I'm still pinching myself that I actually got to attend a HiveFest, albeit virtually :-)
Despite the crazy timezone difference, I dragged myself out of bed at 2am on Saturday morning in order to jump into AltspaceVR and be ready for HiveFest to start. It was a fantastic experience exploring the HiveFest worlds. I don't have a VR headset, so joined in 2D on a PC, but the experience still felt really immersive.
I was one of the lucky ones who had a flawless experience with the badge process. The little green computer appeared as it should and I was issued with my badge. I didn't manage to get the HiveBuzz friend meetup bit happening successfully though, so no ranking for that in HiveBuzz.
The stage area felt just like a real conference and I had to chuckle when people would walk or stand in front of you and block your view. Made the experience even more authentic ha ha! For me the presenter's audio and slides were clear and easy to hear/read. I was really impressed with it all.
I did have some technical difficulties with my own audio, I think mostly due to the headset I was using. It made it almost impossible to communicate with anyone else. Huge thanks to @sjarvie5 for trying to help out with that! I think I managed about two sentences of audio before I couldn't get it to work again.
I loved the NFT Art showroom. So many fantastic works on display and you could roam just like in a real gallery. The piano worked too! The only thing missing was a glass of wine and a tray of canapés as you admired the artwork.
Overall I thought that the event was great. Some years ago I attended a handful of University lectures in SecondLife and enjoyed that, but the AltspaceVR experience was just so much better - even in 2D.
This was a nice touch - our avatars all had little HiveFest wristbands on.
I had to duck away for a while and deal with real life, so missed some speakers, and was unable to attend day 2. Luckily the streams were published to YouTube so I've been working my way through them. I was really impressed with how many alternative channels were available for those who could not attend due to time or technology constraints.
I'm looking forward to future events like this, and after seeing @themarkymark's presentation perhaps taking the leap to explore AltspaceVR more fully. I definitely need to upgrade my microphone first, or perhaps even save up and take a leap with an Oculus VR headset?
Until next time,
@Sammie
