SL reaches its 13th anniversary: it’s time to celebrate

SL13B: The Story Teller, one of the stages at the event

It’s time to commemorate another anniversary of Second Life and its impressive 13 years of full existence – which is a remarkable milestone in this ever-changing tech world. The party at SL13B Community Celebration starts today, June 19, at noon (SL Time) and goes up to June 26. The official anniversary day is the 23rd, when, more than a decade ago, SL left its beta stage.

The turtle stage

SL13B is going to be celebrated by the community at a group of 17 regions with over 200 exhibits and more than 600 performers, DJs and speakers, according to the organizers of the event. The whole schedule can be consulted on their official webpage. And even if the party will come to an and on the 26th, the sims will be kept open for another week, so visitors will still be able to see the buildings there, including the Auditorium and the four different stages (and it’s worth noticing that at least two of them, the Turtle Live one and the Cake Stage, are references to buildings seen on past SLB editions).

Mad Pea's Mad Monster Mountain: Entrance

Mad Pea is among the exhibitors, with its Mad Monster Mountain

Inside Mad Pea’s Monster Mountain

This year’s theme is “The Shared Adventure” and, for the third year in a row, there will be a hunt during the celebration (after all, isn’t a hunt an adventure too?). A map on the official website shows where you can go searching for gifts and prizes.

Another exhibition (foreground) and the Cake Stage

Out of curiosity, it’s interesting to notice that SL’s anniversary is different from its birthday. The anniversary, on June 23, marks the day in 2003 when it left the beta stage. The birthday, on March 13, is the day that the first resident, Steller Sunshine, joined SL, in 2002, even before the public beta release – in other words, SL’s birthday is Steller Sunshine’s rez day.

DJs’ stage at SL13B

The confusion between the anniversary and the birthday started when Tateru Nino organized the third anniversary. According to herself, she somehow had the wrong dates in her head and called the event SL3B. She said that the Lindens didn’t like her mistake very much at first, but things went out of control and since then the anniversaries have been promoted as “4B”, “5B”, “6B” and so on.

The Auditorium

That said, I hope you enjoy SL13B. I’ll certainly be exploring the regions in detail – starting with the Welcome Area – and going to performances there, during the week. See you!