Octoberfest Friday

1st Octoberfest Event 2019 @ Sunshine Realm

The event today really shouldn't be anything special, but most people won't forget it. It all started when I wanted to change my clothes 70 minutes before the event. When it didn't work, my body disappeared, I wanted to save myself with a Relog. There were still no warnings worth mentioning, so it shouldn't be a problem. Then it took 3 minutes until I was logged out. And the registration didn't work anymore. Even with a second notebook with the previous version of Firestorm the login didn't work. A few minutes later I got the status message that some Secondlife services were no longer available.

After 30 minutes then the Login worked, "God thanks" first of all breathe a sigh of relief. But I was a red cloud, then came error messages that I had never seen before. Then I realized that Inventory was empty, and it only reloaded extremely slowly. Then it didn't go forward at all. We decided to start the event with some delay. I prepared everything, still as a red cloud. At least the payments worked, and after loading the contest board and a round of tips I tried a new login. It worked, but my inventory was still empty. And it was going slowly. But at least my body appeared, outfits were available again.

Now, of course, I wasn't dressed for the event, changed quickly. Since I crashed in the middle of changing an outfit, I suddenly had body, feet and hands and some HUDs double loaded, other things could not be loaded, because only 38 attachments are possible. So I had some work to do in the current event. At the same time my IM box was full, because some guests didn't come to us, apparently there were also problems with TPs. Others couldn't log in either and asked when they were finally in SecondLife again if and how the event takes place. So it was chaotic.

So I can only apologize if someone felt neglected during the event and not only missed the Misty, I was more busy with myself too. It was a successful event after all, DJ Valantine played a good set, and also the afterplay with DJ Polpeta gave us a foretaste of the event tomorrow. And it showed how well our family works, how we work together, and even the adversities of technology can do the most. 

But back to the event, and to the Oktoberfest.

The Oktoberfest in Munich (dialectal "d'Wiesn", from the german word "Wiesen" ... meadow) is the world's largest folk festival. It has been held annually since 1810 on the Theresienwiese in the Bavarian capital Munich. However, the festival has only been cancelled a few times, for example during the 2nd world war and afterwards. Some Munich breweries brew a special beer for the Oktoberfest, which must have an original gravity of at least 13.5 % and contains approx. 5.8 to 6.4 percent by volume alcohol. The beer is served at the Oktoberfest in large beer mugs, the "Maß". These hold one litre of beer. Waitresses carries more than 15 of them, the record is 18 Maß. 

In 2018, the Oktoberfest generated a turnover of 1.2 billion euros including overnight stays. The 186th Oktoberfest takes place from 21 September to 6 October 2019. And again it is called "O´zapft is" (to tap it) when the Lord Mayor of Munich opens the festival. Between 5.5 and 6 Million visitors will come every year to Munich from all over the word.

Simi & Bill at the Oktoberfest, Picture took and edit by Bill Yossarian, Thanks for sharing Bill

So also about the national holiday, which we celebrate here in Germany on 3th of October as the German Unity Day, our national holiday in Germany. I wrote my thoughts about this day last year here in a blogpost about the 28th German Unity Day. Unfortunately, not so much has improved in the last year. Nationalism is gaining more and more ground. Also here in Germany, and it makes me sometimes infinitely sad. Maybe the international and interreligious friendship in SecondLife is a way to show that it works differently. That there really is only one world, and we all have to share it.  

The Oktoberfest is also omnipresent in our grocery stores. As a Munich man said, if it looks right after the Oktoberfest, it probably comes from China. So there is a branch in every bigger city in Germany, and here in Berlin even in almost every part of the city. So there are more than fourteen Oktoberfest places alone here in Berlin. Spandau has with the Zidatelle and the Brauhaus, an old brewery, even 2 places. Thus also the name of the one place explains itself. At the Kurt- Schumacher- Damm in Tegel this year the officially biggest of the Berlin Oktoberfest's takes place. And this on the "Zentrale Festplatz" (central festival venue). And so you can also see many leather pants and Dirndls in Berlin and you can drink bavarian beer and have tons of fun.

But the Oktoberfest is also one of Germany's biggest export hits. In many countries there are spin-offs, people celebrate the Oktoberfest. And many probably think that Germany is just like the Oktoberfest, blue and white and with Bavarian folk costumes. And even in Bavaria there are with Franconia, Upper or Lower Bavaria and still some other very different parts. The Oktoberfest is part of Munich. 

We brought the Oktoberfest to SecondLife and our Sunshine Realm this weekend. We planned two events. The first one was today on the big meadow where the Woodstock Festival and the Reeperbahn Festival took place this year. We explain it as "Zentralen Festplatz" in Berlin, or better of the Sunshine Realm. And it is also the following day of the Day of German Reunification. So it was a special, German day with beer, pretzel and knuckle of pork. And did I forget the Sauerkraut and Bavarian veal sausage? DJ Valantine was our DJ in this night and entertained us as well. We invited all friends and guests to celebrate with us. nd a lot game with Dirndl or leather pants and come in a Bavarian costume to the "Zentralem Festplatz".

We will continue the Oktoberfest on Saturday, but since we have some big meadows, we go to our "Munich" and the big meadow in front of the Trails End Music Hall Club. A German weekend with October festivals at the Sunshine Realm awaits you!

And this as a little remark to make clear how big this Oktoberfest is in Munich. 43 kilometres of cable supply the Wiesn with electrical energy via 18 partly underground transformer stations. The energy consumption of the Oktoberfest amounts to a total of around 3 million kilowatt hours, and this can be calculated without the construction and dismantling. This corresponds to about 13 % of the daily electricity requirement in Munich. Most marquees and amusement rides (2007: 61%) use the green electricity offered by the municipal energy supplier Munich.

Well, almost everything is already written. How could this chaotic event end? We had postponed the official start by half an hour. Only shortly after 4 pm the worst problems seemed to be solved, so we gave the starting signal at 4:30 pm. DJ Valantine was there already and her music stream was connected to the sim and she entertained us. And it was a wonderful set like usual. After the start-up problems more and more guests came, and most of them came in Bavarian outfit, Lederhosen and with a beer. But some were like me a red cloud or just grey. But little by little they all appeared complete. Well, some of our special guests who hurried from contest to contest also came with a Halloween outfit. But this really didn't matter today. We had other problems to solve, as I wrote in the beginning. And also we will open the Halloween season at the Sunshine Realm with nice events next week. As always, all the information you need can be found on the blog page "Upcoming Events". Despite all these problems more than 40 visitors came tonight, and in the end 33 were together on our festival meadow. So we could be satisfied.

Also the contest worked very well. We had opened it as usual with 1,000 L$ in split mode. Many of the visitors had registered and behaved reasonably when voting. Since we started later, we let the voting run longer. So after 2 hours we could finish our event and 27 of the participants had also cast their votes. We said goodbye to the guests and pointed out the other events this weekend. Many left us then. I hope they will come back tomorrow when it's "O´zapft is" again and the 2nd day of the Oktoberfest takes place at the Sunshine Realm.

Then it was after-party again and some stayed. The Dirndl were exchanged for lingerie and we danced. DJ Valantine entertained a bit longer before she went to bed. Then DJ Polpeta spontaneously recorded her stream and played some Oktoberfest and German mood music. We laughed and talked. So a complicated evening ended, but it was also beautiful. And it turned out how closely the family works together on the Sunshine Realm and solves problems, leaving no one alone. It's nice to be in such a group.

Of course there are a few more pictures and I have made them available again in a Google Images Album. So you can have a look and get an impression of this evening. I already mentioned the blog page "Upcoming Events". Since we update this page again and again, add text and pictures, remove the expired events and add new ones, it's really worth saving a bookmark and visiting it from time to time. We'd be happy if you'd drop by or drop by again.