Wow. Its been twenty years since Aliens: Apocalypse, the last large, weekend-long one-off larp run in Wellington. Morgue, its creator, has set up a Facebook group in commemoration, with photos from the event (some of the people may even be recognisable):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/422094345342915/
IIRC it ran from Friday evening to late Saturday night. The venue was Trentham racecourse, and various people’s homes nearby (it was a mixed-format event, with tabletop roleplaying adventures during the Saturday). While I don’t remember much about the during the day stuff, the climax gave me one of my greatest larp memories, so that’s cool.
Also, courtesy of the wayback machine, here’s how they explained larp back in 1999:
Game Theatre borrows heavily from improvisational theatre and from role-playing games and attempts to create something both accessible and sophisticated. A perfect example of Game Theatre from earlier this decade, and one particularly appropriate to this event, is the Alien War experience that ran in London around the years 1993-1995. Based on the Alien movies, punters forked out a few pounds to enter and were greeted by a heavily armed marine who explained that they were being evacuated from a scientific facility which had suffered a security breach. They were led through a door into a maze of apookily lit rooms and corridors, the marine shouting orders at everyone to keep moving, occasionally sighting one of the deadly creatures infesting the complex, facing scare after scare as some of those taking part were caught and dragged off by the huge aliens, until finally bursting exhausted with a pounding heart into the sunlight…
The idea of Game Theatre is that a theatrical performance is being created. The participants are all actors, performing established roles in a set, hopefully with music and lighting and costumes and all the other paraphenalia of the theatre. However, there are some important differences…
Its an important piece of NZ larp history. I wonder if Morgue can be persuaded to do another one…?