What Kind of Fees Do Merchants Pay to Be Included in Sales Events?

[Prokofy Neva]

I am wondering what creators have to pay to get booths at all the famous events like The Arcade, Crossroads, Gacha Garden, Lost & Found -- there are tons of them.

These events ARE the economy now and probably outsell Marketplace and inworld stores for many creators.

Hundreds of people pulling the lever on gacha machines often $2,500 per session (20 x 50) or nearly $10 US, especially if they can get an extra reward for doing so  -- this ads up to windfalls fast.

So the venue owners or committees or creators or whatever must charge. 

As I've never seen reference to this anywhere in calls for participation, it must be a deep secret, so I thought I'd ask.

[Alwin Alcott]

i think shortest route is ask the owners of those places

[Prokofy Neva]

That route is being pursued but since they are unlikely to tell, I'm asking the general public if they know.

[Phil Deakins]

Why wouldn't they tell you? Surely, the organisers want merchants to display at the events.

I've only ever been included in one event. It wasn't a sales event. It was a competition. The organiser asked me to display some of my stuff - years ago, when my stuff was still ok. It wasn't something that I wanted to do but she persuaded me, so I did it. No sooner had I set up than I discovered the way it worked. The idea was that people voted for the best displays, and they had to pay to vote. That was how the organisers made money. I instantly asked to be taken out of it.

[mikka Luik]

Not exactly secret and not all that hard to find either, simple search turned up a good dozen or so complete with fee structures etc. Some are by invite so you probably won't see that quite so easily but overall - yep, info dead easy to track down.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Why wouldn't they tell you? Surely, the organisers want merchants to display at the events.

 

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Well, here's a funny thing - when someone publically calls for a place to be boycotted, the people being boycotted often don't feel that generous about answering that person's questions.

[Teagan Tobias]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Why wouldn't they tell you? Surely, the organisers want merchants to display at the events.

 

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Well, here's a funny thing - when someone publically calls for a place to be boycotted, the people being boycotted often don't feel that generous about answering that person's questions.

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I'm not sure I understand your answer. Are you saying that if someone tells the cost, then the organizers of the event will call for a boycott of that creator?

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Teagan Tobias wrote:

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Why wouldn't they tell you? Surely, the organisers want merchants to display at the events.

 

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Well, here's a funny thing - when someone publically calls for a place to be boycotted, the people being boycotted often don't feel that generous about answering that person's questions.

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I'm not sure I understand your answer. Are you saying that if someone tells the cost, then the organizers of the event will call for a boycott of that creator?

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No, Prokofy had already called for a boycott quite a while before he posted this.

[Phil Deakins]

I wondered what you meant too. So Prok is up to some sort of skullduggery, eh? If she is, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

I think he 'discovered' who was involved and is now trying to FIC the whole thing up. ()

 

 

[ChinRey]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

I am wondering what creators have to pay to get booths at all the famous events

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Judging by the ones I know, a bit higher than regular store rent but not outrageously so.

 

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

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at all the famous events like The Arcade, Crossroads, Gacha Garden, Lost & Found -- there are tons of them.

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Famous? I've actually only heard of one of those you list and I can't say I know that one either - just heard the name mentioned.

 

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

These events ARE the economy now and probably outsell Marketplace and inworld stores for many creators.

Hundreds of people pulling the lever on gacha machines often $2,500 per session (20 x 50) or nearly $10 US, especially if they can get an extra reward for doing so  -- this ads up to windfalls fast.

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Yes possibly but there is a huge difference between the carnival prizes people win at gachas and collect and the items they buy to actually use in Second Life. They are two different markets that have very little impact on each other.

 

I think the whole concept is well past its "best before" date anyway. It has lost the novelty value, there are way too many such events and with the current state of SL they are way too laggy.

[Alwin Alcott]

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ChinRey wrote:

 they are way too laggy.

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i only visit two of them... and mostly in second week... nearly nobody there

[Torrie Mint]

Good luck trying to break the doors down on these secret hand shack society's. If you are not in the click you ain't gettin in.

[ChinRey]

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Alwin Alcott wrote:

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ChinRey wrote:

 they are way too laggy.

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i only visit two of them... and mostly in second week... nearly nobody there

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Yes, these days many of them are empty rather than laggy. And many are both.

Let's face it, the merchants selling at those events aren't always the best builders in SL but they do tend to be of the flashier kind - the kind that puts eight 1024s on each and every mesh they make. Then of course there are all those vendors with all those vendor images (1024's of course) - lots of good lag there even without a single high ARC avatar in sight.

[Codex Alpha]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

That route is being pursued but since they are unlikely to tell, I'm asking the general public if they know.

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Torrie Mint wrote:

Good luck trying to break the doors down on these secret hand shack society's. If you are not in the click you ain't gettin in.

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QFT.

[Chic Aeon]

I can see you aren't a shopper (or a blogger) as those events mentioned are very well known -- although one is quite new.

 

I agree that there are lots of event venues these days, but they fill a place in SL retail and are quite popular. I enjoy being in four venues and I don't consider myself a flashy designer at all. There are some excellent craftsmen in the venues and some not so great -- just like inworld and on the Marketplace.

 

And the answer to the OP question is "free to several thousands of lindens for periods from a week (maybe less but I don't know of one) to almost a month".   So there is a very wide variety. From the published information that I have noted on the web, the average price is around $2500 for 2 - 3 weeks. Again, this is just an average.

 

I haven't found any lag at the events since the jellydolls have come out for most viewers. I do have a hefty machine, but there are plenty of ways to navigate the events and as someone said, going a week after opening is a good plan if you don't HAVE to be the FIRST one there - LOL.

 



[Prokofy Neva]

1. THAT there is a fee, and it is not trivial, is something I've now confirmed with one prominent creator, although they would not give me the figure.
2. @Phil Deakins Your are not in these events, so you don't have the knowledge about it. If you think they will tell people, try asking. You are likely to have the experience I'm having -- they won't tell. This is held close.
3. @mikka Luik if it isn't secret, why not give us some numbers and names? Trust me, I know how to do simple searches on Google and look at all kinds of sales sites. I'm not seeing it. ALL of them are by invite. That is, if you know of a major event with significant attendance that has open stalls with open rental boxes, I'd love to hear it! But that's not how it works.
4. @Theresa Tennyson It's hardly about my calls to boycott, as I am boycotting one event but avidly attending many others and publicizing them. And long before my boycott of ONE event began, I asked about this cost innocently and got nowhere. So what IS the secret, guys?
5. If anybody thinks this is open information, do share. I'd like to understand the costs of event so I can understand the gatcha economy better.

Consumers pay $1000, $1500 or more to buy into special events with products limited to that event and that audience. That's the number they've come up with, which roughly ads up to say, 10 pulls or 20 pulls or whatever of a $50 gatcha. So, the merchants likely pay something like $2,500 at a minimum. How do I come up with that figure? Well, let's say a merchant has a $195 grandfathered full-prim sim. Sure, he could put his event on homestead sim but that would be folly as they don't hold more than 10 or 12 people comfortably and events get hard beatings of 40 plus avatars constantly. So he'll have 20 merchants, and each will pay US $9.75 which is about L$2,500. But I bet he charges more, as he needs to pay tier plus hire CSAs etc. Events are seldom longer than a month.

[ChinRey]

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Chic Aeon wrote:

I can see you aren't a shopper (or a blogger) as those events mentioned are very well known -- although one is quite new.

 

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Ok

 

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Chic Aeon wrote:

I haven't found any lag at the events since the jellydolls have come out for most viewers.

 

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Count yourself lucky then. I once was called in to an event before it opened to fix an elevator script that kept misfiring. When I arrived there, it turned out the sim server was already running on 40+ ms frame time. Sheer lag Hell even before a single customer arrived. (Server side lag btw so jellybabies wouldn't have made any difference.) I still don't know hwo I managed to make a keyframe motion based levator work reliably under such conditions. It may well be my biggest scripting achievement ever.

Oh and I went down to Southeast Sansara a while ago and happened to notice that the Heavy Metal sims were occupied. Turned out to be some kind of Hairy Fair going on. I cammed into Ruthenium and the sim was seriously laggy without a single avatar in it.

 

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Chic Aeon wrote:

 



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Sorry, can't tell that from a picture.

I may have used the wrong word there (English is not my main lagnuage after all) but what I meant with "flashy" was the kind of items that look great on a picture and at first sight but once you take it home and rez it, it turns out to be so laggy and/or poor LOD you just can't use it. (And just to make this absolutely clear: I see nothing wrong with such gacha collectables. They are fun to collect, some of them are real works of art on their own and .. why not? SL is supposed to be fun. The problems only arise when people start to confuse these things with the rugged, solid, low lag components you need to build an effective complete scene in SL.)

[ChinRey]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

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So he'll have 20 merchants, and each will pay US $9.75 which is about L$2,500. But I bet he charges more, as he needs to pay tier plus hire CSAs etc.

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There may well be other sources of income for the organizers. They may be merchants there themselves (taking he best spots of course) and I've seen at least one event with tip jars (and rather generous tips given even).

Some organizers may do it for fun without worrying too much about income, and - since this is SL - some may not understand the idea that income has to be higher than expenses if you want to make money.

[Prokofy Neva]

@Chic Aeon I appreciate that you have more knowledge than I do about events, being a creator and being IN events, but you're low-balling it.

It so happened that when creators rallied to help the Zerkalo designer Daniel with the "Book of Daniel" event, which is a very nice event, they let slip that they were charging $3000 per merchant. So that was for a non-profit helpful event -- and that lets you know that $3000 then in that world seemed low.

And sure enough, I finally stumbled on an open page that is on the Seraphim blog, one that you don't notice instantly but is under the "portal" section, that shows you *for those events giving public information* which is not the biggest by any stretch, rates go from $2500 to $6000.

So I'm going to take a WAG and say that for a very big top-line event it might go as high as $10,000. And given the enormous revenue that gatcha machines in particular make from these events, US $37 is nothing at all.

It has to be more than $2500 or $3000 because if you have 30 merchants, and you charge $3000, that's only 90,000 L and about US $333, that is, enough to cover a full-prim sim at the the non-grandfathered cost ($295 US tier) and maybe a little bit left over for designer and staff costs. So they'd simply have to charge more, and they'd know they could get it.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

There aren't other sources of income for the organizers.

Tip jars are never a significant source of income, I know because I have hundreds of them out on my land preserve.

Look at the amounts on the tip jars and you'll come to that conclusion. I don't know where you are seeing "generous," but most people feel if they are paying a merchant for a product, tipping them is overkill.

These are not people doing this "for fun," as they are grown-up serious merchants running real businesses, they just happen to sell virtual content. That's more than fine, I'm merely trying to understand their costs and benefits and incentives.

 

[Anaiya Ahren]

Here is an application form to one of these big commercial events

 

I guess some events don't need more merchants and are over booked in which case they've probably no good reason to share information about their business model with events that do have room to accept applicants.   Also, it's very possible they're charging differrent merchants different rates for various reasons and it might be prudent to be discrete about that.  It makes a lot of sense that if X merchant always increases attendence at an event that you'd encourage them to participate and consider any discount you give to get them there to be an advertising cost.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

It so happened that when creators rallied to help the Zerkalo designer Daniel with the "Book of Daniel" event, which is a very nice event, they let slip that they were charging $3000 per merchant. So that was for a non-profit helpful event -- and that lets you know that $3000 then in that world seemed low.

 

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There was no fee for joining this event as creator. All we had to do is give a percentage on our sales (50-75-100 %)

Unless i forgot, i dont rem having been asked to pay a fee for joining the event. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

Tip jars are never a significant source of income,

I know because I have hundreds of them out on my land preserve.

Look at the amounts on the tip jars and you'll come to that conclusion. I don't know where you are seeing "generous," but most people feel if they are paying a merchant for a product, tipping them is overkill.

 

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Methinks he overlooks a variable in this equation...

[Chic Aeon]

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ChinRey wrote:

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Chic Aeon wrote:

 



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Sorry, can't tell that from a picture.

I may have used the wrong word there (English is not my main lagnuage after all) but what I meant with "flashy" was the kind of items that look great on a picture and at first sight but once you take it home and rez it, it turns out to be so laggy and/or poor LOD you just can't use it. (And just to make this absolutely clear: I see nothing wrong with such gacha collectables. They are fun to collect, some of them are real works of art on their own and .. why not? SL is supposed to be fun. The problems only arise when people start to confuse these things with the rugged, solid, low lag components you need to build an effective complete scene in SL.)

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OK. Yes Flashy is the wrong word for that LOL.  Flashy "to me" means attention getting ala Las Vegas showgirls, bright neon light, high saturated colors etc.

 

Well one good thing about venues is that most let you see the items up close and personal. You can check the LODs yourself and the land impact etc.  (this is not gachas in most cases, but most of the other venues going on). Wearables most often (and sometimes mandetorily) have demos which of course everyone SHOULD try before purchasing. 

 

And who would have guessed English wasn't your first language! *wink*.

 

These items are all 1 or 2 land impact and you can see them from the entrance point (quite aways across the sim) on LOD2 (not that birdcage - just no way for me anyway). 

 

One thing good about the big venues is that it encourages designers to make good LODS (or at least I haven't seen too many AWFUL ones ).  I really wonder about folks buying things from the Marketplace without checking out the demo. I have demos of most things at my inworld shop and link to that from the Marketplace as personally "I" always want to see something inworld if at all possible.