Well SLCC 2007 has come to a close after 3 extremely exciting days. There was fun to be had by all. Regardless of your poison, there was something for everyone. From beautiful walks through Grant Park or to the Naval Pier, to all the amazing art galleries and performance art venues in the area. Maybe drinking and socializing is your thing, then Kitty O’Shea’s was the place for you, the fine Irish environment and always favored Irish Ale was a big crowd pleaser.
Even if you were there for business alone, there was plenty of shop talk and networking to be had. With some of SL’s best business’s on display; from Phreak Radio, Never 30, Metaverse Messenger, V3 Group, OnRez, Gigs Taggart, Fabjectory, and of course the star of the show Eros. Trust me, there was no shortage of business cards being passed around. If you had a business goal going into the SLCC that did not get advanced, you only had yourself to blame. With 4 Tracks; Social, Business, Education & Machinima, there was plenty of knowledge to absorb as well. There was so much to do, boredom was not an option. My only regret was that I was not able to attend all the tracks.
If the Chicago music scene wasn’t to your liking or you were just too scared to brave crossing the streets, plenty of Live Musicians from our very own SL were on hand for your enjoyment, from Frogg Marlowe, Niko, Slimmie and many others covering a very eclectic range of music genres. All of which was streamed live in world for everyone’s pleasure thanks to Phreak Radio.
Now that I have covered all the general brochure stuff, let me tell you about MY time there. I arrived early Friday morning thanks to a couple canceled flights due to thunderstorms in Chicago. I arrived at my hotel just in time for the morning social breakfast and meet & greet with my fellow Motorati builders; Suku, Toby & Patty, as well as the gang from Campfire Media. I could tell that instant that I was in for an incredible weekend. After breakfast I finally made it to my hotel room and took a very brief nap before heading to the Hilton for a video interview with Campfire, which proved to be the biggest challenge of the weekend; aside from the minor issue I had on Saturday of trying to figure out how to hold 2 beers and shake hands. Overall it was a great experience getting to chat and bounce ideas back and forth in person without the wonderful “features” of SL hindering our progress.
After all that was said and done, registration and check in for the SLCC had started and within mere minutes the hallway of the 3rd floor was packed. Already folks had started freaking out as most met some of their long time friends for the first time, or atleast since last year for some. I, for one, was very excited when I got to meet some of my fellow SC’ers; Alexa, Surreal, Jorus & Sally, Flip & Jen and yes, I was even excited to meet Josh. After we got through registration you could see everyone already starting to group up and cliché out while we listen to some amazing DJ’s like Stormy Wilde and Chelle Moore, who were great once tech support figured out what they were doing. After dinner at Artsy’s with Suku, Toby, Thor and “She whos name is not known”, the rest of the evening was spent mostly in an intoxicating state at Kitty O’Shea’s.
I was off to a late start on Saturday thanks to the previous night, but I still managed to catch the afternoon portion of the Machinima Track, which was my main goal anyhow. To my dismay however, Moo Moneys portion was cut drastically short due to internet issues on part of the hotel. She instead skipped her portion and did some Q&A which was still very insightful for me. Little side note, I know nothing about Machinima aside from I love to watch it and hope to someday make my own, I have a few ideas brewing. I have always been a huge fan of Moo’s work, though I’ve kept it to myself as it would totally up my geek status, which I am not ready to do as of yet. Next up was Luth Brody with Editing insight, which totally blew me away. I admit, I went into that portion expecting to learn how to edit and splice together videos, instead I got professional movie editing techniques such as cut and music synching, most of which I had never even taken into consideration previously. On the side, I noticed I was the only person at the Track that wasn’t using a Mac laptop, I felt oddly out of place. Although the techniques and styles I learned was enough to distract me from that little quirk. The rest of the afternoon was met with more meet & greet’s and swag grabs in the ballroom where opening day ceremonies had taken place, which I had missed thanks to sleeping late.
The Masquerade Ball was the premiere event of the weekend, and it definitely lived up to the hype. Costumes were everywhere, from the simple to the most elegant and elaborate. I even dressed for the occasion, though my outfit was no where near as nice as a lot that I saw, Josh and his SL to RL retractable wings were a big hit amongst attendee’s. My personal favorite was Nethermind in her sleek leather dress and wolverine like claws, she was definitely I sight to be seen. Alas, let us forget the other greats such as Alexa in her leather and BDSM mind controlling riders crop, Jennyfur in her militant uniform and sexy heels, Batgirl, and all the rest. With all the excitement going on, my night was pretty much a long happy blur followed by more partying to be had as we bar hopped around Chicago, imagine my delight when I discovered that Chi-town had no cut off time for drinking, unlike Ohio where they stop serving at 2am. My party ended around 8am or so when I noticed the sun had rose and I needed to get sleep before my flight left in approximately 6 hours. After a quick nap (3 or 4 hrs) I woke up and realized I did not have the time I had hoped to go say my goodbyes, so instead I called the few I had numbers for and wish them all a safe trip home. To which I then began my journey home, where I was greeted at the airport by my wife & daughter and the rest… well the rest is none of your business =) So to those of you I met, Thank you for the wonderful time and I can’t wait til next year. For those I missed, Sorry but I hope you had a good time and theres always next year.
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