Tips and Trick for Fairs and Events

Good Afternoon! I was browsing blogs, which I enjoy doing when I am avoiding other work I should be doing. I came across a great post which I would like to share with all of you. I am only going to post parts but if you wish the see the original post go here. SasyPants used these tips and tricks for a Hair Fair Event, but are usable for any event you need. Just do what is useful to you at the time. (Everything written below is not originally by me, but by SasyPants. Thank you)

"The most exciting tip I have for you this year is one I use myself often when attending events such as this.

Get rid of the people ( you are there to shop, no one cares what you look like, and you definitely don’t care what they look like, so get rid of them, they truly will not care.)

• Firstly lets prepare by pressing Ctrl + Alt + D all together and making sure that we have the advanced menu at the top of our screen. If you already have it, then lets move on.
• Click on advanced, then click your mouse on Debug Setting. A small grey box will appear, once you have that open in the white section highlight this next part in red and copy it by pressing Ctrl + C RenderAvatarMaxVisible and the Ctrl + V into that box in world. 
• Once that is either pasted in, or you can of course type it, it will say Maximum number of avatars visible...yes this is the promised land.
• Default is set to 35, do you care about that many people shopping when there is hair to be had? I do not think so; take that bad boy down to 5 unless of course you are shopping with a group of more than 5, but again your friends really don't care when they have hair to buy too.
• Be sure to remember you have done this when you leave, because you will need to put it back a bit higher lol. What it will do is select randomly avatars around you to show, Those that are near you will fade in and out, it can be very tricky when you start hearing voices you don't see.

Un-Render those Trees & Other Non-Hair Related Items

Do you really even like Second Life trees? If your hair is more important, some things have to go. 

• Back to Advanced Menu again. Once in Advanced, click on Rendering and then click on Types. You will have to repeat this over and over until you are satisfied.
• Trees: don't need them, clouds: don't need them, water? Unless you are washing said hair: don't need them. Clouds and particles: definitely do not need them.
• Make sure you don't go crazy in that section, there are things you will need to keep; such as alpha (or you will mess up your hair), and simple (which can mess up everything).

Graphics: Who Needs Pretty Skies When You Have Pretty Hair?

• Ctrl + P will open up your preferences in an instant. Put your Quality and Performance slider to low, this will not help a lot but it will help if you are generally at high. Mine is always set to middle, but it can't hurt.
• Click on custom box on the right hand side of the slider, this will open the graphics settings further.
• Atmospheric Shaders and Water Reflections, uncheck those.
• Make sure your draw distance slider is on 64, thats as far left as it can go. Do be aware that [events can be quite large], you do not need to see that far ahead.
• Max Particle Count, left as far as it will go, turn those off, you do not need bling at an event/fair.
• Mesh Detail, your objects slider needs to be high, so that you see your hair demos as well as you need to, but everything else can go down down down.
• Make sure that Avatar Imposters is turned on with the check box, this means that any people around you will not load at full capacity, again, YOU DO NOT NEED TO SEE OTHERS.

But here is a tip, NO PRIMS

• Find in your inventory clothing that is texture only, such as pants without prims and tops without prims. You do not need shoes, again no one cares about you, and seriously are you able to get a close and good look at your hair while staring at your shoes?
• Also really why are you bothering to even wear hair? I often shop at hair stores bald, it is a pain in the bum trying to find the hair I had on to put it back on to then replace it with yet another demo.
• Do you really think that anyone cares if you are bald? Other than to think, you pretty much rock for making it easier on everyone.
• Hair Fair is NOT like any other fair, and the lag is full on to say the least, but that is because unlike any other fair or event in Second Life, hundreds of people are attaching possibly scripted demos, which high alpha and flexi all at once, can you imagine what that is doing to the asset servers and the sim servers as well.
• Other fairs do not have the same things going on with them as Hair Fair does, and you have to take that into consideration, all the booths have only the charity scripts and subscribos in their booths. They are using as many of the same exact sculpties as possible, as well as repeating the same textures over and over again"

Thank you SasyPants for your help! - Love Fayette Aeon