TL;DR Sorry guys, Orion isn’t happening for another 3 - 4 years.
For those LARPers out there who I’ve told about Orion, I have some bad news. Orion is being shelved as our current budget would run at a rather substantial loss. Since discovering this a few weeks ago, I have spoken to a lot of people who have helped me bring this negative number down by about $2,000. However, it’s still sitting at about $1,000 in the red, and needs a float of just under $3,000.
None of this is currently feasible in Wellington, and it’s unrealistic to expect NZLARPS to soak up that kind of an expected loss. Yes, we’ve considered a whole bunch of alternatives and things that we can do to bring the cost down, that’s how we’ve been able to reduce the loss so much. Like I said, I’ve spoken to a lot of people.
I’m not going to go over all the details about the finances, as I’ve already done it numerous times with other people. Suffice to say that no more savings can be gained without sacrificing a part of the identity of Orion.
Orion will still run, but it’ll be several years from now. What I plan on doing to make sure Orion happens is run a different campaign here in Wellington; one that will make a financial gain (I already have a draft budget for it). Using the funds gained from this other campaign, I will fund Orion.
Being the LARP obsessive that I am, I’ve already been in the process of writing this campaign for some time alongside Orion. I’ll let you know more about it later…