Good idea. Obvious tourist cred places are Rotorua, Nelson, and Queenstown/Wanaka. Plenty of interesting tourist stuff do in summer in these places.
Since cost is likely to be a constraint, I would suggest using a school as the venue. They typically have a large hall for the plenary sessions, plus lots of breakout rooms (classrooms).
The downside of this is that it increases the cost for all participants. Everyone has to travel and there’s no source of easy crash space. Plus the hassle of organising something in another city is greater.
Still, its an idea to consider for the future, once the thing is established.
As Anna already knows, I’m a big supporter of this idea - I already talk game theory to anyone else who shows the slightest interest in it 
My topics tend to be more on the practical rather than theoretical end of the spectrum - more “how to involve more players in more plots” than “how best to get the proper emotional response out of your player base when you set the game in a tulip field” (clearly showing my bias here )
I’d be very interesting in a serious discussion of the sorts of topics speakers would bring to an event like this, who the audience is supposed to be, and why they’d be interested in what you’d have to say. Are we pitching this at players? At game-writers? Is it purely an intellectual exercise where we have a “my mind is bigger than yours” contest? I’m afraid I’m not at all familiar with what these are about overseas; I had a look at one of the ones Idiot linked to, but couldn’t get to any actual content just a list of topics.
Also as The Dunedin Larper I strongly endorse the use of Skype/some other mass remote communication deal to be able to do this with. Switching between Wellington and Auckland each year is fine for Wellington and Aucklanders but not so hot for Hamiltonians, Dunedinites, Christchurchians, Palmy Northers, etc etc etc - and those venues quite frankly won’t/don’t have the numbers or clout to insist the “big two” both go there for a conference either. Hence I think Internet enabled broadcasts are the way to go.
I think that’s going to depend entirely on the contributors to the event. In Scandinavia, its very much the latter. Other events tend to be more practical.
If you look at the Knutepunkt wikipage, there’s a list of the resulting books (and links to them) near the bottom. GNiales has some information here, but only the abstracts are in English (still you can get a good idea of content). Larp Frescos, produced by the Italian larp symposium is here (PDF; mostly in Italian but with some English). I can’t find a link to the WyrdCon book.
Actually it works well for North Islanders; Auckland is close to Hamilton, Wellington is close to PN. But we obviously want to be more inclusive than that, as well as potentially attract overseas participants in the long-term.
Marae are perfectly formed crash-spaces. I can offer mine - about 20Km from Rotorua in a scenic and secluded bay on the shore of Lake Rotoiti. Apart from the wharenui (where everyone would crash), there are three breakout spaces. Hot soda springs a short drive away.
But, yeah, holding the first one in a main centre is a good idea. Start smallish and build it up is a good idea, like what has happened with Chimera.
I figured it was the next phase in her plot to Take Over The World! Bwa ha ha ha ha. A ha ha ha ha…[/quote]
But will it lead to something like this?
userpages.umbc.edu/~mcdo/488L/
(Yes, that’s a US university course on larp, with writing and reviewing games as assignments)
I figured it was the next phase in her plot to Take Over The World! Bwa ha ha ha ha. A ha ha ha ha…
[/quote]
Me, would I do something like that? 
[quote]But will it lead to something like this?
userpages.umbc.edu/~mcdo/488L/
(Yes, that’s a US university course on larp, with writing and reviewing games as assignments)[/quote]
I really hope so!
For an example of what people overseas are discussing, here’s the schedule for NELCO, the New England Larp Convention:
NELCO writeup from FairEscape:
fairescape.wordpress.com/2012/07 … nt-report/
Sounds interesting, and hopefully they’ll post some powerpoints / notes / video of the event to the web sometime.
Edit to add: And another writeup here: captainecchi.livejournal.com/655559.html
[quote=“IdiotSavant”]
But will it lead to something like this?
userpages.umbc.edu/~mcdo/488L/
(Yes, that’s a US university course on larp, with writing and reviewing games as assignments)[/quote]
we need all of their course resources. ALL OF THEM. how do we get them?
If you’re interested in larp academia, WyrdCon has called for papers for its post-con academic supplement:
So, in this thread I’ve had interest from Ignifluous, Ryan, Emily, Mike, Kirsten, Vanya, Tetrajak, Blair, James, Porl, Viperion - that’s close enough to a dozen for me 
I’d like to go ahead and organise a one-day larp theory conference for next year, once I figure out where to put it in the 2013 line up. I’m aware it’s kind of a niche idea but let’s give it a go and see what happens
Excellent. And maybe with this new Night Rider fare, I’ll be able to come along too.
[quote=“Anna K”]So, in this thread I’ve had interest from Ignifluous, Ryan, Emily, Mike, Kirsten, Vanya, Tetrajak, Blair, James, Porl, Viperion - that’s close enough to a dozen for me I’d like to go ahead and organise a one-day larp theory conference for next year, once I figure out where to put it in the 2013 line up. I’m aware it’s kind of a niche idea but let’s give it a go and see what happens [/quote]Hooray! I predict that we’ll all end up agreeing that we’ll never speak of it again, but that we can’t wait for next year’s Or actually far more likely that we’ll have some interesting discussion on LARP, and a few of us (coughmecough) enjoying a brief reconnection with academia to some extent.
I would definitely be interested in this. What a great idea Anna. While larp is fun, it is also a great form of art/storytelling/interactive theatre, and it would be nice to have recognised as such by a wider reaching audience.
So, about this Larp Academic Conference Thing
I haven’t forgotten about this idea and I am still very interested in doing it. I would like to moot the following dates:
Auckland - Sunday 29th September
Wellington - Sunday 6th October
Are the people who were previously interested still interested, and do those dates work? Or do I put it off to 2014? 
I’m still keen, and that Wellington date suits me
29 September is 33AR. I don’t play, so I could make it, but it’d be robbing 33AR of crew.
The wellington date works for me.
The idea with having an Auckland and Wellington event is that folk don’t need to travel, the event comes to them
Ah, I thought it was either/or. In which case, I’m more than happy with the Wellington date.