Weekend larps and Scheduling Discussion

Community Larp discussion
#1

I’m starting this thread to get a firm idea on what times are not suitable for university students and others in reference to large weekend larps. There is always ideas and unwritten rules floated around about when it is best to run a weekend/day game but nothing written down as guide lines as such that I have found.

If we can safely take the assumption that running a weekend larp during the exam break is a bad idea, what other times during the year should organisers look out for?

Also what are other preferences to weekend larps? How much time should there be a break between two weekend games? Is a 2 month break long enough for someone coming up from outside auckland for weekend games?

#2

In my experience, the week just before and the week just after the mid-semester break is usually full of assignment deadlines.
Unfortunately, Chimera this year fell the weekend before the mid-semester break, and I know of a couple of people who either couldn’t make it at all or had to skip one of the days.

#3

[quote=“Muppet”]
Also what are other preferences to weekend larps? How much time should there be a break between two weekend games? Is a 2 month break long enough for someone coming up from outside auckland for weekend games?[/quote]

Theres an issue here with setting a “rule”.

If we say “There must be a 2 month break between weekend games” then realistically we can only have a couple of weekend games a couple of times per year. And that assumes that all players wish to attend every event.

Looking at the year, we lose maybe 2 months over summer where people are away for various reasons - despite December and January being quite good for some outdoor type larps.

June/July are not worth running weekend games with any kind of outdoor component. And May is pretty iffy too.

Chimera takes out August.

While one off events might have less of an impact, existing campaign games leave very little space for any new games. Add in the monthlies and day games and the calender looks really full…

#4

probs wouldn’t be a rule maybe just guidelines.

i think day games are mass important to intermingle between weekend larps, especially since we are getting poor.

#5

Agreed. I have over-read into the topic. In essence I just didn’t want the discussion to go down that road.

The reality of it is, running ANY event any closer than about 3-4 weeks from a weekend event will lead to a low player turn out anyways.

Those of us that run day/night games find we are constantly struggling to find space to run our games.

Weekend games have a big resource shadow - meaning that people put lots of resources into their weekend games (time and money and effort) and it leaves them with less for the smaller fish (like Knightshade).

My other bugbear is regular monthly games (i.e. Requiem) - while I am sure they’re great fun for the participants and they have a good following, they also lock out a lot of weekends in a year. Thats awesome for the GM’s of those games but it doesn’t help others run weekend events.
The point here being - you CANNOT run a well populated LARP on the first Saturday of any month of the year because half the Auckland LARPer’s are at Requiem.

#6

[quote=“Jared”]Theres an issue here with setting a “rule”.

If we say “There must be a 2 month break between weekend games” then realistically we can only have a couple of weekend games a couple of times per year. And that assumes that all players wish to attend every event.[/quote]

As Zannii said, i’m not looking at making rules, just a useful guide to when organisers can look at running games, and what to look out for.

As the community grows, I believe we need to move past this idea of, “There is a game running this weekend so we can’t run a game at the same time.” As the population of larpers grows so to will the demand, and the majority of larps have a limited player space.

#7

[quote=“Muppet”]
As the community grows, I believe we need to move past this idea of, “There is a game running this weekend so we can’t run a game at the same time.” As the population of larpers grows so to will the demand, and the majority of larps have a limited player space.[/quote]

I don’t disagree with this idea at all. It would be nice even. Current demand doesn’t seem to push this barrier however…

Added to this, and it is my opinion, there is a desire for even bigger events in which a large section of the LARP player base participates (like Wolfgangs), a national larpfest type event.
Us larpers really seem to like larping together for some reason and we all like going to the popular games… for some reason.

#8

as much as i love requiem, i reckon if the weekend game was big and lovely enough people would skip requiem and go. i agree though, it would be hard for games trying to do their first big weekend though.

oh mirth! i am thankful though that there are so many games now-a-days, rather than having to wait ages for one to crop up.

more than scheduling (even though this is a great idea!) we also need to get new games the attention they diverse so they have a chance against existing games with big followings.

#9

The worry with double-booking dates is if people skip one to go to the other, that might create some ill-will. Using Requiem because Zanni mentioned it, if I were a GM who was used to a certain turnout and then suddenly a new game comes along on my night and steals some of my players, I’d be a bit miffed.

#10

Perhaps it would be useful to formalise the process for selecting a reserving a weekend. I would like to see a tentative timetable 12 - 18 months in advance. GMs could have regular (2 monthly ?) meetings to go over the schedule. At this time they could reserve weekends for weekend games, and days for daygames. Each reserved date could have a GO / NO GO date at which the GM must commit to holding the game or else it goes back into the pool for re-allocation.

A system like this would enable us to work together to minimise proximity between games, and maximise the chances of getting a good turnout to games.

It would feed into our communications plans, so the marketing officer could see clusters of games, and arrange promotional activities accordingly.

The current ad hoc “system” or basically a free-for-all was fine when there were few games, but now we regularly see multiple games per month, so I suggest it would be in the interest of all GMs to work together.

#11

I remember when a few years back, Craig organised a meeting for all Auckland game organisers to get together and make plans for the coming year - things like discussing game scheduling and sharing information on venues, gear, cooking, game running. The first time only a few of us were there, but I wonder if it might time to try having them again, as Mike suggests.

#12

Again, citing my experience as a fundraiser here… (Sorry!)

All those street appeals you see are set by a national calendar which is created well in advance. It ensures everyone has ample time to plan and promote their event and knows what ‘competition’ they’re up against from the following week. It’s not perfect, but does help with many of the logistics.

As we’re gearing up here in Wellington to plot the games we want to run, we’re keenly interested in knowing what’s on Nationwide. Not just LARPS, but other events that are likely to be of interest to our members.

In just looking at the proposed games we have bubbling, I can see us easily plotting a year’s worth of events right now.

It’d be cool to see us all band together and make a national calendar of AWESOME.