Iris Rants: SL Designers Missing Deadlines Drives Me Crazy!

 

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion

This might be the most apologetic rant I ever do, because as irritating as I find this issue, I'm very sympathetic to its cause. When it comes to writing about SL fairs and events, it's always best to write on or before the first day, so that you can get people's attention before they've been there and seen it themselves. However, if I had the choice, I would write about these events closer to the end because there is a very significant disadvantage to being an early-bird shopper or blogger. Here's why:

In almost every event I've ever seen in my years in SL, dozens of designers will wait until the 11th hour to finish their work or set up, while others will not even be ready for opening day, leaving their booths empty.

Now, it's true that RL should generally take priority over SL, but when it's the same shops over and over with big empty booths for the first few days of every fair they're in... well, here's why it drives me crazy:

Don't get me wrong, I like to think that I'm one of the least entitled fashionistas around. I don't believe that designers owe me anything for being a loyal customer or even for blogging them. Likewise, I don't believe that I owe designers anything either. We engage in an action where both of us come away with things of equal value: I give you money, you give me an item I want. Anything more than that is icing on the cake, but it should neither be expected nor treated like it's due.

The reason why seeing the same shops absent on those first few crucial, high-volume days irritates me (perhaps more than it should) is because they're just shooting themselves in the foot. Most of us approach events as a shopping errand on a list, something to get out of the way and scratch off a list and move on, the sooner the better. Countless customers and bloggers pass by these empty booths, and while bigger brands may be able to lure back die-hard fans once they have set up, smaller brands are throwing a lot of potential revenue right down the drain (and paying for it with stress.)

Being late happens from time to time. Ask Hamlet and he'll tell you that I have a pretty chronic issue with meeting my deadlines. People get sick, connections get shaky, kids get... well, kids are kids. Remember that a lot of these fairs and events require designers to set up during the week so that they can open for the weekend, but most designers still have full-time day jobs and families to worry about. No one wants to come home from work to do more work, obviously.

Right now, the SL fashion world has evolved into a state of endless events and fairs and sales and specials. Many designers are overextending themselves with event after event, end to end and even overlapping, and they aren't giving themselves the time in between releases that they need to get ahead of it all. Designers, if you look back and notice a pattern of lateness in your events, you've got to give yourselves a break. Plan ahead, space things out, and remember that there will always be another event just around the corner.

Tweet

Iris Ophelia (Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[shockwave yareach]

Ideally, a vendor should have 3 event kiosks prebuilt and ready to go. So you just go to the event, rez your eventStore, tweak the merchandise, and you're done. As frequent as these things are, it's too difficult to build unique each and every single time.

[Pussycat Catnap]

People need to start running some internal analytics.

If you're selling in every event after event - are you really getting value from that, or would you be better off just hitting a few that are key to your presence?

Chances are, many of these folks are over-promoting themselves. While it might seem like every sale gained is good... at what cost?

More key is maximizing Return on Investment. And that frankly means that if you have branded yourself, a lot of further promotion might be wasted.

The question is not 'how many sales did I get from Event X', but 'how many did I -gain-, that I would not have had, but for that event, and how much did it cost me to gain them?' combined with 'how many will I lose from not going that that I would have had otherwise?'

- And that takes knowing more about the sources of your sales, what drives people to you, away from you, and so on.

I'd wager most of the SL brand could skip out on 1 or 2 out of every 3 events / hunts they're in, and have better profits for it. Some few brands could skip them all, and make more...

And that would leave more time for other things - which is part of how you make more: Putting the time into more worthwhile efforts.

- Set up a small presence in some other grids.
- Diversify a product line.
- Expand a product line.
- Take some relax time (for fun or to renew inspiration).
- Network more.
- Learn more about some of your customers. Better to appeal to them.

If you don't do every last event, you've also go the time to do the ones you do do right.

[Saffia Widdershins]

The trouble with events is that most make radically different demands of the designer who is submitting, which means that shockwave's concept of having three exhibits all ready to hand sadly fails to work very often.

Many events these days will be carefully landscaped - the booth you are given will fit that theme, and then you have to integrate your kit with that design (or look naff). So you can't just travel around with the same box - or the same three boxes. Reckon to spend an evening for each event doing the decoration. And that's leaving aside the requirement to produce two or three free and original designs.

And while I completely agree with Pussycat that not ALL events, hunts, fairs etc etc will bring in the punters, the difficulty is knowing WHICH to target without detailed market research. Will the Hair Fair bring you more customers than One Voice? Will taking part in a themed Hunt with a good reputation attract more potential customers than a big grid wide hunt? The only way you can find out is ... to suck it and see.

[foneco zuzu]

To be honest im much more worried when, and its always the case, Linden Lab, not only miss them, but in shoves all changes in users A**S without saying any to nobody or even care (See the path finder mess!).

[Kaellynn Rayne]

I couldn't agree with you more, Iris. Albeit, I'm not a designer, but I'm a creative person. Creativity takes time and effort. It needs to grow and be nurtured. I've found that these designers who are late, or completely miss the boat on the event, end up with loss of interest from clients, and even worse, a terrible product. I'd rather see a designer very few events and fairs with a great, quality product, than one who just throws a pattern on a template and sets up shop at EVERY event/fair they can.