Pffft… Easy 
If Malu and I can pull off feeding that many for a whole weekend at Teonn, then organising one game for that many should be a doddle - especially with the extra help!!!
So, I have some preliminary numbers. We have exactly on 100 different individuals registered at this point in time (and the first time Chimera has hit triple digits, go us!) and here is how that breaks down by round:
(2008 vs 2009 vs 2010 vs 2011)
Friday Night: 33 vs 55 vs 77 vs 89
Saturday Morning: 43 vs 53 vs 83 vs 83
Saturday Afternoon: 39 vs 45 vs 71 vs 82
Saturday Night: 69 vs 81 vs 95 vs 93
Sunday Morning: 35 vs 41 vs 66 vs 81
Sunday Afternoon: 35 vs 46 vs 70 vs 81
So, there’s been some growth. Each round can still accomodate a large number of people:
Friday Night: 22
Saturday Morning: 44
Saturday Afternoon: 20
Sunday Morning: 11
Sunday Afternoon: 27
In addition, we have additional games up our sleeve to deploy if it is necessary. So, the real question is, can we find another 20 people to get into the con to get the kind of numbers we need to round out all the games?
The outlook is promising.
(2008 vs 2009 vs 2010 vs 2011)
Friday Night: 33 vs 55 vs 77 vs 95
Saturday Morning: 43 vs 53 vs 83 vs 95
Saturday Afternoon: 39 vs 45 vs 71 vs 92
Saturday Night: 69 vs 81 vs 95 vs 93 vs ~110
Sunday Morning: 35 vs 41 vs 66 vs 81 vs 92
Sunday Afternoon: 35 vs 46 vs 70 vs 81 vs 87
We’re up to 111 individuals registered, a large portion of whom have never been to Chimera. It looks like Chimera 2011 might break triple digits in each round. Though I was skeptical at the time, it looks like Ryan’s maths near the beginning of this thread was actually correct!
That’s great news. It looks like we’re roughly hitting my minimum prediction of about 95 per round, and we’re still two months from con. Also, you’ve just added 11 people in 15 days, and there are 68 days to go. So we may yet hit the middle or top of my estimate.
My prediction might have looked like maths, but really I just made a graph of the annual numbers and then made a guess at where the curve was heading, there were no calculations. I’ll be interested to do it again after this year’s con, to see if growth is still accelerating or leveling out. From the current numbers I’d guess final attendance for 2011 will turn out to be accelerating on previous growth. If so, I’ll have some scary 2012 estimates to throw your way.
You do have a lot of potential sources for exponential growth, even just by word of mouth. Gaming groups, high schools, university, workplaces. Plus random sources like people finding it on the web. An increasing proportion of new attendees will never have larped or played tabletop RPGs.
The convetion is almost full, and our current numbers are:
(2008 vs 2009 vs 2010 vs 2011)
Friday Night: 33 vs 55 vs 77 vs 111
Saturday Morning: 43 vs 53 vs 83 vs 109
Saturday Afternoon: 39 vs 45 vs 71 vs 104
Saturday Night: 69 vs 81 vs 95 vs 93 vs ~115
Sunday Morning: 35 vs 41 vs 66 vs 81 vs 104
Sunday Afternoon: 35 vs 46 vs 70 vs 81 vs 100
Well done Anna! It’s been a great effort to have gotten these numbers - I’m sure it doesn’t just happen and most of us only get to see a part of the work you and the Chimera team put in.
We’re now at a “con size” (average non-flagship round size) of about 106. I estimated between 95 and 120, so we’re roughly in the middle of my estimate.
Given that Chimera is still over a month away, in theory the con size could reach 120. However, I suspect that the capping of the size of the flagship may cause a dampening effect on overall registration for the con. Also, there are only about 3 spaces left in most non-flagship rounds.
I think it’s going to full completely at a con size of around 110, but the con could have reached con size of 120 if it wasn’t for the limitations of the scenario sizes. Limiting the size of the con is good in terms of ensuring that all the games get their numbers. However, it may also limit the potential size of next year’s con, because there are fewer attendees to spread the word.
On reflection, I think the current approach of capping the size is probably the best policy. It allows for controlled growth of the con over the years.
While there’s a part of me that would love to see the con (and the community) grow in an unlimited manner, controlled growth is better for quality control. It means we can ensure games fill up, the flagship writers know how many players to write for, we maintain a high proportion of experienced larpers at games to help show the way, and you know in advance how many people you’ll be dealing with at the venue for logistical purposes like food, sleeping, mustering, etc. It’ll be disappointing for people who miss out, but there is always next year and other larp events.
How big is too big? Just in a general sense, I mean. Under the current model, where we expect all attendees to attend the headline larp, what’s the hard limit on how many people we can safely fit in the playing space? How many characters is too many for a team to be expected to write for?
In the current venue, I reckon we’re going to find it very full this year with 115 players. It could be extended with some outdoor play space out the back of the hall, but that would only suit certain genres (not a space ship, for example). If it extended outside, it could probably take up to 200 people or so. As I recall the field behind the hall is large and could take more, but there’s a limit to how many people you could have tramping in and out of the hall via the small back door and its stairs. Beyond 200 people, you’d need to have it entirely outside or across multiple indoor venues to hold it at Motu Moana.
In terms of writing for more people, you’d need more writers. There’s no hard limit there, just the limit of how many writers you have and how much time you have to spend coordinating them. As the community grows the number of writers is growing too, but many prefer to write smaller games so there always seems to be a lack of people volunteering to help write the flagship.
Or have several games.
Given the weather, I’m not sure that expanding outdoors is a viable strategy for the future, unless there’s a marquee or something (which adds to cost). So while we can expand the rest of the con to take as many people as space and writers allows, we might end up having to lose the idea of flagship as a common shared experience if we grow much more.
The fields are pretty darn swampy this time of year, I don’t really see outside as an option unless Chimera moves to February.
I was just thinking along the same lines as Idiot. We might have to turn the Saturday night into just another round of games.
If there were two halls of similar size at the venue then another option would be to run two rounds of the main larp, that way writers only have to accomodate half the people each, but that top hall is much much smaller isn’t it? Would need two sets of decor as well, of course.
The building used as crew space for this last Teonn… How big is that?
A way of growing the event could be to use surrounding venues for some of the LARPs.
That said, about 10 min walk from the Chimera venue is the Blockhouse Bay shops … which has a Community Center with 2 big halls, a heritage house which can be hired for events, a primary school with a big hall, and three churches, at least two of which I believe have large halls for hire.
Walk 10 mins in the opposite direction, and you get to the Green Bay shops … which has a Community Center with a medium hall, and a high school with (presumably) at least one large hall.
Split the directions, and about 10 mins walk takes you to Blockhouse Bay intermediate, which again, has at least one large hall.
If walking was too daunting (great publicity though!), then a couple of community members with vans/people movers or the like could shuttle people back and forth. Although if motorised transport was available, the assorted halls over at Lynfield College could also be an option.
[quote=“theotherphoenix”]
If there were two halls of similar size at the venue then another option would be to run two rounds of the main larp, that way writers only have to accomodate half the people each, but that top hall is much much smaller isn’t it? Would need two sets of decor as well, of course.[/quote]
Two entirely seperate rounds of the flagship could be run (maybe with different sets of GMs to manage burnout?) at different times - e.g. Sat night & Sunday lunch, or Fri night & Sat night. Of course, I haven’t yet attending Chimera, and can only guess at the level of chaos, bedlam, sleeplessness and other assorted terrors, so that may be entirely unfeasible.
That’s a lovely idea Ignifluous, but the first and biggest problem that immediately springs to mind is preventing the over-excited and chatty first-run players from giving away all the plots and secrets!
We do tend to run on and on about “oh and remember when THIS happened! and then he…”
I wish I hadn’t thought that thought, since a larp that could be run Friday and Saturday night would solve a lot of problems.
Logistically, there’s a lot to be said for running the same flagship scenario twice over the weekend - whether in parallel or at different times. It means fewer characters need to be written, so a smaller flagship writing team is required. It means that all that writing will seem doubly worthwhile, because the scenario gets played twice immediately. Also, any props and decorations get used twice (if the scenario was re-run at a different time). Half the writers could GM one round and half could GM the other, so it doesn’t double their workload on the weekend.
At an emotional level there is probably more impact in one 150 person game than two 75 people games though. It would have a sense of being part of something huge. Plus you’d have the feeling of playing with the whole community at once.
I was imagining pavilions and things outside if we went for a huge mixed indoor/outdoor flagship. Like I said, it would only work for some genres.
But FotH was only about 65 (i think?) players at the first Chimera and it was amazing. 
I think two 75 people larps would work out just fine. In fact, you’d have more chance of actually finding the people/plots you need than at a 150 person larp where you might go all night without ever meeting the people you need to talk to.
As a meet the people exercise, one big one is better, but maybe dividing us in two would make the game itself better, as we get larger.
[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]Logistically, there’s a lot to be said for running the same flagship scenario twice over the weekend - whether in parallel or at different times. It means fewer characters need to be written, so a smaller flagship writing team is required. It means that all that writing will seem doubly worthwhile, because the scenario gets played twice immediately. Also, any props and decorations get used twice (if the scenario was re-run at a different time). Half the writers could GM one round and half could GM the other, so it doesn’t double their workload on the weekend.
At an emotional level there is probably more impact in one 150 person game than two 75 people games though. It would have a sense of being part of something huge. Plus you’d have the feeling of playing with the whole community at once. [/quote]
Yeah. There are definitely pluses and minuses (and the risk of people talking if its in two seperate sessions is another minus). But it would give that scope for expansion that we kindof need in the long-term.
One way to get around this is to build a scenario that has two major plot hooks/events/triggers/reveals.
Use one in the first session, and the other in the second. Thus one session is effectively an alternate history version of the other! After all, we all love speculating what would happen if just one thing/decision/event had happened differently … this would give us a unique opportunity to game it out.
This means that, while a certain level of spoiling is possible, the big plot can’t be damaged, because players from session 1 don’t know the major reveal/event/hook for session 2. Which could be amusing if people didn’t realise they were going to be different and attempting to power-game >:-)
Obviously, this would make for more complex writing, but with smaller player numbers, the complexity might be manageable. Would also make for great discussions as people swap stories …
Another advantage of repeating the flagship on Fri & Sat is that the two players who have the same character could borrow props from each other. 
Personally, I’d be inclined to just ask people not to discuss the first run with anyone until after the second run. Discussion would be limited to the debrief session directly after the event when everyone present has just played.
My current plan for handling growth flagship-wise is to start running a dual flagship either next year or the year after. One whole original game, and one I borrow from Wellington that was run at least a few years ago.
This year the flagship will be in the Scout Den, which was the crew room at the last Teonn.