Background:
At time of writing, nzLARPS inc. has nine events calendared between the current and next month. The steady and high quality creative output is owing to a number of factors including nzLARPS’ generosity in supporting game creators. But despite this feast of events available to players, turnout remains a major concern and numbers are limiting game creation to small scale events. Most games rely on a very high proportion of nzLARPS members turning up, and just a handful of no-shows is likely to cancel any game currently billed.
nzLARPS was formed out of the Mordavia community and has inherited a lot of gear, community and expertise fairly specific to medieval/fantasy larping in the process. But nzLARPS has no event similar to Mordavia and risks lapsing players as the ravages of time convinces those players that they no longer larp. Despite having no Mordavia-style event, the community has a reputation for being “mainly” medieval/fantasy based, and a quick look at popular threads on Diatribe lends weight to this conclusion.
Newly created events already face a lack of interest that threatens their existence. Ravenholme’s weekend event is expecting a quiet one, and Nibelungen failed to fill immediately despite a year of hype and limited spaces. How will a post-apocalyptic steam-punk game get off the ground with such an environment? Even if nzLARPS supports its creation generously, it cannot provide the players to make the larp a reality. This is a community crisis.
General thoughts on promotional strategy:
The basic idea is to give members a lot of material to help their word-of-mouth conversations and make them “not look like wackos”. We need to encourage use of this material to introduce larp to social groups they may not have considered before, especially for fear of looking “uncool”.
Promotional content supporting word of mouth should be of “professional” quality and incredibly cool. It should be lovingly created with givers and receivers in mind. Things not previously considered to be promotional material should start being considered promotional material and distributed accordingly.
Promotional assets:
Currently nzLARPS is employing a strategy lead by its committee on an opportunity by opportunity basis, for example the committee is asked by an affiliate if nzLARPS would like to have a presence at Battlecry and the committee decides against it in relative privacy. This should change to a promotional machine the committee has little control over and is fueled by the fandom and connections of players.
Publicity occurs through a number of assets:
• The public website at nzlarps.org
• The online forum at diatribe.co.nz
• Contact cards given out at prior arranged events
• Immersion magazine at members houses
My analysis is that this is the correct set of assets to promote larping, but each requires new and better focused strategic direction, more money and more time.
Website:
The website is not a single website but a collection: the nzLARPS website and its “child” project websites. The strategy in its first build was to get users OFF the nzLARPS website and onto project websites in a way that satisfies visitors and prepares their expectations.
The new strategy I propose for the website is to organize and showcase the high quality of events nzLARPS enjoys, present its active community and facilitate participation for newbies.
Naturally, the site must also quickly and concisely communicate what larp is to every visitor.
The sites need to become one site but allow for design differences relevant to each section’s content. Each page should include an nzLARPS branded header that allows navigation to other nzLARPS sites and identifies it as part of the network.
The site should be modified through a content management system so it doesn’t rely on experts. Those experts should spend time extending the site to allow administrative committee jobs to be done through online tools etc. I suggest Drupal as the platform to build upon.
Online forum at Diatribe:
Diatribe needs to show visitors that the community is buzzing. It also needs to present an index page that is attractive, un-cluttered, distinctive and welcoming. This is a hard ask because Diatribe is essentially a large collection of quiet but necessary forums.
Diatribe’s potential is currently under-valued because of its exclusive membership and unfriendly navigation system.
Diatribe needs one or two full days’ work for a near-complete re-organisation. A number of freely available software features are penciled for installation and only require actual deployment.
Contact cards:
Strategy for contact cards has been long-discussed at committee meetings, but I offer a new one here.
Using a double-side printed contact card, a cost-effective but generous number of cards is printed for each project. On one side of these cards would be a project-specific full colour, full-bleed graphic title and short, clear description. On the reverse of the card would be a black-and-white printed definition of larp and a link to nzlarps.org. This side of the card should have enough white-space for pen writing.
Projects of nzLARPS should have these cards produced for them free of charge, and will have final say on their front design. Back designs will be uniform.
Affiliates of nzLARPS should have these cards produced for them at the cost of printing alone. nzLARPS would design them and do the administration at no cost provided their standard backing is included.
Per-project contact cards would take approximately as long to design as a GIF banner ad’ would.
An additional card should be produced promoting nzLARPS in its own right, but its print run should be comparable to child projects.
Cards should be well distributed amongst members and no active member should ever be without a private stash of their favourite projects to tell their friends about. Additional cards should be held by the committee ready for ad-hoc events like Armageddon or the Taupo joust as well as sending to new members. These cards could be distributed with Immersion.
Immersion:
The magazine is a great promotional tool but that’s almost by accident. While the content is good, Immersion suffers from lack of distribution. Excluding non-members is short-sighted. I gave away two copies of Immersion following conversations about the current larp scene. Those people walked away with their interest in larp significantly increased. In fact, one of them signed up as a TC in Nibelungen (and his friend who was with him did too) and the other joined nzLARPS on the spot. I’ve wished I had more copies.
We should do more copies.
To begin with we should print at least 100 copies of every issue (this number will grow with the community). After printing, members can indicate on Diatribe how many copies they want, and they should be sent that number. If they want more later, we should send them those too. Like the cards, the central committee should keep a stack to give away to people after conversations at festivals etc.
Full copies of Immersion should be available online on Immersion’s own nzLARPS.org micro-site immediately following publication.
Risks:
This plan is not fool-proof, and even if successful rapid growth risks a number of detrimental outcomes.
- Sudden influx of inexperienced gamers may put game creators off running games
- Newbies may drop OOC en-mass at inappropriate times or ruin games in some other imaginative way
- Massive number of newbies may elect an entirely new central committee at the next AGM
- There may be a large number of newbies from a single source, eg. a single high school which gives the community an exclusive flavour
- Plan backfires and members just look like dicks when presenting cards/mags to their friends
- Event-specific advertising is not transferable, eg. if we promote No Man’s Land but it does not run then we’d have wasted time and money
There should be a discussion around these risks and what can be done to minimize them, what’s at stake and if they are real risks at all.
Schedule:
Let’s begin straight away.
Improving online facilities
Step 1: New server migration – March 2007
Step 2: Upgrading Diatribe – March/April 2007
Step 3: nzlarps.org becomes a community portal – April/May 2007
Printing a lot of Immersion
Step 1: Finalise Immersion for Autumn 2007 – March 2007
Step 2: Print more copies than anyone thinks we need to – March/April 2007
Step 3: Distribute heaps to members/non-members – March/April 2007
Step 4: Ripple through to friends – April 2007
Step 5: Additional copies end up in schools, workplaces, doctor’s rooms – May 2007
Card production
Step 1: Enrol projects/ affiliates – March 2007
Step 2: Design cards/ get approval – April 2007
Step 3: Print shitloads – April 2007
Step 4: Distribute liberally – as req’d.
