A growth strategy

Looking forward to discussing this at the meeting tonight and here.

Executive summary:

[quote]Playership is the most serious problem nzLARPS faces. If we do not grow urgently we face lapsing larpers, tiny games and widespread disinterest. Growing our numbers will present new larping opportunities that are currently not available and take the strain off our small dedicated community.

Building upon existing assets, this paper details a suggested growth strategy: “empowering word of mouth”. This focus relies on making sure our single proven effective growth strategy (word of mouth) packs more punch and more clearly explains the larping concept to potential newcomers.
[/quote]

Download full report as a Word doc.

Beware pushing too hard though. We do not want to come off as some fanatic cult. We are a fanatic cult, but its best if everyone else doesn’t realise…

Please form an orderly queue with the short jokes…

Can’t agree with the concern of lack of numbers at recent events. While Nibelungen may have taken a while to fill, the participant list made it look like it did full completely.

Likewise Ravenholme hasn’t run yet. You cannot decry a lack of interest before events - Mordavia events frequently only had half the people who eventually came booked and paid before the event started.

Only after an event can you say “that didn’t get as many people as we wanted.” And then you have to consider factors other than community size, such as: have our previous events been of a quality that would attract interest?

I agree that growth is good and that there is danger of burnout with the large number of games relative to the number of players, but think your report is overly alarmist.

But I agree with the growth approaches suggested. You do have to invest in marketing to get returns, scary as it may seem.

That’s the big issue we need to do something about. It may come off a bit “alarmist” but I don’t think we face a bigger issue than lack of playership. Games should be busting at the seams with the kind of quality on offer.

Something I don’t go in to here is that there’s a lot of other projects that would be able to fly if there was obvious support, and that with more players comes more game creators too. Check out the game ideas forum - most of the stuff in there hasn’t come to fruition simply because nobody has picked it up and run with it knowing that the games will effortlessly fill up.

A lot of the report is “no duh” kind of stuff, it’s just being said as such. If we can put a cohesive idea together, call it a strategy then follow it… then we’ve got a published plan of what we’re doing that the whole society can follow. That’s the main reason I put this together.

Good work, Craig. Your report is concise and practical.

Perhaps it would be a useful exercise to define the characteristics of someone who is a “latent larper”. By this I mean someone who does not larp, but would be interested in trying it out. If they enjoy it, they might become a regular larper.

I have a theory that larp can be measure in a range of dimensions. A latent larper would be attracted to high values on some of the dimensions, but might be put off by high values on other dimensions.

Dimensions could include costuming, roleplaying, puzzle-solving, immersion, physical combat, timebound challenge, and character development (skills/abilities).

In my experience, physical combat is important for some latent larpers. So is costuming, roleplaying and immersion for others (these are related, methinks). Others like to see that the investment they put into a game pays off in character development (talk to a WoW player about this). Timebound challenge would be valuable to someone who likes challenge, but without the stress or consequences of combat.

Perhaps the biggest requirement of a latent larper is that they are open to trying new things. Without this attribute, any promotion to them is likely a waste of time. Sure, you might get them to turn up, but they may not enjoy themselves/come back again.

Perhaps the we could angle our communications at filtering our potential latent larpers. Do they like trying new things ? If not, cya. If so, then we could develop a way to get them to evaluate their larp latency in terms of the dimensions discussed above so we can direct them to the most appropriate larp.

Come to think of it, perhaps a What’s The Best Larp For You? test could greet people when they go to diatribe/nzlarps.org. It would ask some questions and then suggest some larps.

Also, let’s get some funky tee shirts / singlets printed that say “Have you larped yet ?” on the front, and “It’s a must do” on the back. Then anyone who is larp confident could wear them and attract attention and act as a social vector.

At the rick of being annoying - could you please post the content of the word doc into the forum for those of use whose security settings prevent file downloads?

Or even PDF it for those operating systems that don’t support M$ Word… :smiley:

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.

It’s a word document made by OpenOffice.org :stuck_out_tongue:

But here it is as a simplified web page (printing the .doc is better):
nzlarps.org/growth_strategy.xhtml

[quote=“Exquire”]It’s a word document made by OpenOffice.org :stuck_out_tongue:

But here it is as a simplified web page (printing the .doc is better):
nzlarps.org/growth_strategy.xhtml[/quote]

Actually I just noticed it opened better in OpenOffice.org than it did in Word 97 at work (don’t ask…)

Cheers Mike. :slight_smile:

Ok, I agree - largely good stuff there.
A few things though…

NZLARPs membership - I suggested a while ago that we need to chase, and invite back, those people who were previous members that did not rejoin once their membership lapsed. Has this been done yet?
We should first concentrate on former members and also current members to keep them and do a better job. As a for instance - I joined at the AGM in Sep and only just received my membership card on Monday, thats not good enough.

I’m in two minds about Immersion and mass publication. On one hand I think that it should be for the members, since its our membership fees paying for it right? And doing large runs is going to be expensive. On the other hand I think its a good advertising tool and would also like to have extra copies to hand out.
What size print runs are currently being run and at what individual cost? How does that compare to a 100 issue run? or 1000?
I think that a 100 issue run is too small to be of any practical effect advertising NZLARPs.

I agree with what you said about the NZLARPs home page, it needs a better design. The “What is NZLARPs” bit should be in a seperate area along with details about affiliates, membership etc. The front page should show upcoming events and recent events with links to pictures. I can’t stress enough that we HAVE to have pictures, and good ones at that. Thats how we hook people and thats what gets them interested.

I don’t agree that Diatribe needs reconfiguring, I think it serves its purpose well enough.

Im not so sure that lack of participants at LARPS indicates low interest, rather more a problem with life being too busy to attend more than a smattering. I’d love to go to the upcoming Nightmare Circle game and Ravenholme game but I have other commitments and can’t attend.
Likewise with new games and your comment about picking up the ideas and running with them - again its life being busy. If Tigger and I had nothing else to do and no commitments for a week we’d be able to get our larp setup and play-tested, but we don’t, so we can’t.

At Lucy’s Pirate larp last weekend there were 4 people I’ve never seen before, so i don’t think games are relying on NZLARPs members. Where was the rest of our membership at the game incidentaly?

Overall, I don’t think we’re anywhere near "cirsis"
I think we can do a few things differently and start working smarter, rather than throwing money at print advertising.
Like I said first we need to start paying attention to current members to keep them.
Second - approach former members to get them to rejoin
Third - EVERY SINGLE LARP run needs to have membership forms available and EVERY non member asked if they would like to join.
Fourth - We should have an email distribution list of every member and prior particpent of a larp. Within the first few days of each month a single email should go out listing the upcoming larps and funtions for the next 2 months.
Fifth - we target our advertising at relevant events. Battlecry, KapCon, Armageddon, Universities O week etc. Untargetted print advertising is a pointless waste.

I think thats enough for now… I need to go have some dinner…

[quote=“Scotty”]
Third - EVERY SINGLE LARP run needs to have membership forms available and EVERY non member asked if they would like to join.

I think thats enough for now… I need to go have some dinner…[/quote]

I think this is one of the easy options that we should be doing now.
Is anyone from the society going to nightmare circle this weekend want to take responsiblity for do this? Both Rhiannon and I have membership forms I believe.

ps
I hope you enjoyed your dinner. :slight_smile:

Another thing that I think would help attendance is to fast track running regular big weekend games again. The small games that have been running are all cool, but in a way they’ve got a high entry threshold in terms of the amount of explanation you have to give people versus the amount of time they’ll spend playing. One of the things Mordavia had going for it was momentum and a critical mass of people who planned their annual calendars around Mordavia weekends and it didn’t take a lot to get new people - “It’s dark fantasy, there’s a swamp, there are orcs, and you spend the weekend dressing up.” “Cool!” And once you’ve got people regularly larping for anything, they’re more likely to look around for things that are similar-but-different.

It’s kind of like the difference between a boutique and a mass-market chain store. I like both, but I go to them for different reasons.

That’s exactly the problem. Everyone is too busy, so we just need more people! If there’s going to be multiple events every month (and it looks like there is - yay!) then we need more people to share the love.

That’s covered in here, but I call it “big medieval fantasy” or something. Despite our ability to support a big regular event, we don’t have one. The main thing I’m worried about there is that people might be hanging around just waiting for the “new Mordavia” and attending some other events “while they wait”. I definitely agree that we need one asap if we want to keep the Mordavia community (which I understand slightly shrunk at Endgame).

[quote=“Scotty”]
Im not so sure that lack of participants at LARPS indicates low interest, rather more a problem with life being too busy to attend more than a smattering. I’d love to go to the upcoming Nightmare Circle game and Ravenholme game but I have other commitments and can’t attend.
Likewise with new games and your comment about picking up the ideas and running with them - again its life being busy. If Tigger and I had nothing else to do and no commitments for a week we’d be able to get our larp setup and play-tested, but we don’t, so we can’t.[/quote]

My theory on this is that the current larp community is too small to accomodate the sudden increase in larps. I love having such an incredibly hopping larp schedule but I know that some of them don’t have enouch attendees, but I still can’t get along to everything.

EDIT: Just realised Craig already said that. Don’t mind me.

Currently most of our games attract about a dozen people each. But that tends to be made up of plus (approximate figures). We shouldn’t rely on such a small group!

Here’s another way it could be:

  • Game every weekend, few exceptions.
  • Easy to get people to come (just announce it, once.)
  • Games tend to have around a dozen people
  • But the pool of active players is 200 large.
  • Clashes don’t threaten existence of a game, instead they give people choice.
  • Diatribe might have 30 people that visit once a day!

I would suggest running LARPs that don’t cost money. I give Skirmish a nod for that because it runs on low costs. From the scrap about student discounts I would suggest that perhaps one weekend LARP a year would clean most of us out. 5 weekend LARPs and then you have an idea about why there are so few people per game.

At the moment I feel that nzLARPs is running more like a business than an organisation. And I definately feel people pulling away from it.

Incidently, I made a comment on the Hamilton forum - what efforts are being made to find pockets of similar groups? LARPers and dungeons and dragoners.

You got it - we need a bigger community to allow more stuff to happen. How can I run all the games I want to run if currently our community can only just handle what we’ve already got?

There’s a discussion about whether “dungeon and dragoners” are really who we want - and who might be a better fit (drama groups? Sports clubs?) Who gets to make this decision? My approach suggests the best target is SOCIAL GROUPS and that the “approaching” is best left to the distributed friend-get-friend mechanism we have.

I hear what you’re saying about larps that don’t cost money, can someone organise a whole bunch of free games across many genres? Ta.