How to put on an event for students, activists and talking bears

I have started a wiki page on the Second Life Education wiki to encourage folks who know better than me to share their thoughts and suggestions on how to organize “multi-verse” events. I.e. events that take place simultaneously in virtual space and in real space.

My contention is that there must be a growing body of knowledge about how best to plan these kinds of events, from all the conferences, concerts, and movie openings that have been occurring more and more frequently in Second Life. My thought is that it would be great if some of the best ideas on how to throw these kinds of happenings could be collated in one place, so that future organizers don’t have to re-invent the wheel.

Organizing an event in the real world is tough — from negotiating with vendors to soothing the egos of fragile keynote speakers to making sure that there’s a vegetarian option on the menu. Organizing events in virtual spaces like Second Life isn’t a walk in the park either — from getting attention amid the hub-bub of a million other events to rezzing the amphitheater to planning the virtual cocktails you plan on serving. Now throw these two kinds of events together and what do you get : one stressed out event coordinator.

Hopefully this will help speed up that learning curve for new event planners.

Thanks to Steve Garfield for the photo.