Me before opening the Happy Ass: I miss having a pub to go to! I like Irish Music and sipping a virtual pint at the end of the day. I can build and decorate real good. I’ve come into some disposable Ls. WHY THE HELL NOT?
Me now: Oh yeah, THAT’S why. I’m working RL full time so I don’t have time to devote to managing this place or even to have a DJ set of my own, except Tuesdays at 4PM (and who the hell is even on then, besides me?). I got one DJ yelling constructively and continually suggesting at me to “advertise more” (sure, as soon as you tell me where that money’s going to come from and if it’s actually even worth it to spend) and here I am coming away with the impression that she’s blaming me because nobody’s on to listen to her set on a mid-week mid-day.
Let me break it down. Take the (very small) number of people who are even on SL at this particular time. Now, of them, take the percentage of people who are interested in the same type of music (of which, I’ve admitted, I’m not even one!). Now, of them, narrow it down to the number of people who aren’t already busy either building, sexing, or attending to some other commitment. Then, just to make extra sure, remove the griefers who are already on the ban list (of which there are maybe a half dozen).
This is not my fault here, and pumping cash into some “ad board” somewhere won’t fix it.
Further, Mondays and Tuesdays are my two days off from RL work. I feel as though if I log Mistletoe in, she’s obligated to be at the pub. Clover has once more become my “shut up and let me build stuff” alt.
But, long story short. I’m not having fun, I’m feeling overwhelmed by commitments I’m losing interest in (and am thus avoiding), and I’m paying for the privilege.
How about no.
I could just as easily sit on my butt at home and listen to Irish music or watch TV or have friends over, and I could do it for less money and without being told how to do it.
So, I’m closing the pub. I may refurbish the building as a house, but chances are more likely I’ll use the red house I built some time back and rather like. Very rural/suburban New England looking, with plenty of room for the whole family.
And as a note to myself: Laura, don’t do this again. Patronize a pub what already exists.
Further edit: not surprisingly, the shit hit the fan over something I had said. I’m not blaming the DJ or my frustration or the closing of the pub on her. If I was unclear about that, I apologize. However I do have the right to be upset, and I do have the right to say why.
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Okay before anyone get’s wrong idea of this all, the DJ was not yelling at her and didn’t blame her for anything. She was saying they needed more and was helping with ideas.
Facepalm.
I changed what I wrote in my blog, against my better judgment, to placate you. I removed time and date to help protect your anonymity, because you stated to me that you believed my blog post would actually destroy your DJ “career”.
Since you chose to comment anyway, and use your name, I take that to mean you’ve decided that your anonymity doesn’t need protecting. You’ve chosen to participate publicly.
You also chose to participate publicly when you sent out a group announcement saying (in not so many words) “Nobody’s here, I guess I’ll wrap up my set early and go home.” Nothing I say here, nothing I could even *imagine* saying in my blog could be less professional and more damaging to your “career” than that. It amounts to being on stage, bombing at a song, and following with “Wow, that sucked. I was really terrible there.”
You don’t get to tell me what I say and what I do or don’t make public once you’ve decided to participate publicly. As far as I’m concerned, this discussion is done. If you’re wise, you’ll stop being defensive (especially in public) and move on.
It’s a shame it has to close, but understandable. The only people I had showing up for my sets were a couple of friends – and they wouldn’t class folk-rock as their first choice of music to dance to. But hey … what can you do? It’s the price of being an individual and liking something different from what the masses like.
This is a problem I’m having at another place where I DJ. I’m getting the blame for no one showing up at a club that no one knows about and is not promoted at all. They think that on top of preparing playlists and DJing, I should be promoting the venue and hiring ather DJs as well.
Back to the Ass, I think the only thing we could have done differently was to list our shows in the events guide.
Yes, and unfortunately I started doing that a bit too late (about 2 weeks ago) and I wasn’t always consistent with them (“Oh crap, did I list today’s already?”).
I think too that the hours were just bad all around. I’d have loved to do a set on the weekends but I’m never even HERE on the weekends. I’m just, as I said, not available like I was for Wee Little.
It’s sad that you have to close, but the hours weren’t good for me. I would see the note when I logged in several hours later. Timing and location are all important in business of any kind. Thank you for making the effort. I have an appreciation for how hard it is to set your “baby” aside. It’s one reason I don’t have a club.
I would like to ask that if anyone comes across another pub worthy of consideration, please let us know. Maybe the legacy of Wee Little and Happy Ass will be another pub in SL will survive.
Thank you.
Yeah I think the worst thing about any SL club is the problems caused by timezone differences. My sets at the Ass started at 2 PM SLT – which is obviously early in the afternoon for folks on the Westcoast of America or Canada and those people probably have other rl commitments at that time of day. For me however, 2 PM SLT is 10 PM in the UK and it’s midnight by the time I finish. If the only person I had to care about was myself, it would be fine staying up to DJ later, but – sadly – my house shares a wall with my neighbours’ house. They have a boy of around 5 and a newborn baby daughter, just a few weeks old.
This is not a problem confined to the Happy Ass group though. I’m sending out notifications in my own DJing group and no one is online! I can usually depend on 3 friends (Lovis, Esme and Trinny) being inworld when I DJ. Of those 3, one works almost full-time in SL; one does role-playing in SL and the other often has building commitments, but they will turn up when they can. Because of the timing of my shows, even my partner misses my sets due to rl work (file this one under ‘The Perils of a Brit Dating an American in SL’). Sadly, I have some friends who will turn up if I’m doing other styles of music, but the stigma of the word ‘folk’ in my folk-rock sets means they refuse to even listen to what I’m playing, because they assume it’s going to be dull or akin to C&W (which, or course, it isn’t on either account).
One of the other clubs I play twice a week is owned and frequented by Europeans, but even here, they don’t start coming into the place until around 3 PM SLT, which (depending where they are in Europe) is 11 PM, 12 midnight or 1 AM!! So I end up playing the first half of my sets to an empty room and the second half to a packed room.
My choices, it seems, are to move to the USA; stay in the UK but live US hours, or give up DJing completely. Right now, I’m thinking the last option is the most likely!
Of course there is a fouth option, but that involves sliding most of the Atlantic Ocean over to the Pacific Ocean, thus moving Europe and the US closer together and closing the timezones between us by around 5 hours. That would be the one I would choose if I could!
Had a long post about a similar experience with my own attempt at a club. Well not via people, but just the energy it takes to run one of these.
I discovered that even if you can make the costs a zero-sum affair – putting on land I would have anyway in a build small enough to afford anyway… that it’s just a drain to have a club.
Everytime I logged in, I felt that pressure to be there hosting it. And I found that that is not something that comes to me naturally.
It takes a certain kind of person to run a club, and an even narrower set of that kind of person to run one in a virtual world. Most of us think we are that kind of person, and most of those who so think actually are not…
So now, like so many others, I’ve got a build and a lot of things I bought / built, that are “wasted prims”. I guess I’ll find uses for them someday, but I don’t know. I think I’d be much happier going to someone -else’s- club, but had to prove it to myself.
When you’re just a visitor, you can ramp up or down your participation at will – and don’t feel pressure to be ‘on’ when you’re in an ‘off’ mood.
Oh boy do I hear that! You put it very well. I felt like I always had to be “on” when I logged on, and it was such a drain on me that I had put it out of my memory until faced with it again with the Happy Ass.
And not just the compulsive need to be “on”, but also the need to please others. Every little decision (“Do I speak to him about the gestures? Or do I just wait and see if he stops using them?”) I would hash out in my head and weigh the advantages and disadvantages and it felt like I had to make so many compromises for the sake of pleasing other people. Ironically, I had one person tell me I don’t give a damn about anybody but myself after one decision I chose not to give in on. The fact is I was always considering and agonizing over everyone but myself, making myself literally, physically sick to my stomach over it.
That’s when you know it’s time to make a change. Then, or sooner.