OpenSimulator Community Conference 2014 Crowdfunder Campaign & Sponsorship Opportunities

The OpenSimulator Community Conference is a grassroots community event, staffed by volunteers and managed by AvaCon, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and the Overte Foundation.

Although the conference is in virtual space, and made possible by hardware donations and by dozens of volunteers, the conference incurs some expenses, in particular the professionally-managed operation of the conference center grid which includes the setup, performance tuning, and constant monitoring that are of utmost importance for the success of the conference, and the streaming services and other web services necessary to produce the event. Compared to real-world conferences, the budget of a virtual event like the OpenSimulator Community Conference is very modest, but, nevertheless, it’s not zero. As such, we ask businesses, entrepreneurs, and community members alike to help financially support the conference if they are able.

Based on feedback from last year’s attendees and sponsors, we are offering new options this year for those who are interested in financially supporting the conference.

CROWDFUNDER CAMPAIGN

One of the points of feedback we received last year was that some folks just wanted to make a small dollar donation without having to worry about submitting a logo or building a sponsor display for the expo regions, and we didn’t really provide an option for that.  The higher dollar sponsorship levels also focused primarily on promotional opportunities for sponsors, rather than providing a thank you gift for those who wanted to sponsor at a lower level.

This year, we’re offering a Crowdfunder Campaign that will provide a number of fun perks and thank you gifts based on the level of donation!  Potential perks and gifts include:

• A bronze-infused stainless steel 3D printed Hippo Charm for your keychain or necklace!

• A 16GB flash drive with specially developed content to introduce a friend, colleague, or family member to all the wonders of OpenSimulator! Featuring a special Sim-on-a-Stick installation chock full of goodies and tutorials, freebies and open source content, this little flash drive will have everything you need to give the gift of OpenSimulator to others!

• An official OpenSimulator tshirt!

• A REAL LIFE prim cube handcrafted by a member of the OpenSimulator community, perfect for your desk!

• An invitation to a VIP only one-hour Q&A session with the keynote speaker of your choice!

• Your name on a special “virtual brick” in the conference Community Pathway, which will be built upon from year to year to honor those who are making the path to the open metaverse possible!

• Early access to the conference grid and early access to download digital content from the conference!

• Your Real Life or Avatar Name listed on the conference website and in-world, plus a special group tag at the conference will denote your crowdfunder status!

In addition, for those who still wish to have a small “community” level expo booth in-world, you can select that option in the Crowdfunder Campaign to advertise your grid or project to conference attendees.

To figure out which Crowdfunder package has the thank you gift you prefer, check out our Crowdfunder Campaign page and we thank you for your support!

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

For those organizations and individuals who wish to support the conference at a higher level, we’ve also made some adjustments to the sponsorship benefits based on feedback from last year’s experience.

Past sponsors said they received the most value from having foot traffic visit their Expo Booths, so this year, we are working to increase the level of activity on Expo regions by organizing a fun gaming experience for conference attendees that will reward attendees for exploring the conference grid, including visits to sponsor booths during participation in the game.  Sponsors will have the opportunity to donate branded virtual prizes as rewards for the game.

A new Shopping Center region will also be available to attendees to distribute freebies and avatar customization components.  Any sponsor wishing to contribute freebie content to the Shopping Center region will have additional opportunities for promotional exposure through the Shopping Center region.

In addition, to improve performance and decrease lag, we’ll have sponsor regions and small sized booths located in different locations around the conference grid rather than having all the sponsor regions clustered together, and we anticipate that this will increase natural traffic and exposure to your content while improving performance of the regions where your booths are located.

Finally, we wanted to do a better job of thanking our higher level sponsors, too, so sponsorship packages also include many of the fun perks and thank you gifts from the Crowdfunder Campaign – the best of both worlds!

For more information about the sponsorship opportunities available, please see the Call for Sponsors page, or contact us at info@avacon.org for more information.

The OpenSimulator Community Conference could not take place without the generous support of our volunteers and the community.  A tremendous thank you to everyone who contributes to make the conference a success!