How To DJ At Second Life’s Birthday

I got my invite on the last possible day to get invites. I was panicky, worried that I wasn’t going to get an invite, but I did get one. I was worried that the application I had filled out back in April was done too late because I had been unwell.

Emotionally, when it finally showed up, I had been on a roller coaster for about two weeks. I sent back the times I was available and, the important bit, a small message about my willingness to do fill in spots.

Once again, SLB has given me lots to do. Too much.

How Not To DJ At Second Life’s Birthday:

Show up late: The stage crew is constantly running from one performer to another. They need to know that not only are you online, but that you are ready. The later you show up, the higher the likelihood that your performance time slot will be given to someone else. Showing up 5 minutes before you’re supposed to start is a half hour too late. Truthfully, it’s an hour too late.

Do not use music that is above a the G Rating: Music should not have any naughty words in it. Not the nword or fword at all. Also, other words that should be avoided are the cword, bword and other words that are generally not said in normal company. If you can’t say it to your meemaw, you really shouldn’t have it in your music. If it’s able to go on the radio, great! If it can’t, try to find a clean version. It was explained to me that you can’t really police every single word, but do try to not have the nword and fword. I know one person nearly had their set cancelled several years ago because of fbombs in a song they hadn’t properly checked.

Do not have a set bigger than the provided stage! I really wish I had taken a photo of this one performer’s Mexican pyramid temple like DJ setup. It was bigger than the area set aside for where they were going to perform. I was talking to one of the crew at the time, and asked publicly if their set had to be that big. In the end, the performer was going to have to be either moved to one of the other stages or completely redo their setup. I don’t know if they performed.

Do not throw ego at the stage crew. This will get you on the bad list and you might be able to do one set or two, you won’t be able to get fill in sets. If you throw an attitude, you won’t be invited back.

Do not beg for tech help to get your encoders going at the last minute! Okay, this one is something that sometimes can’t be helped because the internet is the internet and broadcasting or streaming can be a pain. If you are at all unsure, try to get help before your performance date. You might not have the time to otherwise.

Do not bring a host who has never done hosting before. Common sense, people! Hosting is not easy. Nor is throwing your host into the deep end that is Second Life’s Birthday event.

Do not have extra addons. Do I really have to explain this one?

Do not go naked.

Do not go with a huge complexity. We want people to be able to see you perform, right?

Do not use adult props!

How To Perform At Second Life’s Birthday Events (and others)

Show Up Early!

Be online at least a half hour before your set. If you can, be there an hour before. You don’t have to be at the event location until your sound check. This is the time to check your playlist, make sure your avatar is properly dressed.

If you have G rated music at Second Life’s Birthday, great! Other venues, play to the theme, or as close as you can get to it. G rated music, no matter the genre, will go well at Second Life’s Birthday events.

Keep your music playlist set up and ready to go. If you are watching the Second Life Performers’ Group, the call will repeatedly go out for fill ins because people are late. If you are ready to go with your music, you can step in to fill in. These are first come and first served. Stage crew may also privately ping you if they know you are online, hoping to fill in so the music can keep on going.

Understand how your encoders work at least enough to add a new one. If you are scrambling last minute in order to get an encoder to work, then that’s on your head. We get the notecards for our encoders the day before our performance and can start testing them as soon as 50 minutes before our performance. Yes, that isn’t a lot of time, but it is possible. I’ve had switchovers take less than 10 minutes because I was prepared to go and had music ready. All I needed to do was switch the port of the encoder and I was up and running. Yes, stage crew will try to help you get set up, but there’s a good chance your set is going to be given to someone else if you can’t figure it out.

Don’t Be A Jerk.

I prefer to use a tip jar and that’s it. Everything else is what I carry on me. Some hand dancers, maybe some flashy stuff on my avatar, but I do not use a set. I keep things simple at Second Life’s Birthday and other events because it’s not really me I want to show off, but the musicians whose music I am showcasing. The stage crew at Second Life sent out stage mockups for what was available. If you can’t fit your set up into the area they provided, then there’s something wrong with what you have and you should rethink what you need to do. There’s also a prim limit. My tip jar uses 3 prims. Everything else is physically on me.

The stage crew is here to help you, and they really don’t want to say no to anyone. They want to say Yes. More importantly, they want everything to run smooth as silk. They want the handoffs to be almost perfect. They want good, reliable, and fast thinking performers to showcase. More importantly, they want everyone to have a good time, including you.

So how do you help them?

• Know your encoders
• Show up early
• Show up dressed well
• Have a reasonable stage set up
• Know your music.

There is one last thing that you can do to help the entire musicfest at Second Life’s Birthday and other events: use bookends with your playlist.

What are bookends?

Bookends are instrumentals that will keep your stream open and playing music while you wait for the handoff to you and from you. You pick an instrumental you love and use it for the music before you actually start playing and again at the tail end of your set. When the stage crew tell you to go, by then you should be live and can hit play on your playlist. Your playlist, including voiceovers, should be no longer than 58 minutes, give or take about 30 seconds. That gives you 58 minutes of play time, possibly 59.

At the end of your set, use the same instrumental and let the stage crew know that you won’t clear or turn off your encoder, or drop the stream, until the other performer is up and running.

This little trick with the bookends makes the transition from one performer to another a lot smoother. It has also “saved stage crew’s butt” because I had an instrumental playing before I actually took to the stage. The performer before me had ended and left blank air. Blank air is the last thing stage crew wants.

Costuming is simple – nothing adult. Keep things covered by a bikini covered. No extra pixelated body parts either. No peens. No eggplants. No lotuses. No vajay. Nada like that.

Always be patient with stage crew. They are juggling many balls at once.

As for your stage, one of my friends said that you are trying to be your own best cheerleader, so a stage of some size might be right for you. This still has to be size limited because of space considerations and prim limits. This is your time to shine. If you have a host that has worked well with you in the past, bring them along, but you don’t really need them. Stage crew does wonderful work hyping for performers.

It also helps if you have a Mole cheering you on.

I asked one of the stage crew why they pinged me last night. I had done two sets already, but not my official set. That’s in a few hours from right now as I write this.

“We love you ‘cos we can rely on you.” I was told. I asked if that was the truth. “Not kidding. You’re good when you play, you test fast and don’t fail. I did advertise this slot, no takers.. then I pinged you and you jumped in.”

I was about to log out when I got pinged. Instead, I was at the Ouroboros stage and playing within 10 minutes, including the computer switch and getting the new encoder information put in.

Then, about 20 minutes into performing, I was asked if I could extend from 1 hour to 2.

I cracked my knuckles…

And Rawked Their Socks!

Shine where you love and I love music!

Two last things to add:

For Pity’s Sake, make sure your titles are correct and streaming! The artists that created will get credit for the songs that are played. Royalties and credit where credit is due.

And lastly… if your set is one hour or two on the schedule, don’t run over someone else’s time. Do you really need to start a 3 minute song at 2 minutes to the hour? Your selfishness could ruin the next person’s set!