Dearest FashCon.
This post is mostly for designers, and those wanting to apply for designer status on Fashion Consolidated. If you’re a designer wanting to apply to join FashCon, please see below. If you’re a buyer, there are just two quick announcements here:
FashCon HUD and FashCon Cafe
Firstly please try out the NEW FASHCON HUD! This is the first release a new tool free to all FashCon members that allows you to tour FashCon stores, take potluck random shopping trips and discover great new designers and soon (gasp!) synchronised tours all around the grid. Hoping for new features to be added too like searching. This fab tool comes as part of the new FashCon applications system described for new designers below, and currently contains some 50 stores that were part of the beta trial for the new system. It will grow rapidly as designers are added and you don’t need to download a new one when that happens – you’ll automatically receive one. It’s hard to describe, but I bet you’re going to like it. I’ve discovered a ton of new designers I love already. To get a HUD, tp to the landmark in the paragraph below, and click the small boxes that say “Free FashCon Tour HUD” on them. Then locate your HUD by searching for “FashCon Tour HUD” in inventory, right-click and “wear” it, hit Next, teleport and discover new shops!
Note that the location you arrive it depends on where the store owner placed their kiosk (if they placed it too close to a wall and you ended in the sea tell them!), and also on some rarer occasions, when a store is in a parcel with a fixed landing point. I can’t override the latter, but when you land, just follow the little red arrow you should see floating around and it’ll take you to the store. Secondly, there’s an auto tour mode in the HUD. It’s not quite ready yet, but when it is, I’ll let you know. It’s GREAT.
The second general thing of note is that I never did announce that FashCon has a CAFE now, in the shape of a small grubby diner at Le Zoo, complete with car crashes, grubby seats and small kitchen fires. I meant to organise some events to announce it but you know, time, meh. Come and muddy your couture skirts on its counter! Spill ketchup on your Versace!
So if you’re not a designer, feel free to stop reading at this point and resume shopping. Those shoes look great on you, by the way.
New Designer Application System
Designers – as you all know, applications to be a designer on Fashion Consolidated have been on ice for a few months. A little history: with FashCon’s rezday rapidly approaching, it’s been a year now that I’ve been manually chasing FashCon administration, and in the last few months its popularity outstripped my ability to do this by hand. I chased my tail for a few months, but decided I was doing a disservice to a wonderful community in trying to keep up in an inefficient way. So I had to close applications in order to work on finding an alternative.
What I think I have now, thanks to great kindness from a developer friend and a lot of time working together, is an innovative new way to handle applications semi-automatically, that will hopefully mean the administration load is doable while adding new functionality for everyone. In the new system, all new applicants must place a new style FashCon kiosk in their shop. This kiosk will fulfil the old functionality of providing information about FashCon to your customers so that they stay up to date on your releases, but also contains a notecard you fill in with your full details (shop name, owner, notice sender, product types, website/rss, SLX/Onrez etc.). Once rezzed in your shop, at the next update (the following weekend) you will be added to FashCon as a designer so that you can send notices, and the details above added to the FashCon website. The kiosk is required to stay rezzed in order for FashCon membership to stay active: this is necessary in an automated registration system. The kiosk will automatically detect your SLurl (and changes) and send it back to the server.
The advantages of this system:
- Your shop details (name, SLurl, notice sender, Onrez/SLX links etc.) can be changed by yourself automatically. Changes will be reflected at the next update, usually the next weekend.
- I can now collect and advertise all these details for owners of the new kiosks to buyers via the FashCon website. This means that now all buyers have a single local point of reference for your SLurl, trader links, etc. they can go to following a notice to buy, or to browse.
- Use of this method means that I can now provide all FashCon buyers with something quite exciting: a FashCon HUD (see above). This contains all FashCon designers in the new system, and provides an exciting way for them to shop and discover new designers: they can click on the HUD, see a small picture you choose to represent your business, and TP to it automatically. They can do tours of random shops for fun, or can link together their FashCon HUDs to do fun shopping trips together in sync. It’s hard to described, but once tried, feedback is very positive and already members are reporting finding new designers they love. HUDs are available for free via the kiosks, and at the Cafe.
- Finally, this new system will hopefully make FashCon administration manageable again for me, and provide guaranteed future stability for the group.
All future applications must be done via a kiosk, and there will be a charge for the new application kiosks, in order to try to recoup previous development costs, pay something back, and support staff sorely needed for future administation. The pricepoint is set for now to reflect an average of 3-5 sales earned via a FashCon notice, which I hope even the smallest starting designer would feel the group will recoup for them quickly, at 1000L. This also ensures a starter level of commitment to designing, and will hopefully be positively reflected in designer quality and consistency of notices.
The kiosks are available in three different sizes/prim limits in world at the FashCon Cafe at:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Le%20Zoo/90/22/22
and at these Onrez and SLX pages.
Details of how the application and kiosks work can be found on the Apply page.
Please note that it’s your responsibility to decide if you agree with the FashCon rules before purchase. Rules are enforced strictly to ensure community stability, and deliberate rule infringement will result in removal. Refunds will not be given in cases of removals for rule infringement, so if in doubt, please don’t apply.
Don’t buy more than one kiosk! If you have multiple locations and want information-only hubs in other shops, ask me. I’m making some and will provide them for free. Only have one registration kiosk.
Existing FashCon designers who wish to take advantage of these new services (which also support FashCon upkeep and development) can of course also buy a new style kiosk above and register with the new system in the same way. I’m unable to add designers into the new system manually as it tracks SLurls as they change and a lot of other information you supply to the kiosk. If you’re a FashCon designer and buy a new kiosk, you’ll be automatically transferred over to the new system at the next weekend data run, and your shop will appear in the HUD everyone sees, and your SLurl, website, Onrez/SLX trader links etc. be listed on the Who page.
I hope all questions you may have will be answered in the pages above: please read these pages thoroughly before posing questions to me. In the event that you still have a query, please send it me on a notecard (not in IM), and be patient awaiting a reply. I’ll do my best! And bear in mind that new designers will be added at weekends, which mean if you wish to be added this Sunday, please complete your applications by Sunday morning SLT time.
Thank you for reading this rather boring notecard, and your interest in FashCon. It’s been a full year now since I started FashCon as a very small idea that grew very big, and a privilege to be part of such a wonderful community. I hope in that context people will understand that a little change is necessary to ensure its continuity, but that this change is non-disruptive and will hopefully contribute to future stability.
Oh and for Japanese designers (Honey <3 U), there is a japanese translation of kiosk instructions contained in each, and on this page.
Domo Arigato!
Honey Fairweather <3<3<3
