By Bixyl Shuftan
Sunday July 1 was the last day that the sims of Second Life's biggest event of the year, the Second Life. Several years ago, there wouldn't be much happening, just people walking around and seeing the exhibits one last time before they'd be picked up.
But in the past few years, things have been a little different. First the "Cake Stage" was dismantled not by simply taking it down, but by having it all come apart in a shower of prims in what came to be called the "Cake Explosion." When people saw videos of it, it became so popular, people wanted to see it happen, so the event became announced in advanced. Then something else happened, DJs began playing at the clubs one last time.
This year, the unofficial DJ events started before the Cake was set to blow. At one point, I headed to Stage North SL15B Impressive to catch an event there.
And there was a small party there.
Catboy Qunhua was there, in a red and white dress with Canadian maple leaves on it for "Canada Day" that day. I never did ask if she was from the Great White North, or just showing appreciation for the land of hockey games and maple syrup.
The time of the "Cake Explosion" was scheduled for 4PM. So with a half hour to go. I headed there. Unfortunately, with all of the avatars there, some took a long time to rezz. There were close to 150 in the two sims.
Eventually, there were so many under the Cake stage sims, I was unable to get in after one particular crash. So I watched from SL15B Exhilarate next doot. Then a little after 4PM, "The Cake" rose in the air.
The crowd below awaited the pile of virtual cake and frosting to drop from above.
Crashing was still a problem, even in the next sim.
Finally at 4:22PM, we saw the pieces start to fall. Slowly, but it had begun.
Volunteer Marianne McCann yelled, "Down it goes!"
"Coming down!"
"Woot! Fantastic time!!!"
"Oh, the whole area is falling apart, and the pieces descending to the ground!"
It took a while, but the prims were soon all over the ground.
Some hung in the air for a while.
If a piece drifted to another sim besides the two The Cake was on, instead of falling onto the ground, it sunk through and vanished.
It was quite a scene with all that virtual cake and frosting on the ground.
Peet Auer had this video up on Youtube. RacerX Gullwing had another, filmed at Midnight view.
After "The Cake" went out in glory, the party moved on to Stage Left, aka "The Serpent."
At 10PM SL time was the last of the unscheduled parties.
DJ Luscious Giano would run the tunes for the last event period of the SL15B
Among those there was volunteer Marianne McCann
So was Stage Lead Golan Eddie.
The party would go on for a while. At one point, Luscious pointed to a crystal in the air, saying who clicked on it would get a souvenir of the stage, courtesy of stage creator Faust Steamer, a Meso-American style serpent statue.
I would take a few more pictures of The Serpent, such as behind the DJ booth.
In a room behind the booth, where there was a rezz spot.
For those who never bothered to pan upward, there was this.
A crystal hanging high over everyone.
A view of Stage Left from above.
Eventually, Midnight came, and after goodbyes, people began heading out, to either log out, or look at the sims one last time.
And I myself decided to look a little longer before calling it a night.
This exhibit by Marianne McCann, mentioned in an article by Gemma, brought back a few memories. And unlike the Tapestry of Time mentioned in one of my articles, it was less afraid about mentioning a few problems over the years.
It was a quiet winding down to a great day, though a somewhat sad one. The next day, the builds would start to come down, and the place would be gone in a few. It was the last hurrah of the Second Life Fifteenth Birthday.
Bixyl Shuftan
No comments:
Post a Comment