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?