Rogue made the effort to have an open-mic, and has had many other events that were successful. She was very helpful with one of my events. I'd work with her again. Paying it forward. let me know when you plan to have an event and I'll see what I can do to help. In this group, that's what we do. We try to help people. Repeating hearsay is not helpful.

I guess the main issue was that there were only that many people willing to perform on an open stage in OpenSim in the first place and even fewer to do so regularly.

It did have a few participants. But the only one who showed up almost regularly was Rogue. One or two more were on a "when I get to it, and I feel like it" base, but they weren't enough to fill two hours.

The "when I feel like it" part was also influenced by the hassle of switching streams back and forth. Like, pick up the stream, get your own stream working, perform one song or maybe a few, give the stream back to Rogue, wash, rinse, repeat. Wouldn't be so bad if you had, like, eight, ten, twelve performers during a two-hour open stage. You wouldn't get to perform that often anyway. But if it's only you and the host, it's just you, the host, you, the host, you, the host etc., and you have to connect and disconnect your own stream a lot more often. The more of a hassle it is, the less you're willing to go through that hassle a dozen times in two hours.

Part of the concept was also to really have an open-stage atmosphere. Rogue had built a little outdoor venue near a beach with a fairly small stage just for these events. She herself didn't even sing to her usual backing tracks. Nope, she played a ukulele. This meant that participants were more or less expected to play an instrument instead of pre-produced backing tracks that emulate a whole freaking band that isn't even represented on stage. This reduced the number of interested performers even further.

So if you have one semi-regular who shows up every two, three, four weeks and one or a few others who show up even less often, it's only the host and her uke most of the evenings.

By far most of those willing and able to perform online AND willing and able to set up their own Web streams and get them running already have regular gigs in OpenSim anyway. They don't need open stages. They don't have to connect their stream a dozen times in two hours when they can instead connect it once and keep it going for one hour or two (provided it's stable and doesn't drop out). They don't have to play an instrument live (unless it's part of their performance anyway). They can play backing tracks and get away with it. They can bring a band or set up NPC rezzers and get away with it. They can have half the stage restyled for their performance. And they can put up their own tip jar.

By the way, that was in summer of 2020. Five years ago. Long before even the drama between Rogue and Cat. Also, this wasn't a case of the participants working FOR Rogue. Not even really WITH her. You didn't have to become part of her entourage or an employee of hers or something. You went there, you said you wanted to perform, she gave you the stream, you performed, you gave the stream back.

yw