Funny Rides grid owner steps away, residents offered move to AviWorlds

Funny Rides, an OpenSim grid with 45 regions and 382 active users, will stay online only through the end of this year after its owner became seriously ill, according to an announcement from the OpenSim hosting company Hosting4OpenSim, which also owns the AviWorlds grid.

The Funny Rides grid owner, who is known in-world as Goldenmoon Sunday, is in the hospital, and it isn’t clear when — or if — she will be able to come back to running the grid, the announcement said.

“Due to these unfortunate circumstances, she has made the difficult decision to step away from operating Funny-Rides,” the announcement said. “In an effort to preserve the community and the many years of dedication, creativity, and hard work she has invested, she has offered AviWorlds the opportunity to help carry on her legacy.”

Hypergrid address: login.funny-rides.net:8002

Keeping the grid up until the end of the year gives residents time to decide where to go next, according to the announcement.

Those who want to can move their regions to AviWorlds.

“This transition is entirely voluntary,” the announcement said. “No resident is under any obligation to move, but those who choose to join us will be welcomed into the AviWorlds community.”

Hypergrid address: login.aviworlds.com:8002

Some of Goldenmoon Sunday’s own builds will also be moved to AviWorlds and hosted there as a tribute to her work.

A bigger AviWorlds

AviWorlds is owned by Josh Boam, who bought the grid in 2020 and later co-founded Hosting4OpenSim, which opened for business in 2023 with AviWorlds as one of its first customers.

AviWorlds will host the Goldenmoon Sunday builds for free, Boam told Hypergrid Business. For other regions, AviWorlds hosting starts at $10 a month for a 20,000-prim region, though there are also free parcels available.

AviWorlds currently has 227 regions — the equivalent of 664 standard regions — and 698 active users, according to the grid’s website.

Funny Rides reports 131 standard region equivalents and 382 active users on its own home page. If every resident moved, AviWorlds would grow by about a fifth in land area and by about half in active users.

AviWorlds region rentals are sold through the Hosting4OpenSim store.

Funny Rides is the second grid this week to announce that it’s closing at the end of the year, the other major one being OSgrid. But region owners and residents have more destinations than ever to choose from, and those looking for good places to start can check out my article from yesterday, Where OSgrid refugees can find land — some of it free.