Liverpool Phil

As you may be aware, European City of Culture, 2008 is the city of Liverpool, and I posted an entry about one of the sims celebrating this, Mathew Street, a few months ago. For almost everyone familiar with the name, Liverpool is synonymous with at least two things: football and The Beatles. For many it conjures up a host of stereotypes -most of which would incur the wrath of Liverpudlians if reprinted here. But I'm sure it would be a minority who would associate it with Orchestral Music.

The "Phil" in the title of this post refers to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which is both an orchestra and a great concert hall. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (RLPO) is one of the oldest concert-giving organisations in the world, and the second oldest in Britain. The origins of its concert series date back to the formation of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society in 1840. It had to wait until 1957 to pick up the "Royal". In September 2006, Vasily Petrenko became Principal Conductor of the RLPO. Then aged 30, he is the youngest person to hold this post in the orchestra's long history.

The original Hall opened in August, 1849. But this building, once described as 'the best in Europe' by Sir Thomas Beecham, was destroyed by fire in 1933. The present building opened in 1939, and evidently survived the intense German bombing of the city during WWII. Aesthetically, it is built and decorated in an Art Deco style. Now the hall has a digital counterpart in Second Life. In fact, it has even held its first mixed reality event, with a concert back in September, 2007, that was simultaneously streamed inworld. The hall spans 2 sims. The seam of the 2 sims lies straight down the centre of the hall, so that people on the left side are on one sim, while those on the right are on the other. Apart from the hall, with its foyer, concert space and bar, there is nothing else on the sim - which still looks rather "rough-hewn" and unfinished. However, the business end of the build is in working order - and presumably awaiting its next concert. I am somewhat disappointed that there does not appear to have been any further events here in the last 4 months. Here are my images:

If you feel so inclined you might want to compare them with the photos on the Phil's website. You will see how true to the original it is. Alternatively, you can watch a short "making of..." movie here.

Finally, I'm off to the Phil in the not-too-distant to see the Kodo Drummers. Quite looking forward to that!

In me Liverpool 'ome

I've blogged about many towns and cities from across the globe that have decided to extend themselves into the virtual world of Second Life. Tonight, however, I am coming a lot closer to home - with a trip to the virtual Liverpool sim of Mathew Street. The street is home to The Cavern, the club where The Beatles played in their early days, and famous as the cradle of Merseybeat.

Liverpool has been awarded the honour of being European City of Culture, 2008 - which means a significant investment in the old place, and an influx of tourists who, hopefully, are not just there for the constant barrage of Beatles memorabilia. The Mathew Street sim appears to be part of the promotion for the 2008 event. It has been under construction for quite a number of months now, and seems to be taking shape nicely - although there is much still to be done. Here is a map of the sim - apologies about the poor quality, but it did not appear to get any better than this:


Whether you like it or not, it is inevitable that "iconic buildings" will feature in a construction of this type - and here they are in abundance. Aside from the street itself, the Royal Liver Building takes pride of place. As well as The Cavern, many of Liverpool's more recent clubs and music venues are here, including Cream and the wonderfully scuzzy Barfly:



Even in its current state of build, there are a number of slightly less expected items - such as Anthony Gormley's "Another Place" installation of statues along the tideline at Crosby, just to the North of the city. Inevitably, there is also a Yellow Submarine:



I have actually checked out this sim on a few occasions in the past, watching it coming along - and have noticed that it is rarely devoid of people. I have only really skimmed the content here, and there will be more in the months to come - but it is clear that this place is doing something right. The range of music, dancing and chatting venues is large - and their scale is intimate. Combine that with the inate clannish behaviour of Liverpudlians and you have yourself a sim that should continue to grow in popularity.

The title of this piece comes from a well-known ditty - the words of which can be found here. Just for the sake of clarity, I would like to point that Liverpool is not, in fact, my hometown or home location.

Fancy a Danish? Virtual Copenhagen

This post was originally posted at 3pointd - but reprinted here with extra pictures.

2007 has seen a trend (dare I say “meme”? No, perhaps not) for real world cities to be replicated in the virtual world of Second Life. This trend has been particularly prevalent in Northern/Central Europe - with Germany and The Netherlands vying for the most virtual cities. Today, while passing by the World Trade Center Memorial again, I espied an island called »CPH«, and finding it open, went to have a look. It seems that the trend has moved North a tad, as this is virtual Copenhagen. But is it “wunderbar, wunderbar?”



There are many reasons why a city might want to establish a presence in Second Life. The context for Copenhagen’s build can be found in the related website, where you will find an English-language PDF file:

How can Copenhagen evolve into an international top rank knowledge city? A city, seething with innovation and enterprise. A city that is a magnet for students and knowledge workers worldwide. These are the questions we have worked on in the Think Tank for Internationalisation and Business Development. The Think Tank was set up by the City of Copenhagen in May 2006, under the initiative of Lord Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard. The result is nine concrete proposals spanning from a new hotel concept for researchers and knowledge workers to transforming Copenhagen into one huge exhibition of groundbreaking technology.

1. Copenhagen Campus is designed to attract international students and make Copenhagen a World-class university town.

2. The Welcome Shop is an international citizens service centre, where guest researchers, knowledge workers and students find everything they need to establish themselves in Copenhagen. Anything, from information about Copenhagen and Danish legislation to help with finding a job, accommodation and childcare.

3. A Knowledge Hotel is an accommodation service for international guest researchers and knowledge workers. It provides a place to live and a social network that will make you want to return to the city or settle down permanently.

4. The Potential Exchange is a place where people with unexploited potential come closer to the labour market. This could be a taxi driver with an engineering degree or a corner shop owner who is actually a trained doctor.

5. Smart Stars is a talent program for primary school pupils. The program will help pupils with poor odds and provide the talented ones with new challenges. The youngsters will learn that smart stars shine brighter.

6. Copenhagen has the potential to attract many more international firms. The Carlsberg district is one of the areas that have the largest potential. It could become an international power centre, housing the regional headquarters of large firms from Denmark and abroad.

7. Copenhagen’s urban spaces should be transformed into opportunity spaces, where there is room for creativity, diversity and enterprise. The key is collaboration between residents, those who use the city, developers, students and artists.

8. Copenhagen Solutions transforms Copenhagen’s urban spaces into a showroom of the best Danish technology and social solutions. An international magnet where one can see and experience the future.

9. Copenhagen Venture is an ambitious entrepreneur collaboration between the universities and the commercial sector. It aims at making Copenhagen a city seething with enterprise and new ideas.

These 9 concrete proposals are re-played here for the benefit of visitors, with many links to relevant pages of the website. The centrepiece of the island is Rådhuspladsen, or City Hall Square, and it is here that visitors first arrive. Teleports enable you to get to the various parts of the island where 3D visualisations of the 9 proposals can be found. The majority of the buildings on the island appear to be faithful reproductions of those to be found in the real city, including the City Hall (shown above). I know this can lead to endless debate about the merits or otherwise of trying to model real world buildings in Second Life. Personally, if there is a point and it is well done, then that is fine.

Here's the selection of teleports and a couple of the visualisations:


The quality of the texturing and rendering of these buildings is very good - but for the most part they do lack a certain something: access. Aside from a school room (representing “Smart Stars”) I could not find any traditional buildings that I could actually enter. They seem to exist purely to provide a 3D backdrop for the presentation of the 9 proposals. I don’t see the aim as being to build any form of online community, although that may be planned for later. However, the use of Second Life both as a creative visualisation medium and as a promotional platform is well executed and interesting to see.

Of course, the real challenge is not is Second Life, but whether Copenhagen can achieve its objectives in the real world.

Ludwigsburg Looking to SL

It's funny how memes and themes sweep across SL. Hot theme of the moment is the "Euro-urbanisation" of SL - with the councils of a number of European cities deciding to stump up cash for some virtual real estate. A few months ago, it was the Dutch leading the way, but latterly it has been German towns and cities who have latched on. Recently I posted about Augsburg, but cities across Germany are rushing in to Second Like.

Another one to add to this list is Ludwigsburg. What's that? Never heard of it? Neither had I until I stumbled upon the island - which is currently in a very early stage of development, as you can see:

In RL Ludwigsburg has been settled since pre-Roman times, but the current city only came into being in the early 18th.C, when a large castle was constructed there by Eberhard Ludwig, Duke of Wurttemberg. Originally intended as a pleasure-palace, the Duke - picking up on a hot theme of his time - decided to build a city as well. In the years that have elapsed since then it has grown to a population of around 87,000. And shortly it may add a few dozen more as it sets up in Second Life. The intention, from the little information available, is to provide shops and other features, under the general banner/brand of Ludwigsburg - an approach not dissimilar to Augsburg. I guess only time will tell...

Augmenting Augsburg

Augsburg, a substantial city in Bavaria and capital of Swabia, has been on one map or another since 15BC. But so far it has been missing from the Second Life map. This oversight has now been addressed, with Augsburg augmenting its real world existence with a new 2-sim presence in Second Life.

The site opens formally in a couple of days, but is already allowing in ramblers, wanderers and nosy neighbours to wander its streets and check out its shops. Although 2 linked sims, there seems to be a clear distinction between them - and in truth, neither bear much resemblance to the city that gave them their name. The more Southerly sim contains the typically Bavarian architecture (to the point of stereotypical tweeness) along with some distinctive city buildings, like the Rathaus which, as the name does not suggest, is the Town Hall.


The site looks like it has only a passing connection with Augsburg itself, as most of it is taken up with shopping malls, dance halls and what appears to be private residences, often constructed in styles that bear little resemblance to any architecture to be found in Southern Germany. That said, it has a lot happening - with many links to websites, a lot of interactivity and I suspect, with the clubs and dance halls, should prove popular with the burgeoning German Second Life population.

The formal launch is on May, 29th at 16:00 (CET? SLT? It doesn't say! D'OH!!**), with live music and no doubt other events to tickle your jaded palates.

** I am assuming CET, since 16:00 SLT would be 1:00AM CET.

virtual Manchester goes for Big Chips

Tonight the UK's Second City (unless you are from Birmingham) - Manchester - opened its 4-sim presence in Second Life. Despite some trumpeting in the Press and the web, this is apparently NOT the official opening, but rather a soft launch to trial it. This being the case, why in God's name, use the occasion to host a RL-SL simulcast of the Big Chip 2007 Awards? An event whose website unabashedly states: "This is almost certainly the first time an awards ceremony has been shown live in Second Life. The virtual ceremony will be the launch party for a new area in Second Life – Manchester UK." I'm not sure that the first assertion is true, while the second does rather suggest that the island is officially launched - unless the Mayor is going to come and cut a virtual ribbon next week, which is by no means impossible.

I won't go further into the background of the sims - since it is in this post from January.

The Big Chip Awards are described as the top awards for ICT and "New Media" outside London. I attended the Second Life event, which at least saved me the 75 quid I would have had to find to stand a chance of attending the RL event. But before talking about the build, let's take a look at my snapz:


The place has a distinctly unfinished look to it, and I think the build team will be hard pushed to complete it by next week. I am not privy to the inside story on this and can only go from my observations - having tried to access the sim on many occasions. After its initial acquisition it seemed to show no progress of note for months. It is only in the last 4 to 6 weeks that I have spotted a sudden surge in build effort (using the Satellite Map as a rather poor measure). It feels like a deadline had been set - this award ceremony - but the construction did not start at a time that would allow a successful build.

As a result the site feels half-empty and disjointed, with the shells of a number of Manchester's iconic buildings dotted around the landscape. Few, if any, have anything inside. The build quality is hard to assess right now, accepting the soft launch argument, but if pushed I would say... umm... "rushed."

There were problems with the streaming too... both audio and video suffered huge delays, rendering the award show both unwatchable and unlistenable to. A shame, since presumably a significant effort was put into this. It was not due to sim overload, as there were perhaps 15 people present at the time.

I'm sorry to be so critical of the build. I know and love the city of Manchester (though not their football teams), and perhaps for this reason I feel even more disappointed than I might otherwise.

As for the longer term usage of the SIMs - I think I will wait until it is "officially launched" before popping back to investigate further.

Oh... and I finally met Nic from the excellent Kzero blog:

Hi Nic!