The Community Open Mic’s are an awesome way to get started showing your guitar playing progress to others. As others have said it is a very supportive environment and everyone wants you to do well.
Speaking as a veteran 
of a few of them, I wanted to add my perspective.
At the time and especially the first time they are very nerve wracking. It doesn’t matter whether the people playing before you have been playing longer, shorter, or years. The thoughts in your mind will probably be telling you you shouldn’t do it. However once you have played the feeling of euphoria, will last for a while. Even with the mistakes that you know you have made, others are not going to point them out and may not even have noticed.
I know I have messed up in all the OM’s I have played here, sometimes it took me a long time to watch the recording. Even my worst have been nothing but a positive experience. They gave me the confidence to go the next step.
I have since played in a few Open Mics at a local brewery. Nearly everyone who plays there, gets paid to do gigs locally. They are also really supportive and encouraging of new guitar players like me. No matter how I have played they still encourage me to play every time, offering to let me use their guitars, even though I play the same songs nobody has ever said a less than encouraging word.
Recently I played some originals in a singer/songwriter showcase, where some of them have written songs for other people. Even though I know I am not up to their standard I still had fun.
Possibly the hardest thing I did was play for family and friends at home. Although some of their comments could be seen as critical, as they don’t know what you are going through.
This is a long way of saying, if you have any thoughts in your head about whether you should/can perform, my advice is jump in and do 1 song, experience the buzz/terror of performing live. Don’t worry about whether you are as good as anyone else. In fact I think it is easier if you have far less experience because everyone understands how hard it is and are willing you to do well.
I like the idea of trying to make time zones work for the event to get more involved. Hopefully this OM builds more antipodean OM performers.
I think the criteria of doing an AVOYP and being an audience member are good, although how people in far away time zones ever meet the audience criteria in time I’m not sure until a few have been held regularly.
In short ladies and gents – GO FOR IT!!
I think I can be up and listening to music at this time! It will be my first one, looking forward to it!
