HIE Expo, Something for Everyone

 Freebies are always a magnet at any event and this year's HIE Expo has plenty of them - everything from houses to hats. But there's much more than just a gift or two on offer here. This year we have about 130 booths, representing about 80 different grids, big and small, of every persuasion and point of view, showing just how much there is to love and to learn about Opensim.

There are plenty of dance places and performers are represented on the build, but Opensim offers plenty of other things to see and to do, like Aba Brukh's fascinating regions about Abyssinia - a chance to take a trip in time and space to ancient Africa. 

Most of the booths feature Landmarks so you can go and visit the regions or grids being promoted, although one or two on OSGrid may require a little bit of patience before you'll be able to see them again. 

Other places and groups are as busy as can be, offering a wide range of ways to engage with the community, like VWEC, the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium, or what about some Roleplay with groups like Carima, Candoranien, Starfleet Infinity, Genesis RP Grid, Wyldwood Bayou Grid's two RP groups, and Westeros shown here, a Game of Thrones inspired roleplay group on Wolf Territories.

The Westeros booth is in the blue zone of the Expo park

All this plus Bible Study, Big Art, BDSM, tech tools, scifi, and cultural milestones... the Expo really has something for just about everyone.

Visit the Expo Park any time, and be sure to come along for the Conference during the weekend of 4-6 April. See our Schedule for full details of the speakers!
HG Address: grid.hgsafari.org:58002

The beautiful creation of Lampithaler Artist

Cherry and Morlita at HIE !

 On the weekend of 5 and 6 April, we will be holding the 2025 conference of the Hypergrid International Expo. The program is complete, and we are deep into our preparations!

It's quite a big task to put together 12 different presentations, in four languages. In each section of the event there is an artistic performance, like this one by MorlitaM and Cherry Manga... here is a little hint of it.

These performances involve weeks of work both onsite and on the artists' home grids. Their collaboration is key to bringing about a fabulous inworld immersive experience for our public, so much more than can be expressed in a video - so be sure not to miss the French session of HIE this year, it begins at 12:00 SLT on Saturday April 5.

HG Address:  grid.hgsafari.org:58002:HIE

Tech Talks at HIE

 This year's HIE conference is right around the corner, on the weekend of 5 and 6 April - will you attend? 

The speeches will be given in a variety of languages, but if your native tongue is English, don't worry - we've got you covered! Subtitles in English, as well as French, German,Italian, Spanish will be available again this year so you can follow along.

One of our speakers will be Neo Cortex. In RL a software guy, Neo has been around Opensim since its earliest days, running a small grid of his own and also experimenting with scripting. His talk this year will be about a tool he has developed for the Nara's Nook writing group, led by Nara Malone. Neo's innovations and adaptations of other tools make it easier for them to use the 3D platform to tell their stories, and to engage their readers as part of the adventure of the plot line. 

Neo Cortex

This interesting project will involve some inworld examples of NPCs, and information about how you can benefit from, maybe even contribute, to Neo's Story Sequencer project.

Join us inworld on April 5 at 9am SLT for the German session of the Hypergrid International Expo. You'll be glad you did!

HG Address: grid.hgsafari.org:58002:HIE

Ein Spaziergang übers Expo-Gelände

O schau, da stehen sie wieder

Wie bunte Melodien

Kreativer, schöner Lieder

Aus Opensim Galaxien!

Mein Herz kann sie verstehen,

Denn auf jahrelanger Fahrt

Erwarb es ein Wissen von Wehen

und Freuden höchst virtueller Art.

Ich liebe diese kleinen Kunstwerke,

die an allen Wegen stehn

Als hinreißende Augenmerke

Ihrer Designer leuchtender Ideen.

Das erste, was auffällt, ist tatsächlich das schöne und liebevoll gestaltete Drumherum... Berge, Wasserfälle, Flüsse - es fehlt wirklich nichts. Durch diese Schönheit schlängelt sich ein komplizierter, sich immer wieder verzweigender Pfad und genau in der Mitte befindet sich der Zuschauerraum mit Bühne und Darstellungsfläche für die Vortragenden und die Künstler:innen!

Der Pfad der Ausstellungs-Stände

Ich bin dem Pfad gefolgt, nicht etwa in geordneter Folge, Stand für Stand abklappernd, sondern eher chaotisch (wie es meine Art ist...), mal hier mal da schauend.

Setting up the Expo

The park that surrounds the auditorium for the Hypergrid International Expo, or 'HIE' for short, isn't the biggest expo park in Opensim, or the one with the biggest builds, but it is chock full of fun and diversity every year.

HIE Auditorium 

The Conference part of HIE happens in April - from the opening party on Friday April 4, through two days of talks in French, German, Italian and Spanish, with subtitles provided, if you don't speak those languages.

But before that, and after it also, we have a huge expo where everyone in Opensim, whatever their language, can participate, with a simple booth, like a market stall, where they can tell everyone about their grid, or their sim, or their project. 

Everyone is welcome, there is no charge to participate in this event, and your booth can be simple or more complicated, as you prefer, keeping in mind the need to maintain reasonable levels of lag on the sim.

Booth News!

 The next Expo is in April 2025 but we're gearing up already to create the Expo park full of publicity booths where you can let the community know about your grid, your region, your projects. As always there is no charge to participate, and all are welcome. 

This year we have an innovation - Petlove Petshop has prepared a series of how-to videos - in seven languages! Congrats to her for all her hard work, and for the seven narrators - Rosa Alekseev for Portuguese, Minord Loup for French, the German one is narrated by Loru Destiny, and we have Akasha Kokuu for Japanese, Karima Hoisan for Spanish , Lux Tergeste for Italian and James Atlloud for English - thank you all so much for participating!

While it's true that AI makes translations easier these days, authentic language speakers can't be beaten especially when you've got specific jargon like the kind of specialized terms which we use on our virtual platform. Plus it's fun to emphasize the beauty of our multi-language society.

Just to give you a flavor, here's the Japanese one, you'll see the others on our Youtube Channel.

The idea is to make it as easy as possible for people of all languages to participate, and to answer the frequent questions about what's needed when making a booth - where to get one, who to give it to when finished, what limits there are on the way you can mod it. Please, share these videos with anyone you think ought to be represented at HIE, and with all your friends. Liking and commenting on the videos also helps us to get the message out there by 'feeding the algorithm' so if you can, do your part to help us out.

200 Days before the next HIE

Wait, what? Two hundred days from now? That's forever! 

Well, kinda... but time is like a train, chugging along with a regular rhythm but moving much faster than you think until it's suddenly right there, on top of you! So we're already planning ahead for the next HIE event, which will be from April 4 to April 6,  2025. Scroll to the end of this post to find out how you can stay informed about the event via the Socials.

What is HIE, or Hypergrid International Expo? 

If you're a regular reader of this blog you already know! If you're new to the idea.... it is an Opensim conference, party, expo, and art performance extravaganza, experienced live and archived on our Youtube Channel - please help people find it more easily by giving a Like and Subscribe! 

HIE gives Opensim people of any and all grids, whose first language is not English, the opportunity to speak about the projects, experiments, sims, and builds that they are proud of. They get to tell their stories in their own languages, and we provide a sort of Subtitle system that allows you to follow what's being said in English, or any one of the major languages of Opensim.

In the past, HIE has been held on Craft Grid, with the kind assistance of the lovely Licu Rau.

This year, we have a new home, a 3x3 space on the new HG Safari grid - address at the end of the page. This will resolve a few logistical issues, and means we have a brand new playground for all the HIE activities.

Nazirah Avro speaking in Spanish, HIE23

Why aren't the talks in English?

Simple - there already is a very big annual event for Opensim, where all presentations are given in English. It's called the OSCC  the Opensimulator Community Conference and this year the 12th annual event will be held on December 7 - 8, 2024. However, not everyone's comfortable giving a lecture in English, so the Hypergrid International Expo is a space for these other voices, a sister convention, if you like.