I recently hosted a high-price turnip trading session for this sub. I thought I should write up some tips for those looking to do some trading or hosting.

Visitors

1. Be prepared to wait: when I made the post, I had 50 people join the queue in the first 10 minutes.
2. Be prepared to not make any money: I was only able to get to 60 people over the 5 hours. I may have been able to push it up to 80 with better planning, but I had 100+ people in queue.
3. Be ready to come as soon as you get a code: the main source of delay was people taking up to 10 minutes to get to the island after receiving a code.
4. Reach out to the host if you're not sure what to do: I had quite a few people message me because they were new to AC:NH's online play. If you can't get to the island after receiving a code, there are a few reasons that may be happening - feel free to message the host if you're not sure why you can't get in.

Hosts

1. Using some sort of queue: This is a great way to keep visitors updated on their position so they know whether or not they should stay online. That said, having a queue that others can see isn't necessary to host, but if you decide to host a long-term event I would definitely recommend one. For my event I used the Google forms template from this subreddit’s discord. Link to the template from the discord. Once you've set it up, I recommend sharing the actual sheet, as any changes you make to it can be seen by others in real-time. To do so, once you've followed the instructions in the template to get to the sheet, get a shareable link using the "Share" button in the upper right (for browsers, mobile users may have the button somewhere else). An example of what my queue looked like for everyone else
2. You can close the gate to your airport while visitors are still on your island: closing the gate disallows new visitors from coming (even with an active Dodo code) but will not kick out people already on your island. This is a great for controlling incoming flights. (thanks to /u/thelastcookie for this amazing piece of information)
3. Be ready to change your dodo code: I had to stop allowing return trips because it was messing with the groups, which meant changing the dodo code. If you’re only going to host people for an hour or two this shouldn’t be necessary, but either way it’s an easy security feature that stops people from spamming incoming flights.
4. Have users confirm they’re still online before sending out the code: I was sending out codes immediately to whoever was next in queue, but unfortunately I had many people not respond at all. This made it hard for me to decide when to refresh my Dodo code, since I wasn’t sure if they were going to come (now I know that those people fell asleep). I recommend asking the user for some sort of confirmation before sending out the code.
5. If you're planning on hosting for a long period of time, have some coffee ready. You're gonna need it.

Visitors and Hosts

• Update/Keep an eye on the original post: for hosts, updating the original post is the fastest way to communicate with everyone; for visitors, it’s the best way to check the status of the host and everyone else in line.
• Reddit’s DM system vs Chat system: for those who did not know, this site currently has 2 systems for communicating between users - the direct message system and Chat system. The DM system is something of a legacy feature that’s been around since the olden days, while the Chat is a system that was implemented in the new.reddit.com updates. However, not all mobile apps support the Chat system. The official Reddit app supports it, but as far as I know other third party apps don't. Keep that in mind when trying to communicate with others, especially if you’re hosting and plan to manage it from your phone while using a third-party reddit app.

Final notes

Despite some initial confusion with people doing return trips, and others not responding because they fell asleep in queue, things went surprisingly smoothly. This is a great community, and I'll probably host more high-price sessions in the future. Hopefully these tips help others who want to engage in trading/hosting - I tried to address issues which caused the queue to slow down the most.

Shoutout to /u/snowe2010 and /u/melody5697 who wanted to hear my thoughts on this event.

*I've made some edits to the tips based on the discussion and removed information on leaving the island as a visitor.