FAQ - 2016

NOTE: If these rules sound familiar, there are a few reasons.

    a: Because these rules make all the sense in the world.

    b: Because the author of these rules told me to feel free to use them.


0. Is this group/event associated with the Lovecraft Festival?


Nope, different group.  We have nothing to do with Lovefest, which is a different event run around his birthday.


1. What is Lovecraft's Wake?


Lovecraft's Wake is a H.P. Lovecraft themed event, celebrating his life around the day he died ( Ides of March, anyone?)


2.  When is it and where is it held?


The event will take place from noon March 13th, until noon March 28nd.


3.  Who organizes this event?


Lovecraft's Wake is being organized by Wonderlust Events and The Village of Nyght.


4. Is it a charity event?


This is not a charity event, however there is slight percentage (10%) to help cover costs.  We'll provide vendors for this.


5.  How many merchants can you accommodate?


We're not sure right now, a lot will depend on where we have it this year.  But, there will be a waiting list if we go beyond the space available.


6.  Are there sponsor slots? If so, how many and what do you get for sponsoring?



Obviously, sponsor slots are even more limited, but if accepted, you'll get a more prominent booth, and better placement on the shopping guide.

7.  What are the fees, and how many prims do we get?


There aren’t any booth fees.  However, the event takes a 10% cut on sales.  It’s done this way vs. a booth fee so no one loses money.  This way no one is trying to recoup booth fees against sales.  All booths are the same size (we’ll get a shell out to everyone as soon as we can), and we’re giving everyone 20 prims.  We’ll provide scripted vendors and gacha machines.

Sponsorship does have a fee of 250l.

8.  What are the item requirements?


There are no exclusivity or reserve requirements, however, all items brought to Lovecraft's Wake must be within the thematic scope of the event.

This is to say, inspired in some way by H.P. Lovecraft or his works.  Not everything he did was Cthulian, by the way, so if you're not into Great Old Ones, but would like to take part, please apply.


Also, if your store (inworld or marketplace) contains items that can be considered: sexist, misogynistic, racist or homophobic, we won’t accept your store into the event. It’s very simple- we aren’t supporting stores that sell that kind of merchandise. We don’t think it’s funny, or cute and we don’t want stores that do at our events.

(Yes, Lovecraft did often show certain levels of -isms common to the period - but there is still plenty to inspire that does NOT break this rule).


9. What is your policy regarding scripted vendors?


Landmark givers/group joiners/subscribos are all okay. Simple split scripts are totally fine.


However, *NO NETWORKED VENDORS* will be allowed. Yes, this means you.  No, we’re not making exceptions.


That means no Caspervend, Hippovend, BSM, E2V,  etc.  Networked vendors make off-sim calls to a central database and when under load simwide,  can drag a busy sim to a crawl, especially when a bunch of different kinds making different calls to different servers are all in use at the same time.  If you can’t live without your networked vendors, then this isn’t the event for you.  Sorry about that.  Besides, Vendors for the event, as well as Gacha machines WILL be provided.


We will need a 512×512 full perm logo from your store at the time you apply.  No logo? No application processing.  No kidding. Chasing people down for logos is a giant pain in the ass. 


Please be aware we are not admitting gesture vendors or stores that only sell shapes.


10. Will there be Gacha machines?


Yep.  We’ll provide the machines.  You can set the price of your machines yourself to whatever you want.  No, you don’t have to use them.


11.  Will you have official bloggers?


Yes.  Bloggers will have access to any and all review copies.  If you’re interested, please fill out the blogger application.


Blogging Lovecraft's Wake is optional on BOTH sides.  That means we are not going to set rules about who blogs what, when, and for how many cookies.  That said, we also do not force merchants to provide review packs, either. They can if they want to, and if not, that’s fine too.  We ask that both sides be respectful, and that’s pretty much it.


We will allow access to the fair several days early for bloggers to run around and do their thing.


We do not guarantee that everyone who applies will be accepted.


12.  When will merchant setup take place, and will there be early access for bloggers?


Merchant setup will take place starting the 9th of March.  Bloggers will be allowed early access.


Due to the epidemic of people being late to events we will insist that everyone be fully set up by NOON on March 12th.  Anyone not at least partially in by then will lose their booth slot.


13. What is the policy regarding infringing/ripped content?


None, Nada, Nope.  We will not tolerate infringing or ripped content.  There is a huge difference between inspired by and ripped off from, and items you just lift off from others wholecloth isn't even as tolerable as ripping off ideas (which IS NOT tolerable either).


 SOME SPECIAL NOTES:


( I didn't not change the phrasing at all here.  But the TL;DR of this next section is, if you didn't make it, don't try to bring it.  If you don't have licensing for band stuff, don't try to bring it.  Its not allowed, period, end of sentence.)


***IF YOU HAVE AN ART GALLERY***


If you, personally, did not create the artwork or photos in that gallery YOURSELF, do not bring them to this event. We will remove you. If you grabbed it from the net, google, whatever, and messed with it in photoshop- do not bring them to this event. We will remove you.


It does not matter if you make “an original piece just for the fair” if everything else in your store originated as someone else’s artwork. We will not keep you at the fair. we are *Not interested* in work that is not completely created by the merchant. Please, save your time and ours- we *really will remove you* if you’re selling work that isn’t yours.


***IF YOU HAVE A TEXTURE STORE***


If you, personally, did not create the textures in that gallery YOURSELF, by your own hand/photo work, do not bring them to this event. We will remove you from it when we find out it’s happened, and someone *always tells us* it’s happened.


It does not matter if you make “an original piece just for the event” if everything else in your store originated as someone else’s texture. We will remove you. we are *Not interested* in work that is not completely created by the merchant. Please, save your time and ours- we *really will remove you* if you’re selling work that isn’t yours.


***IF YOU HAVE A STORE THAT SELLS ANY ARTWORK/TEXTURES AT _ALL_***


Also, please read the above. This rule applies to you also.


***IF YOU SELL MESH CONTENT***


You had to go through the same IP quiz that everyone else did to upload meshes at all. If we find out you’re selling ripped content or if we find out you’re selling INFRINGING content – which doesn’t have to be ripped, just be ripping off someone else’s IP – we will pull you out of Lovecraft's Wake so fast it will make your head spin. It is not fair to everyone else who busts ass to make their own stuff from scratch. There is no way for us to know the legitimacy of every item in every booth, but you can bet that with that many eyes on items, SOMEONE will know, recognize, and prove where it came from. Don’t do it. We will find out and we will remove you from the fair.


If you don’t make your own meshes yourself, and aren’t uploading them, but are buying items full perm on marketplace, is is up to YOU to know that your stuff is not infringing someone else’s IP.  It is up to YOU to know it’s not ripped off from a movie, a video game, or some other property under copyright or trademark. It is up to YOU to be sure that the merchants you’re purchasing things from, full perm on marketplace are legit, and not thieves themselves.  “I didn’t know it was stolen” is a limited defense. When it’s one item, and everything else is obviously fine, well you know, stuff happens to everyone sometimes. No one can be expected to know everything.  But when there’s multiple problems, that defense doesn’t work, and our only recourse is to remove you from the event – because what it tells us is you aren’t aware of your own genres to know what’s real and what isn’t.


If you will be selling music related merchandise at this event you MUST HAVE A WRITTEN LICENSE from the band. No exceptions.  Get. A. Freaking. License.


We shouldn’t have to say this, but we realize we do- it’s not ok to use ripped textures on other things.  So no, you can’t use that album cover texture. No, you can’t use that fabric texture that you grabbed off google, etc. If it’s someone else’s copyrighted content, someone’s gonna report it to us, and once they do, we’ve no choice but to tell you to remove the item and retexture it. Please, don’t make us have to do this. It sucks for us, and for you.


There will be *NO EXCEPTIONS* to this policy, and just to be clear – the org team is the arbiter of what we feel comes too close to the line of infringement(or in fact, sails right over it). We are not beholden to anyone else on this.  Save yourself the hassle and just don’t do it in the first place.


14. Will there be a flickr group?


Yes.


15.  What is your merchant policy regarding cancellations?


We maintain a waiting list for merchants once all booth slots are gone.  No one minds if you have to cancel. Stuff happens. That said, we mind a LOT (no, really, a LOT) when people decide not to do the event and don’t bother to TELL anyone about it.  If you aren’t set up 24 hours before we open and you have not communicated with us despite our attempts to do so, we are giving your booth slot away, and we will roundfile any further applications to our events. Not telling people you have to cancel is just fantastically rude, and we have no patience for it. At all.  If you have to cancel that’s totally, utterly ok, but TELL SOMEONE.

Here's the deal.  If something comes up and you are delayed, AND you have let someone know?  More likely to hold your spot.  RL happens, and yes, we get it.  But if you do not let us know anything, and you aren't set up at all by the 12th of March?  Yeah, no.  We will give that spot to someone else who wants it.

16. Can I have co-designers in my booth (more than one store in a booth, basically.)


We understand that a lot of stores are partnerships, and that some folks have multiple brands. That’s a problem we encounter ourselves, actually.  Here’s the deal – yes, you can do this, under certain conditions.  Here’s what they are:


a) we have to be notified about this *BEFORE* applications close (in this case, before February 22nd) .  Past that point we do not have time to effectively research additional brands-  we have our hands full.


b) we need to approve the additional brand- that means we need to know the name of the store, what it sells, where we can find it, and who owns it. Just like every other merchant in the event.


c) the additional brand cannot have been denied entry on its own. That is to say, if that brand applied to the event and was turned down, they cannot come in under someone else’s brand either.


17.  How will I know if I’ve been accepted?


We will have an ongoing merchant list available on this site. I will also be emailing acceptances to everyone, as well as sending group invites to the Wonderlust Events group (if you’re not in the merchant group already).  We know that SL likes to eat group invites. If you miss yours, just ask one of us to resend it.  Please check the merchant list AND YOUR EMAIL before flipping out, okay? If you aren’t accepted, you’re welcome to ask us why. We’ll tell you. That said, don’t ask questions you don’t really want the answer to, either.


18.  Will there be music events?


There will be music events, to be announced closer to the event.

19.  Will there be a shopping guide?


Yes!  So, merchants need to send their ads to Aribeth Zelin in world, or to faerycatdesigns@gmail.com, by setup, so that we can get it ready to go live when the even goes live.


A HUGE thank you to Bronxelf for letting us use the Cursed Events rules for our event.  And yes, we mean every word of these rules, too.