SL12B Cake Stage

The events may be over at SL12B — Second Life's 12th Birthday celebration — but a few days still remain to take in the sights. Among them is a most astonishing build, the Cake Stage, designed and constructed by Mikati Slade. If you have time to see only one thing at SL12B, this would be it: a mammoth and exuberantly colorful structure that encompasses four regions and towers 200 meters into the air. (If you click on the top image to zoom in, just to give a sense of scale, you'll see me, a tiny dot just past the red carpet on the left.) Mikati, whose work was aptly described by Bryn Oh as "a sophisticated 8-bit cone of candyfloss," remarked to me that she thought it was the best thing she's ever created.

At the center of the structure — the intersection of the sims Fascinate, Pizzazz, Captivate, and Stunning (indeed, all apt words for describing the Cake Stage, although the names of the other SL12B sims — Impressive, Beguile, Wonderous, Astonish, Spellbound, Astound, Enchant, Spectacular, Electrify, Dazzle, and Stupendous — would all be fitting descriptors as well) — is a stage that affords a remarkable view, looking up through the girders, arches and supports toward the top of the build. In keeping with SL12B design principles, the Cake Stage prims are phantom, making it easy to fly unhindered to explore all its facets. Outside, encircling the large cake, are twelve smaller cakes, inside each of which is a small gift. The SL12B sims will continue to be accessible until July 4.