Motorati Island Is Closing
There are 7 sims that belong to Pontiac. These sims, and the good works that were done using them, are no longer going to be actively run by the corporation. While things were going strong all of the land except the Car Design Park, the Dealership, and the Garage was donated to various SL residents so they could build their own venues. Well, as long as those venues remained in keeping with the car theme. All of the sales of the Pontiac vehicles themselves went to charity. This means that Pontiac didn't directly profit in any way from SL.
In my opinion that was some of the best corporate involvement in SL to date. It wasn't all about sales and short term vision, but about ways to engage the community while marketing your brand. I'd say "new ways" to engage since this would basically be funds from a marketing campaign funding the endeavor - but rather than place a few TV spots on a popular television show you have an interactive 24x7 commercial.
Side note: Galveston is probably one of the other really cool endeavors in this spirit, possibly AOL Pointe was but that's now also going to close I believe.
The best part of it, imho, was that they had live music on the island regularly. They brought in some of the best name SL acts. They also brought in some "popular" acts from outside SL proper (I'm not too keen on this practice actually).
Carrie Laysan, Pontiac Garage Manager, (partner to Ictus Belford, an SL musician and bass player himself) was the one who handled booking the events on the island. It turns out, that although it could sound a heck of a lot like it, Carrie's name is not a reference to Mr. Mister's big hit "Kyrie Eleison".
I was at a Jaycatt and Frogg show at the Pontiac Garage recently and got to chatting with Carrie. This was the first time I visited the island at all and the first live show I had caught there. I'm actually quite sad to see it go.
They're very close to closing shop. They're having one last event this Sunday I think - an open mic. I put my name in the hat to see if I could play a set there. I'd like to have a chance to play the place once before it's wiped off the grid or whatever its fate is to be.
As you can see from the following IM exchange - I must have been craptastically over zealous in my eagerness to play the stage or something.
[20:10] Dolmere Talamasca: if there is room for a pity show before the whole place poofs please let me know
[20:10] Carrie Laysan: 30th
[20:11] Dolmere Talamasca: can do.
[20:11] Carrie Laysan: having a big open mic
[20:12] Dolmere Talamasca: ah, cool.
[20:12] Dolmere Talamasca: that works
[20:12] Dolmere Talamasca: times?
[20:12] Carrie Laysan: I haven't set them yet
[20:12] Carrie Laysan: just getting list of those interested
[20:12] Dolmere Talamasca: ah, ok
[20:12] Carrie Laysan: might do 2 - one Euro times and one US
[20:13] Dolmere Talamasca: consider me interested. make a note. push a pen. squigle an erasor then shift a pencil.
[20:13] Carrie Laysan: lol you talk like Crap does
[20:13] Dolmere Talamasca: may I quote you on that?
[20:13] Carrie Laysan: LOL
[20:13] Carrie Laysan: uh huh
[20:13] Dolmere Talamasca: ok - this portion of the conversation is hitting my blog.
[20:14] Carrie Laysan: lmao
WELCOME NOTECARD
In a welcome notecard that you receive on entering the sim there are some good and some bad bits of info for audience members arriving for live shows. Quoting the notecard named "Motorati Rules and Info":
Welcome to Pontiac Garage, a live music venue!
Just a few things you should know to help us all have a wonderful experience here.
This is a PG sim.
For everyone’s enjoyment please…
*No Guns or Weapons
*No Vehicles allowed in the stage area
*Only musicians and musician-approved personnel on stage
*No nudity or sexual advances
Please use a forward slash (/ ) before you start typing in chat; it will mute the typing sound the game makes and disable or do not use voice. (During the live performance).
* Please be courteous of others and allow them to enjoy the live music.
We have events ranging from live events to car shows to organized racing leagues and we would love for you to be a part of it. To join the group, please search groups for Motorati, or see one of the employees on the sim for a personal invite.
It’s free to join – open enrollment.
And by all means, to see what’s going on all around Motorati Island see our website at http://www.motoratilife.com/.
Powered by Pontiac!
So, um, the good would be the list of don'ts. This is actuall a PG sim (PG does not stand for Pontiac Garage in this instance) so No nudity just makes sense.
The bad? "Please use a forward slash (/ ) before you start typing in chat; it will mute the typing sound the game makes and disable or do not use voice. (During the live performance)." Ack, ack, ack! MY EYES ARE BLEEDING! Someone please make it stop.
Comments
You know, it would be amusing to have the equivalent of a Turing Test to see if people could figure out if a stream of chat is actually from me or if it's from a not-me source.
I have the distinct feeling that my confusing run-on sentences, interspersed with the occasional fits of profanity and Jack Daniels-soaked self-loathing would be extremely difficult to duplicate.
Also, the contestants would have to lazy-thumb their spaces now and then to split two-letter words like i a mdoing right now.
Posted by: Crap Mariner | December 27, 2007 02:17 PM