I got a kick out of reading B.L. Ochman's account of  a mobbed party in Second Life that happened last night from the Successful First Girls Night Out. 

"….iVillage's first Girl's Night Out sounded great. Join us for virtual champagne, they said, "and an exclusive insider tour to showcase the great locations, personalities, music and content” in Second Life - and a pink HUD to wear to lead us through the various attractions.

But Girl's Night Out quickly descended into chaos, with a swarm of avatars trying to get to the first spot, which was full, as was the second, and who knows about the third because an hour had been eaten by that time and I had to go. "

I was listening to an IBM call the other day about the work IBM'rs are doing in Second Life - including building a replica of all the IBM research labs from around the world.  The speaker on the call, a well known IBM Scientist - said the technical limitations of SL included a limit of the number of Avatars that can attend an event to ~75 (if that many).   Bear that in mind when you read B.L.'s post.

"…Most SL areas can only accommodate 40 residents at a time, so iVillage probably needs to create many small groups and set a time frame for how long each group will stay in each SIM or the same mess will happen when they do the next one in two weeks.

I had to laugh that in the midst of the chaos two residents were carrying on inane cocktail party chat that sounded like a therapy session. Maybe they had too much virtual champagne. Me, I couldn't find the fucking pink champagne flute for the first half hour. Sigh."

I guess you can get drunk on "virtual" champagne as easily as real champagne in SL.