Candy Fair 2016

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Organica will be participating in this year’s Candy Faire and brings a few new exclusives – as well as a new treat-themed racing car! Read on for more details…

 

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These parasols are non-rigged, materials-optimized and can either be worn as attachments (a Bento-ready animation is included) or rezzed on the ground for display. Each is 2LI and available individually or as part of the fatpack. 8 colours are offered in the fatpack and 2 mystery colours are offered as Trick or Treat gifts at the Faire. Mod, copy, no transfer.

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These circular tables are 2 LI each and great for a shop or at home! Two packs are available (Classic and Halloween edition) and each pack includes four colour options. Mod, copy, no transfer, materials optimized.

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Lastly, drop by the Gacha Graveyard ( http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Destiny%20Dreams/122/116/25 ) for a chance to play Organica’s gacha machine, which features these cupcake racers! Made in collaboration with NeoBokrug Elytis of Desolate Studios, each racer comes with an optional bobble-head and use of the WoO racing system (full info here: http://www.akimeta.com/organica/?page_id=2043 ) Each car is 11LI and materials optimized. They are Transfer-only with option to exchange and will rez with one permanent trait, which effects driving in a unique way. Play the gacha machine or trade with friends to get a vehicle with the stats you want – there are six traits to collect!

Traits Acceleration Agility Speed
Scurry 4 3 2
Dart 4 2 3
Scamper 3 4 2
Hotfoot 2 4 3
Marathon 3 2 4
Hasty 2 3 4

 

Please note: Due to the nature of transfer-only items as well as the volatile nature of vehicles & region crossings, we highly recommend locking in your vehicle for a copy-only version once you are happy with what you’ve got. Your transfer-only vehicle may be exchanged for a copy-only vehicle at the main store. There is a special, separate exchanger for vehicles. Please check the note-card included with your purchase for the location, up to date as of Ocotober 16, 2016.

Organica can be found at Candy Faire at booth 29 – located here at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Destiny%20Dreams/31/108/47 from October 17 thru 31st!

Candy Fair, Home & Garden Expo wrap-up + other tidbits

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Thanks to everyone who helped make the Candy Fair and Home & Garden Expo experience a success. It was fun coming up with a number of new items that worked within the constraints of the event and true to form, the support shown by both the runners of the event as well as those who dropped by has been fantastic!

All of the items put together for Candy Fair and Home Garden Expo are now available in-store!

Additionally, Organica was featured on Designing Worlds during their second show from the H&GE – My interview is about 11 mins in, but the whole episode is well worth enjoying, as it additionally features interviews with Cain Maven, Marcello and Bee Cauldron Law, BB Woodford, plus an in-depth view of Prim Perfect’s presence at H&GE, based upon the Tennyson poem, The Lady of Shalott.

(Click to play)

Organica’s been blogged!

If you’d like some ideas on how some of my recent releases can be used, I highly recommend that you check out what the following bloggers have to show:

Jenjen Sommerfleck makes great use of the Belvedere set in her comfy home.

The milkshake machines, drinks and Belvedere set are right at home at Mili Miklos’ place.

Lainey Thorne was able to make the Belvedere set, cotton candy machine, milkshake machines and drinks work to great effect in her Candy Shop.

SeleneDark Neximus shows off her bubblegum milkshake machine and drinks here at the Old London Docks blog.

Akira Voorhees featured the Varsity Reading Room prominently as the backdrop to her Yearbook Club – themed post.

Augusta Godenot managed to make the Eggplant Belvedere set look positively royal in her classy french home!

If you’ve featured Organica products in the past, please remind me with an IM including a link to your blog and I’ll be happy to share!

 

Finally, I have a few remaining tidbits to cover:

Facebook

Yup. I realize I’m rather late to the bandwagon and it’s likely that many of you who read this do so from Plurk, an in-world notification or just from the blog, but I’ve added some presence on Facebook and hope to keep that relatively updated for those who choose to keep apprised of happenings over there.  By and large, there will be links to postings from here over there, however I won’t rule out the possibility of upcoming promotions cycling through all forms of media that Organica is a part of.

If you’d like to follow my posts over there, head on over to https://www.facebook.com/OrganicaSL and click the ‘Like’ button.

Flickr

The Organica group has a growing collection of photos featuring Organica landscaping and home decor products! If you’re on Flickr, show off how you use Organica products by submitting to the group here!

 

Home and Garden Expo breakdown, Event exclusives, freebie

H&G Expo End of show notes:

First off – thanks to all who dropped by my spot at Home Expo this past couple of weeks; Home and Garden Expo is always interesting (and sometimes stressful) to prepare for and your support definitely makes it worth the time.

This year the Expo was home to 14 sims, one which was completely dedicated to live music events and another which was home to Breedable exhibits. All of the other sims were packed full with dozens of merchants and sim sponsors were encouraged to get their fellow merchants together to make their sims unique.

I managed to get my exhibit mostly designed and ready for presentation by a couple days before, but was putting together new content for the show as late as the last day before opening. I originally decided to make a larger prefab to serve both as a display and store-space, but regrettably had overlooked the fact that my booked space was not very large. Ultimately, while I worked on the prefab until about 75% completion, it became evident that even if i were able to get it to fit, thematically it wouldn’t make sense to put a whole bunch of my stuff inside and not actually allow people to compare the rezzed item with the item on the vendor.

So a couple of days before the event I discarded the idea of finishing the prefab for Expo and decided to work out some sort of display which would take advantage of developments in Second Life since the last show; namely mesh. While the nature of terrain and estate management in SL really isn’t condusive to a lot of custom changes in terrain, I did take the chance to sink down the majority of my parcel and instead created a wholly mesh terrain covering that would take its place. By doing so, I was able not only to create shapes that would not be as detailed with normal terrain, but I was able to texture the ground of my exhibit the way I wanted, including the addition of a desert-like corner, which helped a lot with making the rocky outcrops work with the set. (I noticed one of the other regions did this on a region-wide level, making sim look more authentic compared to what normal SL terrain can do. It worked out really well!)

All in all, it worked out. There was a lot of last minute repositioning, adding, removing of stuff and there was definitely more content I wanted to fit on my parcel, but I ran out of time, space and available prims, so had to make do with what I had.

As far as the overall event, I was able to raise a significant amount for the American Cancer Society and in addition found it remained profitable but have some lingering concerns.
– At 14 regions, there are a LOT of merchants to sift through. While the sims were arranged in a figure 8 configuration, the pathways (which seemed to have been predetermined by staff and not by sim sponsors) were laid out in a grid pattern and did little to direct traffic. While this has always been the case, I did find that with the immense size of the show, the lack of linear direction made it easy to get lost.
– While none of the sims looked bad, it seems to me like a couple of sims were designed to be pretty and not necessarily optimized for shopping. This is especially important for events such as these because with an event that features rezzable content, there are already so many prim, sculpt, mesh and textural assets being sold. I found myself crashing a heck of a lot, especially in the Southern/swamp-style landscaped regions, due to the plethora of huge trees wherever I turned.
– I’m not sure I understand the need for a completely separate region for live music events when each region was also given live event space. While that region may well have been donated rather than paid for by the other merchants, it inevitably demanded the majority of the event traffic, night or day. It wasn’t uncommon to see the number of avs in the Entertainment sim completely surpass the number of avatars in all of the other merchant regions combined.
– Breedables – while I get that any sponsor might demand presence, whether relevant to an event or not, i kinda felt like the Expo jumped the shark by making Breedables a big part of the event. I don’t contest that the breedable market extends the need for suitable home and garden items, however *all* of the Breedable exhibitors were grouped together on a single region and no major association seemed obvious when viewed in the context of the larger event. If Breedables are to remain part of the event moving forward, I’d prefer to see their relevance stressed throughout the event rather than confined to a single region that battles with one other region for traffic.
– Is the event getting too big? Clearly there are a lot of skilled Home and Garden-type merchants within SL. Should the event continually grow to accommodate that growing number or should it concentrate on presenting quality work visitors will be more interested in picking up? I kind of felt like such a large event led to diminishing returns. It’s not a matter of feeling competitive; after having browsed the 14 sims several times seeking items I wanted to buy, I came away fatigued with only a handful of items.

With all that said and done, the Home and Garden Expo crew did their best to make sure merchants had what they needed to get things ready for the show. I’m thankful they were so considerate with set up times and asking many merchants (including myself) for assets to fill in unused areas. It does look like the event was a success; Team Home & Garden Expo has raised L$8,184,288 for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life so far and the publicity generated for all of the participating merchants will likely help to generate more in the coming months.

All Organica RFL items will remain available in-store for the duration of RFL, so if you missed your chance to pick up any of them, please feel free to drop by and have a look.

 

New Event items:

Organica is participating in two major events at the start of June; FaMESHed is a monthly event which showcases exclusive content from a selection of mesh creators within SL; I’m flattered that I have been considered for participation and will be offering the following item as an exclusive offering for the month of June.

This low land impact item is offered mod/copy/no transfer and comes with detailed foliage & branch structure and a suitable rocky base. Offered exclusively at FaMESHed!

Organica is also participating in Mesh Around, which is a hunt featuring mesh content, running June 1 thru 15.

While this item is not exclusive, this will be the first and only time it is offered for free. To learn more about Mesh Around, check out their website, where you can find out more about the hunt as well as the starting location. 2LI as packaged, comes with full and petite sizes. Mod, copy, no transfer.

Winston Ackland performing Sat, Sept 6 in Sylvan

Acclaimed singer, songwriter and live musician Winston Ackland will be joining us at the Sylvan outdoor stage, from 4-5PM.

Years of writing and recording songs of various pop flavors, Winston Ackland manages to find several voices for his music to match the ones in his head. Often betraying the softer side of angry punk and rock songs, he turns these classics into gentle bossa novas with great success. Elvis Costello said recently that Winston’s smooth lounge rendition of Elvis’s “Pump It Up” was his all time favorite of any cover of any of his songs.

In Second Life, Winston connects with his audiences as only a very few are able. His shows are celebrations of virtual gathering with old friends you haven’t met yet.

Join us as we relax and enjoy his wonderful tunes!