Phoenix 2019 will be held from 30 August - 1 September 2019. At this stage, there’s no other details, but there’s a Facebook event if you want to keep track of further news. They’re also seeking flagship submissions. If you’d like to bid a flagship, please fill out the form here:
They’ll open submissions for smaller games in the near future.
Air New Zealand’s drop in regional prices means that its a good time to book travel for Phoenix. To repeat last year’s advice: if you are flying in from the North Island, I would recommend an arrival time no later than 16:00 so you can coordinate with other travelers for transport. We’re arriving at ~13:00. Saga normally organises car-pooling, with a group leaving from the airport, so you may not need to hire a vehicle.
For return, organise departure time of 18:30 or later. Earlier may involve stress, and possibly having to skip the last round.
At time of posting, you can get there from Wellington with a big bag of costumes for ~$170 ($104 there, $54 back, plus credit card fees and carbon offset). Its a similar price from Palmerston North. Flights are cheaper if you arrive earlier in the day, but flights home are cheap - I guess no-one wants to leave Christchurch on a Sunday night.
Game submissions are now open! If you’re interested in running something, fill out the form here:
(Now I need to work out what to run…)
So when are submissions needed by?
Booked!
SAGA has a pretty poster for this:
From FB, the first game:
Fallout
By Jen HayThe Nuclear Option is dead. Time to deal with the fallout.
The villain was killed by their nemesis, Legend, in a battle that will not soon be forgotten. You and your fellow villains have agreed to a ceasefire so you can pay your respects to the greatest villain of all time. Tensions are high. Secrets abound. Villains don’t play well with others, and no one can be certain if the ceasefire will even be honoured.
Of course, there’s also the issue of the Villain that hasn’t shown up yet. The three new Villains, who no one has heard of, and the hero that has infiltrated the funeral.
Are you strong enough, wily enough, enough of a villain to make it through the night?
Well. You’ll find out soon enough. Won’t you?
And another:
UEAF: Class of 2203
By Samantha NichollsThe year is 2203. You have just finished basic training and are en route with your fellow cadets to Jupiter Station, where you will live and train for the next three years. Barring any… unfortunate… incidents, at the end of those three years you will graduate, a fully fledged member of the United Earth Air Force and, hopefully, assigned an active post in your chosen field.
But first, you have to make it through this shuttle voyage without strangling any of your classmates.
This game is the sequel to the Final Voyage of the SS. Prometheus run at Phoenix 2017, Phoenix 2018 and Hydra 2019.
More:
Reunification
by Stuart Stoddart and Jo EastIn 1989 the fall of the Berlin Wall began, opening travel in a previously divided Germany and starting the process towards the country’s reunification. For two families, this means the opportunity to meet relatives they had either long thought lost or never even met. Can they overcome decades of cultural and political separation and begin the path to healing, or will old wounds be opened anew?
If anyone needs a soundtrack for this:
The Tower Magi
by Tayla Fielding-JonesThe magical arts have been in decline for more than a century. The only mages anyone learns about are con artists tricking weary travellers into spending coin on “amulets of protection” or predicting dry weather to the farmers, not the ones who hunted the dragons to extinction with their minds or could create fireballs from nothing.
However, a letter arrives at your home wrapped in a ribbon of pure liquid gold. It leaves small trails of rainbow dust when moved and refuses to be opened by anyone but the intended recipient. Opening it, you see that it is from a man called “The Maestro”, inviting you to study at the last of the schools of magic left standing after the fall of the Age of the Magi.
The Flagship LARP:
Welcome to the Neighbourhood
By Lee Patrick"You’re dead. And that’s fine!
At least, that’s what the cheerful sign you passed on the way in said. When it wasn’t somewhat alarmingly flickering in and out of existence.
To be perfectly honest, this isn’t the afterlife you were hoping for. Maybe you were expecting clouds and harps and cherubs; maybe you were expecting an endless party; maybe you weren’t expecting anything but nothingness. What you definitely weren’t expecting was bored, apathetic demons staffing a shoddy-looking neighbourhood that doesn’t seem like it’ll stay standing for the next two days, never mind the rest of eternity.
Something’s definitely not right here. And it’s up to you and your fellow deceased to put the pieces together and work out what’s really going on.
Welcome to the Neighbourhood is a slightly silly, slightly surreal mystery-solving LARP for around 40 players."
Game submissions are closing tomorrow, then the committee will sort out a timetable and get that published before Player Registration open early June.
Fortunately I submitted my second game (a rerun of Best of the Wurst) this morning.
Yeah, I got rather bogged down with being sick so forgot to make sure all the information had ended up in all the places it needed to be.
Luckily, we look like we’ll have enough LARPs for a 30-40 person con, and I can always throw easy to run games at people if we somehow manage to get well more than expected player registrations.
Conveniently, I have a bunch of easy-to-run games 
And I’m actively on the hunt for more.
Its Kestrel 5!
The Constanta Blockade
By Tony Mitton and AJ Smith
GM - Donna GiltrapSeven years after the war the Federation’s grip on the once-rebellious Outer Worlds ratchets ever tighter. Even previously free ports, which stayed as neutral as possible during hostilities, suffer as shipping licences get awarded exclusively to large, core-based megacorps and all other transportation risks classification as smuggling.
Constanta Station is one of these free ports. Long-reputed a safe base for free-traders of all stripes and protected by a highly-organised ruling gang, the station has suddenly come under full interdiction by the Second Fleet. The reason is unknown, but rumours abound.
Is it due to the reported death of the station’s semi-legendary gang boss? The reappearance of a pro-independence leader long thought dead? Rumours of a horde of stolen art treasures? Or something deeper and larger? Something which means that everything may be about to change…?
As the interdiction tightens locals, travellers and traders find themselves trapped in Rico’s bar. Here they can share the rumours and try to find ways to escape the blockade.
Another UEAF game
The Gaia Project
By Sam Nicholls and Jen HayThe year is 2168, and humanity is taking its first steps beyond the solar system. The Gaia project is the first test of a star drive that will one day take humans into the far reaches of space, beyond the milky way.
At the UNAF academy base in Wales, the 4 strong crew of the SS Gaia, the first crewed vessel to leave the solar system, have just disembarked from their successful first voyage to Alpha Centauri and back. After four months in the smallish vessel, they are happy to be back on solid ground.
As they gather to celebrate their success and reunite with friends and family, far across the earth a strange signal is picked up by satellites…
The Gaia Project is the prequel to The Final Voyage of the SS Prometheus and UEAF: Class of 2203. No prior knowledge of either game is necessary.
The next one:
Magic in the Air
By Stuart Stoddart and Ian BayardA selection of lucky wizards are hoping to find laughter, love and maybe that special someone to share a tower with - all in front of a live studio audience, tonight on “Magic In the Air”, MBC’s top-rated wizard dating show.
If its 10 years old its officially a classic, right?
Down and Out in Middenburg
By Malcolm Harbrow and Donna GiltrapMiddenburg: a pile of refuse at the mouth of the river Siel. According to legend, Middenburg is where the gods took a dump. That certainly explains the human refuse who clog the streets. But that refuse has tales of its own. Every year on the day of Adversa, Goddess of Misfortune, the beggars of Middenburg gather for a feast paid for by the more charitable citizens of the city. The Prone Man will hold court, to resolve differences among their followers. But this year, things are going to be rather… exciting.
This LARP was written for Chimera 2009, so this is a 10th-anniversary run.