Attending a Second Life event

I was asked this week to attend an event to make observations in Second Life. After some lengthy searching to find disappointingly limited results I stumbled upon on event in my second night of looking.
The event took place at a similar dance/rave environment that I had frequented before during my groups research. The central building was a large box like warehouse, which was visually unappealing from the outside. Through the windows towards the roof you could easily make an assumption about what was going inside of the building via the multicolored spotlights inside. Surrounding the building appeared to be just cement texture with a red path leading into the main entrance of the event.
I arrived 15 to 20 minutes before the event was said to begin. With my prior knowledge of the event I was expecting a rave with at least a couple of “battling” DJ’s and a possible best-dressed and best dance competition.
Inside the building was a large circular dance floor with 2 large (record) spinning tables on the front and back of the area. To the sides of the tables and the circular dance floor were lounge areas on either end, most of the seats were unoccupied. The lighting was a bit overwhelming; the ceiling was covered in multicolored lights, spotlights. The walls and floor were covered with an assortment of signs and colored light panels.
The event began at the top of the hour (11pm central, 8pm server) and a global/area announcement introduced the first DJ to perform. He briefly spoke on the mic and began to play techno music. Throughout the event various instructions were given to the dancers/attendees having to do with dance offs, dance contests and best dressed competitions.
As this was transpiring I was seated back in one of the near by lounge area chairs. I soon noted that I did not stand out and my attire actually did blend in well enough with the other people at the event. There was a wide variety of clothing choices which contained anything to mostly nude, to 3 piece suit, to MC Hammer-like jump pants.
I would place the people in the event into 3 generalized groups. First the group I would place myself in: I would label us as outsiders/wall flowers. For what ever reason the people in this group would be either separated from others on the dance floor, in the lounge area or anywhere with in the building away from the center of the activities. The second group will be called the regulars or partiers: These were the ones on the dance floor with no hint at local affiliation. They may or may not have been frequent visitors to this particular rave. This group was much more outspoken than the first group and seem to feel perfectly at home in this environment. The third group did have a visible local affiliation to this particular event and space: This group consisted of the owners/manager types and the DJ’s. These people were responsible for the event transpiring. They called the shots, the music and anything else. They were mostly associating themselves with one another but certain members of this group seemed to be responsible to greeting newly arriving guests. They were friendly and seemed to be very accept of newer people, this suggested to me that it was not a closely knit group OR that this event in particular may have been an anomaly that was more open to public than other similar events might be. My reason for suggesting that is the unity among the owners group that could be noticed through out the events entirety.
The event went on in similar fashion through out the night with a total of 3 DJ’s spinning/playing. I made my leave as I noticed the area to gradually empty out. As the group dispersed there was a noticeably higher concentration of members of the owners group. Fortunately I was able to fraternize with the owners group and make a few acquaintances that could be advantageous for later studies.