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Vendor update.

Hi everyone!  Here’s the timeline from now til opening.

Vendors, gachas and the new blogger system will be going out starting December 7.  They will likely go out in two boxes – one on the 7th and one on the 8th.  Both sims will be open for load in starting at some point on December 9th (and will be closed to the public.)  All merchants will be expected to have some setup completed by the 14th for a walkthrough check. If you need to drop out of the event please tell us *as soon as you can*.

We will have trees available for merchants to put gifts under if they want to, as well. Everyone just hang tight. we’ll start getting stuff out to everyone starting tomorrow.

 

 

 

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Applications are closed.

Applications are now closed for this year’s Gothmas by Gaslight.  The merchant list is current, and accurate.

Merchants will be allowed to load in starting at some point on December 9 (my guess is later rather than earlier.)

Also this year we will be sending out optional gift vendors, for those merchants who want to offer gift service.  The vendors will allow the buyer to specify another account to deliver their item to.  These are not mandatory by any means.  The script was made custom for us by Nic Sadoul at Unrepentant.

Speaking of custom things made for us by the folks at Unrepentant, we also have a new blogger review copy system, so no one has to send their review copies through the group anymore.  Sonya is so excited about this she’s hopping around like…well a bunny, and I know she always does that but more than usual.  But she can explain all that once we get closer to go-time.

We’ve got 15 days til we open. Let’s roll.

 

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Of merchant packs, and signs.

I sent out about 65 merchant and sponsor packs last night.  However, last night was one of those nights where SL was being… well, SL.  Even though I set the permissions to copy/mod while they were rezzed (TWICE), they still reverted when picked up to inventory.  I sent out updates- but the sponsor signs are still no mod, so if you want a mod version, just ask me or Lokii and we’ll send you one directly.

 

We do still have some merchant slots open, but fewer than 10.  You can still apply. Please note that sponsor slots are not only long since sold out, there’s a waiting list 3x the number of slots we had. You can add yourself to it if you want to, but basically, there’s a long long line of people wanting a sponsor slot.

I should also mention we didn’t take everyone.  The biggest issues were: stores in violation of the rules, and very new or small stores with not enough inventory in them to feel comfortable letting them in this year.  As always if you want to know if or why (because I know that not every merchant pack is guaranteed to make it to its destination, SL being SL) just ask- I promise, I’ll tell you.  It might be you DID get in and your merchant pack got eaten.  It might be you didn’t and you can ask why.

I SHOULD have a merchant list up to date at some point today/tonight.  I’m working on it.

 

AK

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Applications update and other things.

As of right now, Im holding about 56 applications. Not all of them will be accepted(read the rules, people, seriously…). We technically have room for 80 stores so if you meant to apply, please do so.

I won’t have the time to look at these in any detail until the latter half of the weekend, as we are busy at Cursed Events getting A Tattered Page open today (and I have plans for tomorrow.)  So no one freak out if you haven’t heard anything right away. I haven’t looked at them other than in a cursory fashion thus far. I do know that we (as always) got WAYYYYYYYY more sponsor requests than we have slots. Way more. We’ll make a waiting list like we do every year.

In other news, Jessica Lyon, the head of the Firestorm Team announced yesterday via their webpage that the group ban function (which is what we’re waiting on to create a group for shoppers and gacha traders) will likely not make it into the upcoming major Firestorm release update.  If so, we’re really sorry, but we won’t have a shoppers group available for GxG.  As soon as Firestorm can release it, we’ll do it, but not before.  We’re waiting just like you are.

If we hear anything else, we’ll let everyone know.

In the meantime, in theory, the first acceptances for GxG will be going out at the early part of the upcoming week. Again, we still have some room, so you’re welcome to apply if you wanted to.  But read the rules first. We’re not kidding about them.

 

-AK

 

 

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And that’s a wrap.

Have You Ever Danced With The Devil In The Pale Moonlight, by GiaNikai

Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to the future. 2014 is upon us, and the gaslights are now out.  Gothmas by Gaslight is closed for 2013.

When there’s no charity to report on, I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what to say in blog posts (I’m a terrible blogger anyway- why this job is left to me, I have no idea.) other than thank you over and over again.  Just like we do every year, we learned a lot from this round of GxG, and have some idea of what to change (and what to keep) next year.  As I’d said in previous posts, this event is unrecognizable from where it began (it actually began as a hunt in 2009.)  and every year it gets a little better.   Whatever rough patches are taken to another round of sandpapering for the next year. And so it goes.

The Ghost of Jacob Marley, by Devin Vaughn

I try to be transparent about stuff. I mean, this isn’t national security, it’s just an event. This year we learned that we need to add someone to the team to deal with store checkout before we roll.  The few problems we had this year (and they were very few- I could count them on one hand and have fingers left over) were due to our not having a dedicated person for that purpose.   The reason the existing team doesn’t do it is we have our hands full between the event itself and making merchandise for our stores (in total, we’ve got five stores to account for at this event, plus Gothika.) So, we’re going to have someone do that next year(I’m looking at you, Sian and Ely…).  Ounce of prevention, pound of cure… you know how it goes.

One of the things that went fantastically well this year though was our blogging team, led by the head Blogging Bunny Sonya Marmurek, kicked 27 shades of ass.  They really and truly went above and beyond, blogging tirelessly throughout the event, even in the last days.  Considering that the bloggers are real people too, with the same pressures and concerns as we all have during this busy time of year, the effort they put forth to get posts and photos out both on their own blogs and in our flickr pool is nothing short of tremendous.  The org team maintains a constant Skype chat(the plain truth is we do as little of the organizational process inworld as humanly possible), and we spent a lot of time throwing links around saying things like “OMG LOOK AT THIS!!”  We’re incredibly honored to have such dedicated and talented people who come back over and over again to blog our events. Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I can only imagine what amazing things we’re going to see for WGF.

Another thing  people consistently came to me about to tell me they loved was the build. All credit for that goes to Lokii.  Though normally I have some idea of how the build should look, conceptually(though I’m just a concept designer- I don’t build inworld – that’s Lokii too.  Believe me no one wants me to build anything inworld. RL, yes, SL, no.), for our events, this time around I genuinely had nothing at all to do with it.  Lokii did this one entirely on her own, as I was buried in work myself.  She built this one in record time (seriously, it might have taken four days total to do both sims, if that.) and over and over again people came to me to tell me how much they appreciated it. She’s the one to thank, folks. I didn’t do it. Also, ❤ Pottamus.  It’s been almost five years and I’ve never fired her once. One of my better moves, that.

Solstice Symphony, by Duchess Flux

In the post before this one, there was a comment that amongst other things suggested we open the Cursed Events group and make it public. We’re really sorry- we can’t, and here’s the reasons why:  The group is used for several things, but the two that make it so we can’t open it as that it’s used for rez rights on Sium, and it’s where our merchants drop review copies for our blogging team.  It’s a working group, not a shoppers group – it’s just where we disseminate info to our merchants and bloggers.

That said, we do understand there’s a desire to have an open group for shoppers and gacha traders.  We’d love to do that this year, but it’s largely dependent on Linden Lab’s rollout of new group management tools.  Our org team are almost completely made up of very introverted people(please believe me when I say the hardest part of all our events for us is the social part.  It’s genuinely difficult.), who are buried under work as it is. We don’t have a dedicated set of people to moderate an inworld group right now, which is what’s really needed while the event is going on. The tools the Lab gives us all to moderate groups are mediocre at best, and we don’t expect a new group to be self-policing (they eventually *become* self-policing, but they don’t start that way.)  We truly hope that the Lab makes good on new group management tools in 2014, and if so, we’ll be happy to have an open group for shoppers and gacha traders for all our events as soon as they do. We’re aware this is something people want, and we’ll do our best to make it happen, hopefully by World Goth Fair 2014 in May.

Dolly Treats II by Alisa Perne

But before we get to WGF, we have something to do first.  We’ve added an event to the Cursed Events roster for 2014.  It’s a brand new event called Futurewave, and it will take place in mid-February.  Applications are already open for it (but please, please, please read the rules carefully- that event is NOT like this one.) and you can find it here.

Gothmas by Gaslight will return, opening December 15 2014, as we do. Thank you all again for the support from merchants, bloggers and shoppers alike. Let’s head into the Future. The digital revolution is now.

I leave GxG this year with this beautiful image from Cindy Gedenspire.  Thanks, Cindy.  ❤

GxG2 Scene, by Cindy Gedenspire

-AK

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…and on to New Year.

BitsyB – GXG – Jasmine’s Oasis Dress – Mahogany, by Tigist Sapphire

 

I had meant to post on Gothmas itself but it just didn’t happen that way.  Not that I was doing anything special, I just needed some sleep.  I now have a ton of emails and IMs to answer, and I find it kind of amusing- I am pretty sure I’m the only one on the Cursed Events team that doesn’t actually celebrate a holiday on the 25th IRL.  But I do hope that everyone that does celebrate had a wonderful time in whatever way is meaningful for them.

The week before Gothmas in SL is a strange time. The grid goes basically silent as people are so busy running around IRL that they have no time to do anything else. The pressure is palpable, and so the grid becomes akin to a ghost town. Which, on the upside makes it fantastic to take photos in, since no one is really around.  I do know that our blogging team didn’t take much, if any of a vacation themselves, as the posts and photos continue to pour into the flickr pool.

The Gothmas Reindeer, by Autumn Amaranth

I’m always so amazed and tickled by the photos the bloggers give us, and the posts they work so hard to create. I know that I personally hate blogging (really, I mean this.) and so I can deeply appreciate people who willingly and cheerfully do that which I can only muster grudging strength to accomplish.

As I’ve wandered around the event (and believe it or not I’ve only really seen 3/4 of one sim fully) I’ve been pleased with the demonstrations of creativity, and so far done a fair bit of shopping myself!  Now that Gothmas itself is over, and we’re headed toward the new year, the grid has started to re-awaken, as people slowly filter back in, stuffed on more food and overwhelmed with the whole “too many people” thing, looking for a quiet wander.

However, for those who are big fans of such data, I can say for sure that in the first week of this year’s event, we’ve outdone last year’s whole event.  Thank you so very much to everyone who helped make that feat possible.  We’ve had a huge, huge year at Cursed Events. Every event we did this year exceeded our expectations by leaps and bounds – this one included so far and really, we keep our expectations pretty mild for this event due to its timing.  The support everyone has given us this year has been tremendous and we cannot find enough ways to say thank you. All of us are continually amazed and humbled by the support our team has gotten from everyone, and we will continue to do… well whatever it is we did to cause this again next year (really, we have no idea what we did, we just mostly put our heads down and do our jobs.)

Gothmas, by Duchess Flux

 

But before we even get to 2014 (and remember, we will start the ball rolling toward Futurewave on New Year’s Day), we have one more week in 2013 – so come on up!  Look around, grab some gothy winter gear, because next year you’ll think “well I wish I’d bought that….” (I know I will, if I don’t grab it all NOW NOW NOW), and take some beautiful pictures.  It’s definitely more fun than fighting your way through a crowd of tourists in midtown.  Trust me on that one.

 

-AK

 

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Whyfor Gothmas?

Sweet Lolita, by Alisa Perne

Alisa is one of our official bloggers for GxG and I couldn’t be more proud of her. This is lovely.  ❤

Yesterday, I finally got a chance to scrape together enough time to read some of the blog posts people have written about GxG.  I was directed to this one and really loved it, much to the surprise of its’ author. Really, go read it- it’s good.

I wanted to use that post to springboard into this one, and talk about how and why this event is different from the other Cursed events – something that Sal seems to understand even without discussing it with me.

In 2014 we will be doing four big events(so, not including Oopskate since that’s only one night a year)  but until now we’ve only done three a year- GxG, World Goth Fair, and A Clockwork Spiral.  All of them have changed over the years in ways big and small.  We learn from every event we do.  They are all different.  Futurewave, which we’re adding in 2014 will be different still.  But GxG is its own case.  It’s morphed a lot over the years.  It’s almost unrecognizable from where it began, and that’s a good thing. As SL evolved it evolved too.  But really, it’s designed to be an easy event for both merchants and shoppers for the end of the year.  It’s meant to be low-pressure, as this time of year everyone is under enormous pressure in RL.  Because there’s no booth fee, there’s no way for merchants to lose money.  If it’s slow, no biggie- it didn’t cost anything.   If it’s busy? Bonus! There’s no rules about exclusives, or new stuff (though a lot of people choose to put out both), but there’s no pressure on merchants to jump through a lot of hoops to be involved. This event is intended to be as inclusive as possible- the only really firm rules are about vendors and IP/infringing content. It’s pretty open ended.

Because there’s such a low barrier to entry, we get a broad mix of applicants. For many, each year, it’s their very first foray into being in events at all.  When it’s your first time doing a big event it can be scary and you feel like you’re in over your head. You don’t know about how important things like display and exhibit design are.  You don’t necessarily know what the trends are in advertising design.  Creators are often in their own bubbles regarding these things.  We largely work by ourselves and don’t get out much. We don’t often see what else is out there, because we’re so busy churning out the next release.   But events in general, but this one in particular, allows creators to come together in a low-stress environment and check stuff out.  Look at people around them. See what others are doing.  Gain inspiration and learn new stuff.

Sal is right- our group is very nice to one another. Very helpful and cross-supportive.  We try as hard as we can as the org team to do the heavy lifting on this event.  This allows both seasoned and new creators to breathe a little easier. Our experience tells us that the experiences that folks have with GxG, whether they make money or just gain experience are good- they come back to us for World Goth Fair, which is easily the toughest event we do all year.  And when they do, after their experience at GxG they up their game.   They take what they’ve learned and they apply it. They do better products, better ads, better booth designs.  They ask for more critique, more help, and they get better at what they do.

A rising tide raises all ships.

In many of the smaller, niche markets change is slow to come, and SL has undergone a lot of technical changes in the past 18 months.  But when creators see what’s possible, and how they can adapt those things not only in mainstream markets but in niche markets as well (which is all we do at Cursed events- mainstream isn’t our thing.) they find ways to adopt those new methodologies into their products and branding.  The big names do their thing, and the small names get bigger and better from the experience.

That’s what GxG is about.  It’s not intended to be a rough event. We have all our other events for that.  It’s about taking a breather at the end of the year, and everyone coming together in mutual support of a small scene.

We’re pretty happy with that goal.

 

This photo wasn’t from one of our official bloggers but it’s just so nice I’m posting it anyway (don’t kill me, Sonya.) It’s from our event Flickr Pool (which you can post to also!)

LA PETITE MORTE – J&A EXPO – GLAM AFFAIR ,by Punkiss Resident

 

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And we are OPEN.

Gothmas Build Preview, by Salome Strangelove

Sal got this photo while we were setting up.  I think it’s great. Thanks, Sal!

We are OPEN:

On Cursed:  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cursed/132/69/1004

On Sium: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sium/128/80/1002

I want to thank everyone who has gotten us to this point- the merchants who have busted ass (especially the waiting listers who jumped in last minute to fill in with no complaints at all), the kick-ass blogger team, Sonya for being the head blogging bunny (cause I am terrible at that stuff, hence this post sounding like this…) Ely Hynes, aka Pinderella, for pinning everything on her Pinterest )  the sponsors who all chipped in with help with everything from webstuff to scripting help and especially Lokii (pottamus.) Violet for building ALL THE THINGS, Nephi Protaganist for being my partner in crime, and Cruel Britannia for being my partner in everything ever (and he’s never once even yelled at me.)

We’re here for 20 days of dark, wintery goodness.  I’ll be featuring STUFF AND THINGS on a daily basis.

No eating Orvan in ways he doesn’t like.

Come on up, the dark has arrived.