The HA and Item Suggestions forums have umpteen topics where users are begging for items. They include sports equipment and clothing, medieval armour and weapons, science lab equipment and (my own) SAI items for pets with jobs there.

The only thing listed for summer is Neugarten and I got the impression that not everyone is looking forward to another festival of vegan food. Perhaps people would be happy with lots of items they want instead of some big plot. On the other hand, maybe not.

What do people think?

The Neugarten suggestions thread is way ahead of you on making all those items into a cohesive event Neugarten 2019 Suggestions. The brainstorming in that thread has gone to some hybrid between ren-faire and a craft/sustainability/summer market, of course it is up to the admins and artists to decide what neugarten will become.

I was thinking of just having items put into shops without having an actual summer event to go with them. Sporting equipment could be added to GoOutside, for example.

Maleria is in Darkside. Perhaps her quest shop could have some laboratory equipment prefixed with Genetech. The Library quest shop could have some medieval stuff called things like Knight Book Illustration or whatever.

This would cut down the programming side of things and allow the staff to get on with the Tea House.

As for the Brewery, perhaps it could now be open all year. If artists ever have the inspiration to add stuff to it they can when they get the time.

PS: Further thought - The Main shops aren't on any map so maybe we could have a couple of new main shops. One could be for historical re-enactment/fancy dress. It would be lovely to have a trade fair with hundreds of requested items but that would be a lot of work under pressure for the artists.

I can't tell what is Suggested here. Many new items are made to be event-specific on-purpose. There didn't used to be a summer event, and it just so happens that there will be one now as an outgrowth of the site. Keelhauliday didn't used to be a big honking deal. Subeta's anniversary did used to be a big honking deal

The decision to make most items this event-specific was made years ago to make the site less about being one giant restock war. Doing this also encourages participation as a group and makes the toy-economics of the site more social. It also allows more coordinated planning of items. Subeta's been like this for a long time now.

Are there some summer things you want that can't fit in? Do you feel bad Suggesting them?

I realise now that my opening post isn't very clear. What I meant was no summer event at all this year, just artists going through the item/HA request topics and providing the items. For example, this topic was made on 11/9/18 -

Single Sheer Glove (all bases) for the other arm Post 3 reveals that a topic requesting this was first made on 11/10/17 and a second topic about it was made on 01/27/18

If the artists didn't have to create a lot of new items for a special event they'd have some time to concentrate on requests before the really hectic months starting with Keelhauliday and ending with Vesnali next year