Neufreistadt Marktplatz

[Sonja Strom]

In an expression of something I did not like about the CDS in this thread: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2293 I surprised myself a little by talking about the Marktplatz in Neufreistadt. It was something of a surprise for me because I had not done anything before to make it better. I looked through this Forum to see if I could find a thread about the Marktplatz, and I could not. So here is one!

To start this thread off, I will say what I wrote there:

I find the relatively desolate shopping experience of the Neufreistadt Marktplatz disappointing. Besides a "Political Party Row" and a huge Visitor Centre there are just a few interesting shops (and I do want to say it is a very good thing they are there), but even they don't have a lot of objects in them. The buildings there are also separated with spaces in-between and those on the north side do not have ground in front of or under them, which is something I noticed right away and seems sloppy because I have never seen that in the town square of any RL Central European community.

When I was in school in the 1980s I went on a sponsored tour to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and the atmosphere of the NFS Marktplatz (outside of our Oktoberfest parties, which have been great) reminds me surprisingly of how those towns felt, especially the town of Weimar.

[Rose Springvale]

i'll throw this up on the agenda for the guild to look at.. some of it i think is easily fixed.

PART of the problem is prims. There just is no way around that. let's start a wish list for what we'd like to see in our retail centers?

When i was in Germany the first time .. a few years ago.. i bought boots and pastry. My feet were always cold (who goes to germany for a vacation in January ?)

[Grey Ashdene]

Yes, I noticed the lack of shopping at first. I assumed the plaza was in transition, and that is was much more lively during Octoberfest, and at similar times. One concept that might be considered would be an incubator space. This is a concept in some liberal cities in the United States whereby the city furnishes a small space at a lower rent so that businesses can get a start. The rental period is limited in time, and after the business grows it moves elsewhere in the city, pulling its customers with it.

Could something like that work in NFS? In the Roman themed SIMS?

[Rose Springvale]

I really don't think the rental cost is the issue. I offered free space to anyone in CDS when i ran the Emporium in CN, space shared with top designers in SL (Eros Design, Sub Zero, First Impressions, Irelyn, Cynthia's Heaven, plus a room full of newer designers) and where weekly or more i hosted live music to draw traffic. While on CDS vendor accepted the offer, the person never put anything there. All the designers had effectively free "rent".. remember renting is not allowed at present in our sims. When they sold things, they shared profits. They sold almost nothing.

I believe there is a shop like this now on the NFS platz as well, carrying goods of a non citizen designer.

I also was part of a venture to provide workshop space free of charge to artists in the building currently occupied by Outsider Art. Again, no takers.

I'm pretty sure It isn't the cost that is the issue. And if it is, and you know someone who would open a store but for the cost of the tier, they should contact the exec staff. (whoever that may be next term) It is reasonable to believe that we can find sponsors. So while I'm very interested in this discussion, i think we need to think more creatively than cost.

Incidentally, we have offered market space at Oktoberfest free of charge for the last two years. I've had to beg people to take a stall.

Your chancellor has done quite a bit of work in this area that never seems to make it to the agenda of the RA. One of the things we've been working on is a directory. A physical count of people with things for sale in our 4 sims totalled approximately 50. Query... why don't we have 50 people participating in the events that promote tourism and business in the sims? Why don't they have their shops listed in their "picks" or run classifieds? It is great to be a community and have community effort to promote CDS, but the ultimate responsibility for success in any business has to be its own. That's why a top down chamber of commerce doesn't work.