Featured Venue
September
Surfside Hideaway
This month our Venue Of The Month is the ever Surfside Hideaway, which has been a key venue in encouraging and developing new talent in SL as well as putting on top class live entertainment as long as I can remember. The owner, Desirae Beaumont kindly agreed to be interviewed for TFM.
Michael: Hi Desirae - thank you soo much for taking time out to do this interview with Toggle For Music.
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Michael: First up -Could you tell me something about your background and how you got involved in the crazy world of Second Life?
Desirae: I read about SL in 2007 and gave it a shot out of curiousity and obviously got stuck since then.
Working in the public health system, SL is kinda valve for me.
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Michael: In your early SL days did you plan - or even envisage - owning a successful music venue ?
Desirae: Absolutely not. It took quite a while to get SL at all and found out about live music from a friend who followed Tone Uriza
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Michael: So how did it happen?
Desirae: A friend dragged me to live shows and later we had a club together. She built a small venue beside it and we had a Tone Uriza show there every few weeks. Later we moved to a homestead and had a beach club in one corner of the region and the old club in another corner.
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Michael: So here you are now - so tell me all about Surfside Hideaway please.
Desirae: I founded Surfside Hideaway with the help of my friends Kantbe Thursday and Pixie Plasma back in January 2009. Surfside has become known for promoting excellence in live performing artists, having hosted such well known performers such as Nance Brody, Clairede Dirval, Saintess Larnia, Tauri Tigerpaw, Guitar Zane, Marky Helstein, Arminius Writer, Bara Johnson, Franck Molko, Tukso Okey, Noma Falta, The Vinnie Show, Winston Ackland, KatRose Serendipity, POL Arida, Bright Oh, Winter, Grace McDunnough, Dee Timeless, Bat Masters, Zorch Boomhauer, Lexie Luan and many more. I began organizing shows about a year before, but had to move from a Homestead when LindenLabs changed the policies.
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Michael: High points and low points ?
Desirae: I had to move several times until I landed on Crystal Falls in 2013.
Being forced to move is tough and finally having the venue in an own region is a big highlight
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Michael: You know the Second Life live music industry inside out by now. Do you feel it is in a healthy state at this moment in time ? If you could do one thing to improve it - what would it be?
Desirae: First of all: I don't make money out of Surfside and the musicians playing for me understand that.
It has been normal to pay musicians, only a few venues existed who were tips only. On top of all Guthries which has been closed a few years ago. When having 20 or more shows per week, it's impossible to pay fees. We have no mall or shops that pay for the traffic.
Linden Labs could do more to support live music, but they are like most of SL and see only the self proclaimed "superstars". On top Linden Labs now charges 50 L$ (for basic accounts) and 10 L$ (for Premium accounts) for posting in events. That's for each single post.
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Michael: Conversely what would you say irks you the most ? (aside from annoying interviewers)
Desirae: So called "managers" and "management groups". Only a few don't believe they are the most important persons and treat "tips only" venues like Surfside like supplicants and second or third class.
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Michael: At Toggle For Music we are now a few months into our crusade, with our website / blog, to promote SL live music in any way we can. Could you give us any advice on ways we could improve what we do?
Desirae: There are so many real good musicians who run completely under the radar and don't get a following. We often talk about that and have no clue why.
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Thank You Desirae !!!
![Surfside [FB Promotion] 2.png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/973b42_908b46626e6f4f21a8c61d516c81e30b~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_60,h_30,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/Surfside%20%5BFB%20Promotion%5D%202.png)