T minus about 18 hours.

The Time of Spiral Draws Near, by Sonya Marmurek

 

It’s almost time.  The merchants are frantically trying to load in, the bloggers are poking their heads in from time to time to see where we’re at, review copies are going out, and we’re generally just getting ready to open the Spiral at noon tomorrow.  Every time we do an event it doesn’t seem like it will ever be ready in time, and then amazingly, it all just comes together (more or less) in the last few moments.

 

So tomorrow at noon, we’ll once again get together to help raise money for the National Kidney Foundation.  Our flickr group is open for everyone to post their spiral photos, and our excellent blogging team is hard at work doing the magic they do to make it all look wonderful.

We’ll see everyone tomorrow.

 

Cursed Bloggers (We Love You)

We’re completely off the rails, just the way we like it. That said: the Spiral has emerged and the merchants are free to start loading in whenever they feel like it. The bloggers are also welcome to visit the area whenever they want (landmark in group notices), but do bear in mind that the decoration is still ongoing. This also means that it was the time for the blogger checkup.

If you’re new to how Cursed Events works from blogger point of view, the nutshell is: the group stays always the same, all the bloggers need to apply to every event they wish to blog (sort of a raise of hand of being present) and before the early access and review copies distribution begin, the bloggers that haven’t applied are removed from the group. This just happened today.

The removal has nothing to do with if the bloggers did a good job or not, or if we love them or not (the answer to both is usually ‘yes’), it simply keeps things fair for everybody. From the creator side they don’t send out review copies to people who have’t shown interest and commitment to this particular event and from blogger side: we don’t assume that just because you’ve blogged our previous event that you have time for this one, or inspiration, or that you’re now obligated to blog us forever and ever.

The main reason why we so dearly love our blogger crew is that they excel in their work: they produce marvelous, inspired pictures and stories and clearly enjoy the events as much as we do. If you’re feeling low on inspiration, are busy in RL or just not feeling the theme is right for you, it is perfectly alright not to apply and blog an event of ours, be removed from the group in the routine checkup and still be welcomed back with a squee when an event of ours does fit your schedule and mood. We prefer skipping a few events to the feel of obligated blogging any day.

If you were one of the removed bloggers and had simply missed all the group notices about the matter, just IM Sonya Marmurek about it and we’ll fix it. No worries at all, SL happens.

Another note I must emphasize every event is to the new bloggers: we have by now a steady, wonderful core crew of bloggers that automatically fills most of the available blogger space for every event. Bloggers who are good and would have been accepted when we first started may now have struggles in getting in because of this.

Cursed Events covers several events of which some are bigger than others and therefore also the amount of bloggers we accept per event varies. The smaller ones (like ACS) are even more difficult to get in than the bigger ones like World Goth Fair. Despite this we keep the application process open because every event I find a few gems that make me ooohh and hit the invite button immediately, but obviously those oohh-slots are very, very limited.

All this just to say: please do not take it personally or as any sort of frowny judgment on your blogging skills if you don’t get in. The spreadsheet comments are mostly full of ‘…but we’re already full, sigh.’ and nothing else. Regardless if you got in early or not, we invite you all to come in and enjoy the Spiral: the tracks zoom to diesel this year!

Load in, and other such trifles.

Cursed will be locked down for merchant load-in at midnight tonight. It will remain closed to all but relevant groups that need access to the sim until we open at NOON  on September 15.

In the meantime, though, we have a map.  It’s on its own page here for future reference.

But I’ll post it again anyway. Click on it to make it VERY large.

T-6 days.

 

Vendors and Gachas just went out.

I’ve just released the vendors and gachas in the merchant group. If anyone has any problems with them just let me know. They were tested, but since Ive NEVER had a set go out without an issue, I figure it’s likely I might have screwed up somewhere as usual. 🙂

Just let me know if anyone runs into any snags.

Blogger Applications Are Open!

A Clockwork Rider by Aarya Phantomhive – ACS 2013

That’s right, time to zoom in, read and scribble things into the application. You can find the actual application underneath the Important Text of Great Importance right here.

As always: even if you’re already in the group, please fill in the application. That way I’ll know that you’re around, not busy in RL and are interested in the theme. I’ll clean the group from the people that I haven’t heard from before the early access begins, but everyone is more than welcome to apply to the next event, or the one after that: whenever you have time and inspiration.

I’m looking forward to see and read the stories you all will conjure with the theme this year, just one month to wait! Better start up the clockwork muse engines!

Applications are closed.

ACS applications for this year are closed, and I’ve pulled the link.

In the end we have 53 applications here, and room for 40 slots *including* our stores and Gothika , so really, 36 in total.  Most people who didn’t get in on the first go will get waitlisted. We OFTEN need waitlist people, so no one panic.

Im plowing through apps now and starting to send stuff out.   Fair warning, Im in the middle of a RL project this week so if you need something send me an offline.

 

 

Last call for applications to ACS 2014.

Hey gang,

 

Just a reminder that we’re closing applications for ACS 2014 at midnight Pacific time (SLT) tonight.  If you want to apply, now is your chance, or you’re going to be out of luck.  Starting tomorrow, I will be sending out sponsor and merchant packs.  If you have a question about your particular store or application, you can just ask me (if you ask anyone else, they will tell you to ask me anyway- save yourself the trouble.)

Thanks for your patience – we didn’t expect the flood of applications we got.

-AK

 

Applications update.

As of right now, we have 52 applicants for ACS, with 39 total slots available. We will close applications on August 10.  Of that number, about 15 are sponsor requests. We have space for between 7 and 10 sponsor slots.

Why haven’t we closed them yet if we have that many apps?

This is a curated event.  Not everyone who has applied is the right fit for it(I cut one of our own stores out of this event this year for that reason.)  Preference will be given to people who regularly work with the themes we’ve got going on here(because that makes sense.), and we are always looking for new stores that have never been with us before- because a common event complaint is that “it’s always the same stuff.” It’s a balance.

We’re trying to give everyone a chance to apply who wanted to, but keeping apps open til the 31st when we’ve already technically got a full house makes little sense.  We’re in a strange in-between place. We have more than a full sim, but less than 2 full sims worth, and I would much rather curate than have to manage a second sim we can’t fill this year. Experience has taught me that curating is better than unnecessarily expanding.

I’ve had several IM requests from people who want spots “held” for them.  I’m really sorry, but we can’t. We cannot and will not “hold places” for people.   It’s simply not fair to all the people who have applied.  At Gothmas by Gaslight we can usually do a hold, because the curation at GxG is much lighter (though it will be stronger this year than in past years- last year’s light curation hand was more frustration in the end than Im willing to repeat.)  But at this event we can’t-  If you’re not ready for this one it’s totally fine. We will be having another event (between ACS and GxG) this year that you can apply to if you like.

We will waitlist people who applied but didn’t get the spots they wanted. It is VERY RARE (very) that we don’t have to pull from the wait list.  Things happen, often at the last minute and we need to fill slots  in a hurry.

All the posters and standees are done. I’m just waiting for applications to close and then I can see what’s what.

Blogger apps will open August 15 as planned.

AK

 

Well. That was unexpected.

So, you know how we usually have applications open for 30 days or until we sell out, whichever comes first?

 

Due to demand (I’m serious, we’re flooded here.) we’re going to close applications on the 10th.  We will *definitely* be sold out(no question.)  So if you want to apply to this year’s ACS, please do it sooner rather than later.  We didn’t expect this many applications, but we want to make sure everyone who really wanted to apply gets a chance to do it.

You have 8 days.

Go.

 

 

 

Applications for ACS 2014 are now open.

Applications for A Clockwork Spiral 2014 are now open.  Apps will be open through August 31 or until we sell out- whichever comes first.

 

I should have the first round of info for people on Sundayish.

 

Find the application here.