RfL’s Home & Garden Expo 2011

The Home & Garden Expo 2011 is on. Yes, it started Friday the 13th (of May) and will go on until the 22th. The event spreads over 10 sims full of furniture, buildings and greenery from 117 SL designers that have come together to benefit Relay for Life of Second Life. Besides the product sales, there is also a list of events that include musical acts, interviews, classes, a hunt and much more.

It is the first time I apply to blog about a particular event (because a friend convinced me to do so –hi Eleanor). After being accepted as PRESS (blogger) and receiving all the corresponding notecards, etc., the first thing that happened was that I missed the Press sneak peek (apparently) scheduled before the opening. I really don’t know if I was asleep or at work, that’s why, so don’t blame it on the organizers: they have done a terrific job. I was particularly looking forward to a walk with less lag, but fortunately there are a couple of things worth pointing out in favor of this event: firstly, attendees aren’t so narcissistic, so they don’t come in with exuberant quantities of prims to cause huge amounts of lag, capable of embarrassing the most professional of griefers; secondly, there are benches along the road that you can use to propel yourself along the way and avoid some of the crash-inducing lag. So all in all, even at peak hours, the promenade has been as normal as visiting any popular sim. Cheers!

Please, remember that sales in this event are very important, not because the expo wants to promote SL content creators, but because it aims to raise funds to benefit the American Cancer Association. So if you’re visiting the Home & Garden Expo 2011, don’t forget to buy at least a couple of nice items from the properly marked vendors. They are nice and are helping a good cause. 

I intended to blog more about this event and showcase some of the most attractive items… from my point of view, of course. But then I decided not to for one special reason: ALL of them are giving their best for a good cause. For that reason, they deserve equal exposure. So please visit the Home & Garden Expo 2011 blog for more information about products and participating stores. Yet, I do have to make a “constructive” critic, that I hope is not taken out of proportion and context. It is something that I want to refer to as a “significant drawback”.

Pictured above is an example of this “shortcoming”, and it’s happening more than once: LISP + Art Dummy kiosk, is probably one of the most beautiful displays in the Expo (props for them). They complimented their furnishing product exhibition with stuff from alirium Gardens and MMGrafitti’s, two of my favorite garden shops in SL. Obviously, LISP and Art Dummy sell furniture, not trees and shrubs, so that’s surely why they chose these excellent gardeners to decorate their ensemble. Yet, neither alirium nor MMG’s are among the participating stores. With such an outstanding showcase, somehow even more prominent than LISP + Art Dummy’s own presentations, why aren’t alirium and MMG’s in the event? Of course, the Expo is voluntary (and I’m not sure if creators were invited or had to apply for an invitation), but if some of the participants were to use such a high number of non-participating store products as decor, I would have invited them to the event to begin with. Actually, I have no idea if they were asked to participate or not, but if they declined the invitation or didn’t know about the event, then I would have sought to establish some kind of agreement in which exhibitors were to only use decorating elements from participating landscape designers. That would have helped to increase their exposure and beautify the environment. This is also the case with some other important garden stores, such as Heart Garden Center, New Trails, and Botanical: Their products are everywhere, yet they are not.

Notwithstanding this shortcoming, I want to invite all readers to visit the Relay for Life’s Home & Garden Expo 2011 this week, or you’ll be missing some magnificent products and the chance to benefit a good cause.