

I might be overreacting…

However, I think this might just be the tip of the iceberg… So let me explain please.

Assumption:  When I pay a musician to play at my venue, I except the stream to only be available at my venue.  If someone wants to listen to this fine artist, they will have to come to my venue to listen.

There is a new business @ 􀀽

Where artists can, for a small fee, rent a small kiosk that will “light up” when they are playing live and by standing at the kiosk, you can listen to the artist and tip the artist.  (hummm, notice what’s missing?  Oh yea, the venue!).

It has always been easy for a fan to TP to another venue if they wanted to listen to a different musician, but this makes it even easier, you can just cam around and see who has the “ON AIR” sign lit, walk over and viola, be listening to the artist.

It can be argued that the kiosk is:
•    very small
•    there are no dance machines
•    there are no dance poles or other entertainment to keep people happy

My answer is right, not YET!  If this is successful, then will the next version of this business be more attractive to fans.

I do not know what other venues plan to do, but I plan to inform all musicians who play at my venue that I will renegotiate their rate if I do not have exclusive use of their stream during shows at my venue.

If you think I am overreacting to this, please do let me know.  I could be wrong! I have been wrong a lot!  (but only on days that end in the letter “Y”)

P.S.  Should I be upset that the owner of this business is making money off of the live music that I am paying for?  (It seems to be a sweet deal, the artist pay her for the kiosk, and I am paying for the music that she streams.)  Without the streams there would be no reason for artists to rent there.





ok now for my two cents...I am in total agreement this notecard.  If I was a tips only venue that may make a difference, but I am a paying venue.  I would think that all paying venues may have a bit of an issue with this. 

Personally I have never heard Nance Brody, the owner of this business, but I do see that she is a performer....I question what she is charging the venues she plays for. 

I wish I could say more on this, but I do believe that Gwampa's notecard says my thoughts and feelings exactly.  I was thrilled to see that only two of the performers I book are there.  I would only hope I don't see others, it is truly a disservice to the same venues that dig deep in their wallets to keep you performing at their venues.