Aussie larp - larp fests being planned

HI all,
I have recently been in contact with Tim Wilson, who is looking to organise a 4 - 6 day fest type larp in Melbourne area in 2014. facebook.com/events/509535755774135/

You can find some detail here facebook.com/groups/436805713035443/

And is associated with this group here: facebook.com/groups/436805713035443/

Tim has been in contact with us, though I forget his user name here.

Just something for us to consider…

Just to clarify, Tim is planning a 6 day event which will have 4 days of active larp time. 1 day each end for set up (and buying guff) and pack down.

The event planned is New Yorkshire.

I have attached the poster for the event. It would be great if we could get a few people over there and help kickstart what could be a great event.

What sort of feedback/participation are you after? I find people tend to volunteer more if you give them specifics :slight_smile:

I’ve had a bit of a think about Jackie’s question about specific help we could provide.

The Aussie larp scene firstly doesn’t really resemble ours. From what I can tell the big groups are mostly battle games (often weekly, at sports grounds) with little role-play content. Some of them run “quest” weekends which are more like an adventure scenario which may or may not be part of a bigger storyline. Not so much of a immersive experience.

So a “fest” larp really is a bit at odds with how their player base operates. For those I have talked to, such as Tim (the organiser), he sees our pictures and reads about our games and sees the value of our costuming and such like. And he wants that to happen over there. Tim has been to England and to Europe with the Grand Expedition so he has an idea of what he wants to see in terms of an event. But following conversations he realises in terms of kit and role-play and quality of events that we are at or exceeding the kind of standard he wants.

So specifically… how can we help… well on the extreme end we can go and attend event. Of course this is a substantial investment for an untried event but nothing is better for larpers than seeing an example of how awesome good costume and good role-play can be to encourage others to do the same.

To a lesser extent, join the event page on facebook, make yourself known and lend your advice to Tim and those keen to go.,

For instance, what do we do for the Tavern setting? How do we apply facepaint? How do we sew stuff? How do we make a safe larp shield and make it look awesome?

Hmmm. While the Aussies may have discovered a different development path than us, I think it is worth noting that our development has been incremental, across three long-running weekend larps. The level of costuming at the first Mordavia that I attended (10 years ago !) is markedly different from what we see at Teonn. This kind of development is slow, skills need to be learnt and transmitted, ideas need to be tried and either adopted or discarded.

Perhaps the best way we can support our Aussie mates is to offer some practical support i.e. if they can provide some funds, we might be able to also put some funds together to enable one of our senior members to attend their event with them purpose of diffusing our innovative ideas. Given that a strong Australian larp scene will, potentially, benefit the Aotearoa larp scene (via cross-pollination of ideas, international attendances etc) then I think the argument could be made that it is consistent with our Society’s objectives (but not necessarily accepted, it is somewhat tenuous).

[quote=“Mike Curtis”]Hmmm. While the Aussies may have discovered a different development path than us, I think it is worth noting that our development has been incremental, across three long-running weekend larps. The level of costuming at the first Mordavia that I attended (10 years ago !) is markedly different from what we see at Teonn. This kind of development is slow, skills need to be learnt and transmitted, ideas need to be tried and either adopted or discarded.
[/quote]

I agree Mike, our buildup has been incremental. That being said, we also live in an age of unprecedented information sharing. 10 years ago we didn’t have facebook even…

[quote=“Mike Curtis”]
Perhaps the best way we can support our Aussie mates is to offer some practical support i.e. if they can provide some funds, we might be able to also put some funds together to enable one of our senior members to attend their event with them purpose of diffusing our innovative ideas. Given that a strong Australian larp scene will, potentially, benefit the Aotearoa larp scene (via cross-pollination of ideas, international attendances etc) then I think the argument could be made that it is consistent with our Society’s objectives (but not necessarily accepted, it is somewhat tenuous).[/quote]

Practical help is all Tim needs. I guess even if we can’t get people over there, if we provide the same level of at least moral support we do for our own projects then that will help them out as well. From the few I have talked to, they’d love to have a few of our experienced and passionate people over there but advice around running a role play based larp event would be just as appreciated.

Do we have some “notes on running weekend larps” that we might be able to pull together and send over?

[quote=“Jared”]Do we have some “notes on running weekend larps” that we might be able to pull together and send over?[/quote]There’s been some work on a weekend organiser’s guide in the “How To” backstage forum, although I think it’s been a while since there were any updates. (I think several people spent some time scoping out all the sections a comprehensive guide should include, but the individual sections haven’t been written up yet.)

Its a big scope and task, takes lots time & energy. Which is why I suggested ‘publishing’ individual topics in the “how-to” section as they are completed.
Anyone is welcome to join the backstage group, and see what’s lurking there, and write stuff or collate other people’s wisdom/websites. We do moderate articles before publishing it.

My initial thought is he should focus on a weekend game, not a Mythodea-level event.

A weekend event can be incredibly difficult to run well, even if you’ve done it before. A longer festival seems overly-ambitious in my opinion.

I’d like to see him do a weekend, Mythodea-style even well first. Then move onto something bigger. Do something shorter at a high quality with lots and lots of things for people to do, then build it up.

Does he read these forums? If so, hello! :slight_smile:

Do you know how many people they are planning for?

My understanding was that Australia had had some fantasy larps like our before, there just hasn’t been any for a while. I know the current trend is for simply combat based ones, but having met some aussie larpers now (in germany) I can definitely see that there might be a market for it. And I didn’t see an issue with the level of costuming from that lot (although perhaps they’re a minority).

Its ambitious, but good on him for trying.

Who do we have living in Melbourne that’s an ex-nzlarper that we could make sure are aware of the existence of this group?

Alex R?
Madeleine J?

I am pretty sure I have pointed Madeline in their direction…

Erik and I are over in Melbourne and I’ve looked vaguely at the LARP scene here. It’s a bit hard with 2 young kids and no family support to get involved. There are some ongoing LARPs including a Steampunk one, but since they all take place a while out of town, I can’t see us even popping in. The swordcraft group meet regularly and centrally, but I’m not interested.

However, if people want to come over, they can prob crash at ours. I’ve mostly been involved in smaller larps.