HiveFest this year was a big success and was great fun, too! It was a strange twist of fate that COVID required the event to take place online in 'virtual' space which enabled many of us to attend that would not have otherwise been able. 🙌 This was the fifth year of in-person meetups that have been organized by 
Before saying anything more, I wish to say, "Thank you!" to
The AltspaceVR software from AltVR.com was delightful and fun to use. Sadly, it was not without bugs, but was still fun. Users who purchased VR-headsets might have had a bit of an enchanced experience, but I found that the "2D Mode" worked quite well and saved money for those of us who are not hardcore gamers.
The view in the above screenshot is a corner of my apartment in AltVR world. The blades on the fan actually rotate! There's a wad of paper on the floor beside the trashcan, and you can actually pick it up and try your luck tossing it into the can. 😂 Outside on the rooftop veranda, there are sofas & chairs and a basketball hoop for shooting basketballs; I wasn't very good... 😜 There were two boxes of fireworks which you can light and launch, watching them explode in the sky. Every so often, a blimp can be seen passing by overhead. And no, I didn't experiement to see what happened if a firework was launched at a blimp... 😱
The screenshot above shows my avatar, which is a reasonable representation of what I look like in real life. My hair isn't really pink in real life, though, and I do have arms in real life. Checking-in at a 'Badge Computer' provided a badge for each attendee to wear. The 'Badge Computers' were down, periodically, and one person told me they never worked for him. 😕
Below, one can see the little log cabin that served as the first available 'check-in' spot, with a 'Badge Computer' on the front porch. Smoke was actually billowing out of the chimney of the cabin!
All of our avatars looked like little LEGO-people. From the photos I have seen of some of the folks on Hive, it appeared that most everyone made an effort to customize their avatars to look somewhat like them. That made it easier to recognize people immediately, without having to hover over their avatar to read their name or look at their badge.
I have talked to 
Funny story... I remember on that other blockchain, the one that 
SteemitBoard HiveBuzz's posts ended with a note that said it was "...a project created by 
This leads me to another frustration with the bugs on AltVR...
In that conversation with
HOWEVER... After we parted company, I went to the LiveStage area and no one had a HiveFest badge on which to click. I clicked on "Re-enter Space" in the menu and there were still no badges. I exited AltVR and restarted the app, and there were still no badges. I even rebooted my computer, and there were still no badges for the remainder of HiveFest. So, my HiveBuzz page will indicate that I spoke with only two Hiveans because of the glitch with the badges. 😞
Another cool feature when the badges were working was viewing 'Stats' on each attendee (shown in the pic below-left). One could see how long they'd been on-chain, how much HP they staked, their account name, etc.
Below-right, one can see the campfire burning in The Lobby world, not far from the log cabin. The flames really move and makes a crackling noise like a real fire. Those little touches to the software were awesome!
Below-left, one can see a screenshot after one of the presentations. When users applaud, a stream of little "clapping hands" emojis rise up from each person's avatar, providing visual feedback for the presenter, who can easily still be heard if they're speaking. I thought that was a great solution!
Below-right is another selfie I made, mostly to show the diversity of trees in the landscape, both conifers as well as deciduous trees! The designers really did a good job rendering the AltspaceVR environment!
I was able to "meet" many Hiveans at HiveFest and saw many more that I recognized from a distance. Some of the people I saw and recognized were 
It was even harder after the badges stopped working to try to figure out who everyone was. There were also many that I saw and recognized their names but had no direct interactions in the past, and quite a few names I'd never heard in the 3+ years I have been here.
There were many people who were unable to attend and asked to see screenshots of what we saw at HiveFest (such as 
😊
21-Dec-2020