Weekend Session Instructor Guide

This guide explains everything you need to know if you’re becoming a weekend session instructor for VRDancing.
Keep in mind that to become an instructor you first need to have contact with our staff team and have a date scheduled for your session.
We curate the instructors we invite for our sessions to ensure fun and varied events.

This guide is a lot of text but don’t worry, preparing a weekend session is not a ton of work! On this page we just answer a lot of frequently asked questions.

Furthermore, you can put as much effort into your session as you’d like. You can keep it simple, or you can make a lot of custom content but that is completely optional!

You have three responsibilities

  • Post announcement messages in the weekend-session channel.

  • Create a YouTube playlist for the dance session.

  • Create a list of codes / URLs for our hosts to use.

The Monday/Tuesday before your session we will give you access to our Staff channels. You will then gain access to the weekend-talk channel where we can communicate about organising your weekend session!

We expect you to show up to either the EU or the NA session when your playlist is being hosted. If you are unable to dance or be in VR due to personal reasons then that is of course completely understandable. Do not feel obligated to attend both sessions, but you are of course welcome to!

Discord Announcement

  • Communicate with staff in weekend-talk before posting anything.

  • Wait until staff has created the appropriate VRD Planner signup for your session.

  • Staff will provide you with a template to post your announcement, feel free to ask for the template if you want to post earlier.

  • Note that the template puts certain text in bold, please be sure to follow it exactly.

Template

```
## Weekend Session #XX by @ping-yourself-here

<Personal text from the instructor, hype up everyone for your session!>

-# :link: **[Event Link (EU)](LINK) | [Event Link (NA)](LINK) | [Dance Safely](<https://www.vrdancing.club/healthsafety>) | [Follow our Rules](<https://www.vrdancing.club/rules>) | **<@&794973676008898581> <@&875801328138485810>
```

YouTube Playlist

  • You are encouraged to be creative and create your own videos.

    • You can create your own choreography videos, be sure these can be followed by beginners and upload these in advance to check for copyright strikes.

    • You can create your own break timers, these videos must be exactly 3 minutes long. We recommend adding a countdown in the video itself.

    • You can create your own intro/outro videos but don't make these longer than 2 minutes. These videos are especially fun if you want to personalise the session for attendees in a different timezone.

  • You are required to create a YouTube playlist of your videos and post this in weekend-talk.

  • The playlist must be between 1 and 1.5 hours, we recommend you use https://ypc.vercel.app/ to check playlist length.

    • This includes the length of the breaks that you need to add.

  • We recommend to add breaks every 4 to 5 videos. You can look at previous playlists for inspiration on how to pace a playlist. It also depends a lot on video intensity and length when you need to add a break.

  • The playlist must be finished atleast 24 hours before the EU session starts so staff can do quality control.

  • If you want to use pre-existing breakvideos then you can easily find those here.

Playlist Restrictions

  • Do not center your playlist around videos that feature explicitly sexualised dancing. A few sexy choreographies are fine, but do not make it the theme of your playlist.

  • Do not center your playlist around only tutorials or a specific workout, the focus must remain on dancing.

  • VRD is a beginner-friendly community, some challenge is okay but try not to discourage people by only picking difficult choreos.

  • No poledancing, lapdancing, excessive acrobatics or any dance styles that require props or additional gear.

  • Videos longer than 10 minutes can break the flow of your playlist and be discouraging, use with caution and discuss with us when in doubt.

  • Videos need to be available in our database or on YouTube, no self-hosting.

  • Do not use corporate ads as break timers. Introducing yourself and what you do is fine.

  • Staff discretion always applies, if you are uncertain about something, contact us.

Adding videos flagged as content for kids

Some content on YouTube cannot be directly added to your playlist due to their policies to protect children. If a video is flagged as content for kids then there will be no button to add it to your YouTube playlist directly beneath the video.

However, if you search for the video through the search engine, you can still add the video through the hamburger menu (see picture).

Code / URL List

  • Our hosts need a list of codes (or if the videos are not in the database: URLs) to host your session efficiently.

  • You can find the codes for videos that are in the database by:

    • Selecting the videos in-world, their code appears on the info panel, this way is least prone to errors.

    • Looking for the codes on our public database.

  • Check that your codes and URLs are correct.

Use the following format to post your list of codes in the weekend-talk channel.

Code List example

```
1611
2414
https://youtu.be/E6G8Nv9f88k
1698
1668

5368 (timer)

3376
2037
https://youtu.be/S0qC_J1VaZI
https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
3693
2774

https://youtu.be/6UKGHUvI0tc (timer)

... and so on
```

  • Please note the spacing between timers and videos and please write "(timer)" behind your timer code/urls

Bonus: Convert your playlist to a VRD Playlist in-world

If you’re comfortable with using the in-world playlist tools then that helps our team save some time!

  • Disable auto-play in the queue panel.

  • Add all your videos in the queue, you can increase the queue capacity if needed in the admin panel.

  • Click on the export button on the top right of the queue panel.

  • Copy the data thats put in the text field, it will look something like: [VRDancing Playlist]5910;505;508;695;6978;413;740;2607;3986;6814;4421;4733;5461;4888;2216;6802;4514;4309;4235;5679;10193;8236;4295;5668;2861;

  • This data can be used by our staff team to speed up organisation of your session, but don’t worry if you don’t feel confident creating the VRD playlist data for us, our team can also do this for you!

Collaborating with the VRDancing Team

Once you have fulfilled your responsibilities listed above we will take your deliverables and run the session for you!
We have years of experience with organising consistent dance sessions with good vibes and solid organisation.

While we understand you may be very enthusiastic, please understand that we will take it from here. We run our events in a specific formula for concistency and security. Furthermore, our hosts, bouncers, recorders and team members get assigned based on availability, expertise and many other personal reasons. Because of this, you cannot have a say in how we organise this internally and you cannot request specific people on our team to run your session. We’re all epic litty poggers anyway :) And your session will be a success regardless!

If you are an instructor for one of our weekend sessions then you’ll earn an additional 20 XP!