Your name in lights!

So, after my last post you've got your event venue and time, you've got a DJ and most important of all you've got Lindens. This time I want to talk about advertising your event. If you're an SL quiz junkie like me you'll have been to different events, and you'll have seen there are lots of different ways of running trivia events. I said before that you should not think I'm telling you my way is the best way, and very definitely you should develop your own style. But it woks for me, and maybe I have some tip that might be useful. I'm hoping other trivia hosts will add their own in comments, too.

You've got to tell people about your event. If they don't know it's on, they won't come! So how and where do you advertise your event? We're here usually talking about events listing, blue notices, group IM and in-world chat.

Before you do anything it's a good idea to make an event flyer and save it you a notecard in your inventory. If you do that you won't have to type out the same old thin

g every week when you come to post your event and send out notices. Here's mine for Early Birds and Night Owls:

"Lotus and DJ Chantal are the early birds with 20 questions, and maybe more, paying 25L for each first correct answer. We'll have Dingbats and money for typos, and Chantal spins her tunes and takes your requests. European larks, North American owls, kiwis, emus and any assorted avians, start the trivia weekend at Friends Best!"

If you don't know, and most of you will, you get at the events listing from the "search" button at the bottom of your viewer. Click the "events" tab and type your "trivia" into the text box, and that brings up events with "trivia" in the title. Try "quiz" and you'll get a few other ones, but my perception is that "trivia" is the crucial keyword.

Thurina Susa, fully clothed, at Chaos Truth or Dare. Sharon's Diner, Saturday 2030

Once you've done your search you'll also see a "create event" button. Click this and it takes you to the Second Life events web page. Click the "submit new event" link under the calendar, reassure LL you are not going to breach their terms and conditions, and you're there!

Fill in the fields, most of it you can edit later if you get it wrong, what you can't edit is the date, time and venue so make sure you get those right. Make sure to use trivia in your title because most people search on the keyword "trivia". The difficult bit can be the location. Understandably venues don't want any old person submitting events, and often you have to be in a fairly select SL group before you can post events. If you can't find the venue, ask the sim owner to post the event for you or to give you access.

I usually only send out one blue notice for each event, in the group that the venue belongs to, but it's up to you what you do. Blue notices relate to a particular SL group, and your group role needs to allow you to post notices. Most owners will be happy to give you a special host tag and allow you to post notices. You create a notice using the group info screen. You should put a date and time on your notice, with a landmark attached at the bottom.

Hosts normally spam group IM just before an event starts, and maybe at half-time. Click on the map button at the bottom of your screen, then click "copy SLURL to clipboard", which copies your current SLURL (so don't do this from a some embarrassing location before you teleport)! Then open the group IM you want to spam, type your message and paste in the SLURL. Copy your message before you send, then send. Open the next group and paste in your message, rinse and repeat.

Which groups should you spam? I usually spam the venue group, Buccaneer Bowl, Sharon's Diner, Trivia Fiends and Nellotus. Trivia Fiends is a general trivia group and I'm sure the owners will agree that any reasonable person can use their IM. The others are related to particular venues or events. The group owners of Sharon's Diner and Buccaneer Bowl are keen players themselves, and are delighted to support other hosts and events, and only too happy for other people to advertise in their groups. But do be tactful, and please don't spam Sharon's group when she has her own events running!

Nelly Swindlehurst is Queen of the Beavers on her rezday!

Oh yes, Nellotus! Most groups discourage group IM chat because it really can be very irritation. Nelly and I thought that there was room for an SL trivia group where IM chat is encouraged, because we like our trivia friends so much. We have the Friday Challenge winners tags in this group, and the Dingbat Queen title, and I'm sure we could find a King one if any men show an aptitude for Dingbats. Anyone is welcome to join Nellotus, if the chatter annoys you close the group Im window and it's gone. And spam it to your heart's content.

Finally you can advertise your event in local chat at events. Again, please be tactful. Some venues don't welcome this, and you'll end up on the long list of banned avis. Please don't say I didn't warn you.

Some venues and hosts welcome it and will ask if anyone else has events to promote. Speaking for myself I'd love to see the calendar packed with good events, and I really want to let people promote events, and to help new hosts, if I can. That's why I'm writing this, of course! But it's polite to ask hosts if you can promote your event. Most will say yes. And to the host who arrived at Sharon's Diner giving out event flyers yesterday, if you'd asked Sharon she'd have been only to pleased to let you. Ask first sweetie, it's always best.

Next time I'm going to talk about running the event itself.

Stepping into the spotlight

I fell in love on 8 September 2008 when I went to my first SL trivia event, and ever since that red-letter day at Sharon's Diner, trivia has been a huge part of my Second Life. I started hosting in January 2009, and I've hosted three events every week for most of that time. I've really enjoyed hosting, and perhaps it's the actress in me, but I do like standing up there is the spotlight. And I was thinking you might like it too. If you don't already, of course.

Today I'm going to talk about how to start trivia hosting. Please don't think I'm telling you how it should be done, because everyone should develop their own style of hosting, and if everyone hosted exactly like me SL trivia would be a dull place indeed.

There is one thing you need to know about SL trivia, and it's that it's all about Lindens. Seriously. You can run an event if you have no personality, and with questions taken from the Internet, in the dullest sim on SL, but without Lindens you can't run a trivia event. Without prizes SL trivia is just Gogomodo, and we all know how tedious that can be. And if you look about SL trivia you'll find prize levels vary, but for most events we're talking about 20L per question upwards, so if you're going to run 20 questions you're talking about 400L.

St Patrick's Day music at Sharon's Diner with Nelly and the Cows: Maggie Sewell, NellySwindlehurst, Lotus Ceriano

Where does that money come from? I have blogged about the economic aspects of SL trivia before, and you might want to take a look at that post. If you're lucky some venues will pay you to run an event, and let you keep tips. If not, then you're paying for it yourself, either from your credit card or from your SL trivia winnings. And once you've got your finance the rest of the organisation should come easy.

I know some people keep their cam fixed on the sky to try and reduce lag, but I do think ambience can make a big difference to an event. Lebn Bucyk's Barefoot event is set in a lovely park-like space. Sharon's Diner has a wonderful kitschy feel that goes so well with her friendly and fun event. The content of Anamaria Quintessa's Ana-Lytical Trivia is the same, but her event is so much better fro moving to Trivy Island from the prison exercise yard she used to host in.Most clubs will welcome events that bring traffic, so if you have the lindens, take a look about SL and check out the sort of place you might want to host at,and drop a notecard to the owner outlining your ideas.

You've got Lindens, you've got where, next you want to set a time. Of course the biggest factor here will be when you can host, but you also will want to check Events to see if you're clashing with any other trivia events. SL trivia hosts and venues are generally co-operative rather than competitive, and try hard not to clash with each other. I've found the SL trivia community to be really friendly and helpful, and most established hosts will be only too pleased to chat with you about your ideas. There is no reason why you should not run your event against someone else's, but don't expect a big crowd if you're up against a well-known trivia host.

Somebody left a beaver at Sharon's Diner...

I think another piece of good advice is that you should attend other events and get a feel for how other hosts run events. You'll see lots of different hosting styles, and different ways of asking questions and of paying. What sort of host do you want to be? My hosting style was very heavily influenced by Allikatt Knipper and Sharon Scofield, who both ran really well organised fun events. Do you like the more hardcore approach of Lette Ponnier, or do you like the lighter organised chaos approach of Sharon Scofield or Nelly Swindlehurst? If you can emulate any of those hosts you'll be well on your way to running a good event!

And co-host or not co-host? I like having a co-host, because we can inject some style differences to an event, and it isn't all the same old Lotus. One reason why Nelly and I have hosted together so much is that we have contrasting styles, which I think makes the whole of Nellotus better than the sum of its parts. I know, I would say that anyway, wouldn't I?

I think I've said enough for this post. In my next post I'm going to talk about promoting your event and the nuts and bolts of actually hosting. Please let me know what you think in comments!

For the addicts!

Ok Dingbatters get to work! 10L for each first correct answer, answer in comments below and I'll pay you in world. Don't forget to tell me who you are. These look like toughies to me!

That blog you used to write, Lotus...

It’s been a while since I last blogged, and I’m really sorry about that everyone, I could blame all sorts of things but really it’s just been laziness.

I’ve got quite a bit of news this time, and I’ll blog some Dingbats in another post for you Dingbat addicts out there.

I want to tell you about the Lette and Lotus Culture Swap tomorrow. Lette and I have had this idea for a while, and we’ve only just got round to doing it.

We’re doing a US/UK event at New Trivia Monkeys tomorrow. The twist is that Lette is going to do the UK questions, and I’ll be doing the US ones. We have to act in role for this, so if Lette gets it wrong and sounds American players can challenge and win lindens. I’ve got to be American for the 90 minutes, and if I get it wrong, and talk about heating boilers and car bonnets, you get to win Lindens.

I was thinking it will be easier for me than Lette, because I’ve visited over there a few times and American culture is ubiquitous here, but I have learned not underestimate Lette, ever.

I have had some difficulty with question register: it’s so had to tell how difficult my questions will be for people from another culture. Americans will find “What’s the longest running radio soap in the world” almost impossible to answer, but all the Brits out there will have answered “The Archers” by now. Anyway, we shall see how we get on with this.

Do come along, we’re really looking forward to it and I think it’ll be fun. 2pm SLT Monday 25 January New Trivia Monkeys.

I wonder who can have left her box and all her stuff on my front porch?

Many of you already know that the owner of EyeQ, Jamie Parfort, is letting EyeQ go, and on a personal note I’m so sorry to see Jamie go. He has been a really generous owner and a fun person, and he has done such a lot for the SL trivia scene. I really wish him well for the future.

But SL goes on. One of the many things I’m grateful to Jamie for is bringing Nelly back into trivia hosting, and Nelly and I have agreed, whatever happens, we’re going to continue hosting together. It looks like we’ll be staying in our new slot of 8am SLT Saturdays, but our Nellotus event goes on. I’m not sure where we’ll be doing it if EyeQ goes, but do it we will!

I’ve also hosted with Karmel at the Lilly’s Friday event for 7 months, but because of RL commitments Karmel can’t host for now, so I may be looking for someone to put up with me and host at Lilly’s on Fridays.

That’s about all from me this time, I always love to hear your comments, it makes me feel so appreciated and, as Nelly will say, I’m needy like that.

By the way, Word flagged up a spellcheck for nelly without a capital N. For one glorious moment I thought Word had suggested Newfie as a replacement, but sadly it was only newly. I just thought I should share that with you!