For the past few years I’ve been tracking stats about larp attendance in New Zealand. The full dataset is available on the web here:
The headlines:
- Overall larp attendance (as measured by total player spaces) fell by about 10%, with declines in every region except Christchurch.
- In Christchurch attendance grew by 20%, due to a vigorous group of people in SAGA who want more larp.
- In Auckland, headline attendance fell by about 5%, largely due to the cancellation of the Crucible campaign. One-off theatre-style spaces rebounded to about 150 (from 40).
- In Hamilton attendance dropped 40% (though from a low base). Fallout’s suspension obviously had a significant impact, but the region appeared to be in decline due to low event diversity. The start of a monthly WoD campaign near the end of the year should solve this problem.
- In Wellington attendance fell by 25%. The conventions had a bad year, and there were no large campaign events until August. Theatre-style bounced back to its 2014 level, which is good to see.
- In Dunedin OURS ran the usual theatre-style games at cons as well as a bi-weekly campaign; the decline from last year is really due to the number of campaign sessions which had to be cancelled.
While 2016’s stats are bad, it looks like things will bounce back: Auckland has Musketeers, Saga and The Isles to fill the gap left by Crucible, Wellington has Embers and Hydra is a stronger theatre-style scene, and Fallout is back on track in Hamilton.