Announcing Community Celebration Events

[+Geocaching HQ 361]

Celebrate 20 years of geocaching at Community Celebration Events

 

Beginning today, eligible geocachers can apply to host Community Celebration Events in 2020. These events will enable cachers around the world to commemorate the 20th anniversary of geocaching with a new icon and souvenir.

 

This cache type was originally known as the Lost and Found Event Cache. It was created for events that were hosted by geocachers from April 30, 2010 to May 3, 2010 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of geocaching. Just 362 Lost and Found Events were held, so a very limited number of cachers earned the icon. We’re excited that many thousands more cachers will have a chance to celebrate a big anniversary and get the redesigned icon in 2020!

 

To be eligible to apply to host a Community Celebration Event, you must meet the following criteria:

 

Attendance: You must have attended at least two (2) Events or CITOs within the last three (3) years (between December 2, 2016 and December 2, 2019).

 

Activity: You must have logged a cache within the past six (6) months (between June 2, 2019 and December 2, 2019).

 

If you meet the criteria, apply via the opt-in page by June 3, 2020. If you own multiple Geocaching.com accounts, please apply with only one account. Each month from January through October, at least 2,020 hosts will be randomly selected from those who opt-in (with geographic distribution). If selected, you will receive one of 20,200 or more Community Celebration Events! All official community volunteers (reviewers, moderators, and translators), and the primary accounts for all 2020 Mega- and Giga-Events  will receive a Celebration Event.

 

Winners must host events between May 2, 2020 and December 31, 2020. Events must be a minimum of two hours, and cannot overlap with events associated with a Mega- or Giga-Event. For more guidance, see the Help Center article on Community Celebration Events.

 

Between Community Celebration Events and the Geocaching 20th Anniversary Celebration in Seattle, 2020 is shaping up to be quite a party!

 

Here are answers to some common questions:

How did you choose the number of Community Celebration Events to be released worldwide?

Since we’re turning 20 in the year 2020, we think the best way to celebrate is with more than 20,200 birthday parties around the world! To provide the best experience for all attendees and to prevent over-saturation, we’re offering a limited, special release of the icon.

 

Why are you distributing 2,020 per month, instead of giving them all at once?

We believe there will be a lot of excitement about publishing these events. We want to distribute the effort of reviewing them by community volunteer reviewers over time. And we hope this helps minimizes people choosing the same date and time for their event. 

 

I just submitted my request for a Community Celebration Event Cache, when will I find out whether I receive one?

The applicants selected to host a Community Celebration Event will be notified via email between January and October 2020. If you misplace the email, the Event page will be created on your Geocaching.com account and will display in your list of unpublished caches. Applicants who are not selected will not be notified.

 

I don’t qualify to host a Community Celebration Event, what can I do?

You may not qualify to host this particular cache type, but you are still eligible to host a regular Event Cache with your own celebration theme! 

 

I want to celebrate a geocaching anniversary on a specific date, what can I do?

Unfortunately, selected event hosts won’t be determined ahead of time, so we are unable to honor requests for cachers with a specific date in mind. We recommend hosting a regular Event Cache with your own celebration theme, instead.

 

I received the opportunity to host a Community Celebration Event Cache, how soon can I submit it to my reviewer for publishing?

Community Celebration Events may be submitted for review up to six (6) months and no less than two (2) weeks in advance of your chosen Event date.

 

How long do I have to submit my Community Celebration Event Cache for review?

Events may be hosted May 2, 2020 through December 31, 2020. The final date to submit the cache page of your Community Celebration Event is December 17, 2020.

 

I just logged drafts for finding a cache or attending Events or CITOs, why don’t I qualify to host this Event?

All logging activity must have occurred prior to December 2, 2019 to qualify. Although the date of your draft may have been before this date, the date you submitted the draft is ineligible.

 

How do I find a Community Celebration Event happening near me?
We’re glad you asked! View a list of Community Celebration Events here.

 

(This information is also available in the Geocaching Blog.)

[+bflentje 430]

I get web server error 500 when trying to Opt In.

[Rock Chalk 247]

3 minutes ago, bflentje said:

I get web server error 500 when trying to Opt In.

 

Our engineers are working on a fix. Sorry for the inconvenience. Certainly not the way we wanted to get started!

[Rock Chalk 247]

Looks like we're back in business. Sorry for the hiccup!

[+bflentje 430]

2 minutes ago, Rock Chalk said:

Looks like we're back in business. Sorry for the hiccup!

 

Thanks. Looks like it just worked. At least it thanked me for my entry. Hoping I am on the list of possible cachers. :-)

[+GeoElmo6000 250]

I put my request in.  Hopefully I do better in this lottery than all the other GC HQ lotteries!  

[+thebruce0 2489]

Likewise, we'll see how this one turns out

[+speakers-corner 71]

Everything went through ok, I hope I get the chance to host a Community Celebration Event. This will be some year.

[+Lynx Humble 437]

2 hours ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

I put my request in.  Hopefully I do better in this lottery than all the other GC HQ lotteries!  

I don't know how many qualify and want to hold an event but I am pretty sure with 20 200 the % chosen will be high.

[+The A-Team 1861]

18 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

I don't know how many qualify and want to hold an event but I am pretty sure with 20 200 the % chosen will be high.

 

I vaguely recall that we got some numbers for how many entered for the chance to get a Virtual or Lab/Adventure. Does anyone remember where those numbers were? I'm curious how those numbers compare to the 20200 chances in this. For example, is there often only about 20000 interested cachers for these things, so everyone that enters would get one?

[+barefootjeff 3841]

7 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

 

I vaguely recall that we got some numbers for how many entered for the chance to get a Virtual or Lab/Adventure. Does anyone remember where those numbers were? I'm curious how those numbers compare to the 20200 chances in this. For example, is there often only about 20000 interested cachers for these things, so everyone that enters would get one?

 

This might be what you're looking for (it's from the Introducing Virtual Rewards 2.0! thread):

 

Quote

• 18,527 geocachers opted in 
• 22% of opt-ins received a Virtual Reward
• 75 countries are represented  
• 27 community volunteers 
• Most countries received *more* Virtuals, compared to Virtual Rewards 1.0 

 

So I guess if there are the same number of applicants, everyone would get an event.

 

I've just thrown my hat into the ring, but in doing that I started wondering how fine-toothed their geographic distribution will be. If it's only by country or state, I can envisage one region getting a glut of them and the next region getting none, as seemed to happen here with the virtual rewards. I can imagine the first of these events in a region will be well-attended but by the sixth or seventh maybe not.

[+The A-Team 1861]

Thanks barefootjeff, that's what I was looking for.

 

Given the longer opt-in period, there's a good chance that there would be more applicants than before. Even then, I expect the odds would be pretty good for each person. If there are 5 times as many applicants as for VR2.0 (which is probably on the very high side), each applicant would have a 1 in 4.5 chance of hosting a CC Event. Your odds will probably be better than that.

 

Honestly, 20200 seems like too many, even considering that not all of them will actually occur. Like you said, there will probably be regions with so many that they have one every month (or more) and attendees will probably get sick of them. I'm not sure of a good way to check, but I'm curious how many events are held each year. For example, how many events were held in 2018 and 2019 (including ones that haven't occurred yet)? If it's on the order of 20000, it could turn out that every event that would normally be held in 2020 will be a CC Event instead.

Edited December 3, 2019 by The A-Team

[+thebruce0 2489]

And I just realized, if you're open to collaborate with someone else, and you all apply, you won't really know if together you only need to put on one event, if another person will be rewarded an event a month or two down the line and then you get another redundant event.   I guess that would have to go into the planning if intend to collaborate, planning for a potential multi-event series. heh

[+hyliston 6]

17 hours ago, The A-Team said:

I'm not sure of a good way to check, but I'm curious how many events are held each year. For example, how many events were held in 2018 and 2019 (including ones that haven't occurred yet)? If it's on the order of 20000, it could turn out that every event that would normally be held in 2020 will be a CC Event instead.

 

You can get the numbers from project-gc.  This is only events (no CITO or Mega, etc. -- I think) in the US only:

 

2001    73
2002    316
2003    599
2004    966
2005    1281
2006    1638
2007    2310
2008    3090
2009    3479
2010    3900
2011    4618
2012    6099
2013    7716
2014    7659
2015    7727
2016    7775
2017    7981
2018    8366
2019    7145 so far

 

But I'm sure the same geocacher hosted multiple events in a year.

[+thebruce0 2489]

Yeah I'm thinking there's going to be a whole lot of 'flash mob' style events And people may be trying to get as many of these icons as possible while possible.

 

A part of me wonders if HQ intended to say 2,020, not 20,200. The former seems much more reasonable...

[+Lynx Humble 437]

40 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Yeah I'm thinking there's going to be a whole lot of 'flash mob' style events And people may be trying to get as many of these icons as possible while possible.

 

A part of me wonders if HQ intended to say 2,020, not 20,200. The former seems much more reasonable...

Well the help center says the event must last 2 hr. I don't know why they decided that. 

[+The A-Team 1861]

5 hours ago, hyliston said:

 

You can get the numbers from project-gc.  This is only events (no CITO or Mega, etc. -- I think) in the US only:

 

2001    73
2002    316
2003    599
2004    966
2005    1281
2006    1638
2007    2310
2008    3090
2009    3479
2010    3900
2011    4618
2012    6099
2013    7716
2014    7659
2015    7727
2016    7775
2017    7981
2018    8366
2019    7145 so far

 

But I'm sure the same geocacher hosted multiple events in a year.

 

I don't see a simple way to view the data grouped by year, so I'm assuming you used some other tool to parse the raw data from the page's source.

 

Regardless, doing a rough extrapolation from those numbers to also include the other major event-hosting countries, I fully expect that the total is well over 20000. Even if there are events being hosted by the same cacher, I bet the number of unique event hosts per year worldwide is still over 10000. If all of those opt-in, that's a 1 in 2 shot.

[+The A-Team 1861]

1 hour ago, Lynx Humble said:

Well the help center says the event must last 2 hr. I don't know why they decided that. 

 

I noticed that too. Requiring the event to last 2 hours implies that HQ feels these are elaborate, special events with a lot going on. This seems to conflict with the 20200 number, which implies the exact opposite (widespread, common events).

 

While officially these events will be listed as being 2 hours or longer, the reality is that many will end up being shorter, especially after cachers have attended a dozen of them already. We'll thus have totally expected conflicts as follows:

• ...10 CC events are held in an area...
• The 11th CC event in the area is held, with a listed event length of 2 hours
• 30 minutes into the event, everyone realizes there really isn't much more to talk about since the CC event last month (and the organizer couldn't think up many activities that haven't already been done at the other 10 events). The attendees gradually leave until only the organizer remains.
• 1 hour into the event, the organizer gets tired of sitting there doing nothing, so they leave.
• 1.5 hours into the event, another cacher arrives. Not seeing anyone else there, they log that they attended and leave.
• The organizer, having not seen the above cacher at the event, deletes what they see as a bogus log.
• Drama ensues.

Sure, that might not happen. I bet it does, though.

[+funkymunkyzone 533]

My question, and I have posed this to Groundspeak (but not quite got the answer yet) is when will Mega/Giga event organisers get their Community Celebration Events granted.  I know for myself, with all the organisation going on for mega related stuff next year, we already had plans for running a very specific Community Celebration Event long before they announced the ballot and the rolling release of them.  Sure hope we don't get the event granted too late to use for our very specific and important date!

[+funkymunkyzone 533]

33 minutes ago, funkymunkyzone said:

My question, and I have posed this to Groundspeak (but not quite got the answer yet) is when will Mega/Giga event organisers get their Community Celebration Events granted.  I know for myself, with all the organisation going on for mega related stuff next year, we already had plans for running a very specific Community Celebration Event long before they announced the ballot and the rolling release of them.  Sure hope we don't get the event granted too late to use for our very specific and important date!

 

Never mind, minutes after my post I got an email confirming the date I will receive an unpublished Community Celebration Event page, yay!

[+arisoft 824]

11 hours ago, Lynx Humble said:

Well the help center says the event must last 2 hr. I don't know why they decided that. 

 

This is very welcome requirement. My own threshold for attending is one hour. For some reason almost every event is micro sized ½ hours and I skip them frequently.

 

I hope that cache size attribute would relate the event duration. Less than 1 hour is micro sized, Less than 2 hours is small etc...

[+barefootjeff 3841]

1 hour ago, arisoft said:

13 hours ago, Lynx Humble said:

Well the help center says the event must last 2 hr. I don't know why they decided that. 

 

This is very welcome requirement. My own threshold for attending is one hour. For some reason almost every event is micro sized ½ hours and I skip them frequently.

 

I hope that cache size attribute would relate the event duration. Less than 1 hour is micro sized, Less than 2 hours is small etc...

 

The two Christmas events I attended last weekend were two and three hours respectively, and my own Where in the world is Signal? event a couple of years back was also two hours, so that seems to be the regular size here. Some stay the full time (or longer) while others come and go so it's generally a comfortable length, but we're probably a bit laid back here compared to other more helter-skelter places.

[+VAVAPAM 165]

EEK!  I just wanted to see what the application looked like - didn't realize that clicking on the button would automagically enter me.

 

I'm not sure yet if I can host an event, so didn't mean to be entered.  Is there a way to un-do my entry?

[+Isonzo Karst 937]

51 minutes ago, VAVAPAM said:

  Is there a way to un-do my entry?

Probably not, but you may not get one. And if you do, you'll have an entire year, up to Dec 17 2020 to do something with it.  I bet you'll work something out ;-)

[+GeoElmo6000 250]

1 hour ago, VAVAPAM said:

I'm not sure yet if I can host an event, so didn't mean to be entered.  Is there a way to un-do my entry?

 

If you win an event, just go for it and have fun!  I used to never even attend events, but then I went to one and realized how nice geocachers are.  Now events make up 40% of my "hidden caches" and I've made a lot of friends hosting and attending.  Each year I host two ice cream socials (besides other events), and even though I schedule those for one hour, they last more than two hours, just standing around a parking lot geo-chatting.  It's amazing how much traction you get when you throw out some simple questions like "what's your favorite cache you've ever done?"; then you just sit back and let everyone excitedly tell everyone their stories.  Easy peasy.

[+Corfman Clan 46]

I hosted one of the 10 years events and have been planning on hosting a 20 year event at essentially the same time and place. This whole application process seems to throw that out the door. Well I suppose the stars could align. I'll wait and see.

[+thebruce0 2489]

If it really is 20,200 events in most of 2020, it seems likely most everyone who applies will get one...

[+K13 1038]

On 12/5/2019 at 11:25 AM, thebruce0 said:

If it really is 20,200 events in most of 2020, it seems likely most everyone who applies will get one...

...or two, or more.

[+thebruce0 2489]

10 hours ago, K13 said:

On 12/5/2019 at 12:25 PM, thebruce0 said:

If it really is 20,200 events in most of 2020, it seems likely most everyone who applies will get one...

...or two, or more.

 

Not by user account.

[+K13 1038]

9 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

 

Not by user account.

If they really wanted to reach the 20,200 number, some of us may have to get more than one.

[+thebruce0 2489]

Ah, I get what you mean now.

[+Harry Dolphin 1168]

I assume that a CITO event would qualify?

[+Isonzo Karst 937]

12 hours ago, Harry Dolphin said:

I assume that a CITO event would qualify?

 

The event page will be created by HQ as its type,  Community Celebration Event, and be assigned to a CO.  CITO could be offered as an  event activity I suppose.

 

I expect this will work the same way the V1 and V2 Virts did. You find the cache page among your unpublished caches , you don't create it. Possibly the 2 hour minimum time frame will be built into the cache type - or it could  be something reviewers check for, given the extra coding that would require.

 

The 10 Year! events were created by CO as Meet and Greet, and used the naming convention so that staff could find them, and assign the type. I assume they found that way too time consuming to do again.

Edited December 15, 2019 by Isonzo Karst

[+hzoi 1580]

On 12/15/2019 at 12:21 PM, Isonzo Karst said:

The 10 Year! events were created by CO as Meet and Greet, and used the naming convention so that staff could find them, and assign the type. I assume they found that way too time consuming to do again.

 

That, and/or it made more sense to use the mechanism that was created for the Virtual Rewards 1 & 2.

[+EggsTheBest 45]

Well, it seems that the first batch of winners have received the events!

 

Source: got one myself

[+thebruce0 2489]

Yes indeed

[+barefootjeff 3841]

I also got one .

[+CaracalShan 5]

It seems the first one is already published as well: GC8HMJR. More will surely follow soon, looking forward to them!

[+barefootjeff 3841]

10 minutes ago, CaracalShan said:

It seems the first one is already published as well: GC8HMJR. More will surely follow soon, looking forward to them!

 

That was quick. I looked at the translation and the thing that caught my eye was the bit right at the bottom about staying to enjoy the great weather. Surely that's an open invitation to the weather gods to bring on the mother of all tempests that day!

[+The A-Team 1861]

For anyone who's interested, here's a search that will only show Community Celebration events worldwide:

https://www.geocaching.com/play/search?types=3653

 

So far there's just the one.

 

BTW, if any Lackeys are reading this, the icon on the mini-map is still the old 10 Years! one and needs to be updated.

[+funkymunkyzone 533]

I've tried editing and saving mine, but I just keep getting a server error:

 

And I can change the country to New Zealand, but the states don't update so I'm left with only the selection of US states.

 

As a result, all of the changes I made to the page were lost... :/

[+funkymunkyzone 533]

5 minutes ago, funkymunkyzone said:

I've tried editing and saving mine, but I just keep getting a server error:

 

And I can change the country to New Zealand, but the states don't update so I'm left with only the selection of US states.

 

As a result, all of the changes I made to the page were lost... :/

 

OK, so it crashes if any date other than May 2nd is chosen...  If I leave the date as May 2nd then I can edit everything else and save it.

[+Isonzo Karst 937]

Just confirming funkymunkyzone's bug report. Currently, you can't change the date. So don't.  I expect HQ will get on this fairly soon.

.....Though a bunch of bugs to fix right now.

[Frau Potter 328]

5 minutes ago, funkymunkyzone said:

 

OK, so it crashes if any date other than May 2nd is chosen...  If I leave the date as May 2nd then I can edit everything else and save it.

 

We apologize for the inconvenience. We can confirm that the date is not editable by players right now. That gives you more time to edit the rest of your listing (and keep the date "as is" until we fix the bug). 

 

By the way, congrats on winning one!

[+funkymunkyzone 533]

Just now, Frau Potter said:

 

We apologize for the inconvenience. We can confirm that the date is not editable by players right now. That gives you more time to edit the rest of your listing (and keep the date "as is" until we fix the bug). 

 

By the way, congrats on winning one!

 

Thanks, no major inconvenience - will just leave the date alone for now and get the rest ready to go.

 

Glad you guys are onto it!

[+Korichnovui 136]

I got one.

 

Being relatively new to the hobby, only having attended a few events myself, I'd love to hear about some cool/memorable events that other people have been to over the years.

[+barefootjeff 3841]

So far from FB posts, it looks like six people in the Central Coast/Hunter region here have received events in this draw. Most likely there'll be others who either aren't in the FB groups or haven't posted, then there's another nine draws to come. That's going to be a lot of events to pack into the calendar, especially as most will want to hold them on weekends. That makes me wonder how the event stacking rules are going to be applied, particularly in my area on the southern end of the Central Coast where there'll be overlap with northern Sydney which has a lot more active cachers (and presumably a lot more events happening).

[+dimwit61 14]

Got one. Here in Japan, May 2nd is in the middle of Golden Week but I don't believe that it is a holiday. I might try for May 3rd. I'd love to hear some ideas what other people are planning for the event. Thanks.

[Frau Potter 328]

The bug was fixed on the Community Celebration Event pages. You can now edit the Event date. 

Happy organizing!

[+Boomshanka 22]

Just a heads up, not sure if it's already been mentioned... as these are a new cache type, they probably won't be included as an email announcement when published. Might be useful to prompt (premium member) cachers to update their announcements profile if they want to see when new celebration events are published.