Bugetting a Larp

Everyone wants to make their larp successful and popular. One of the factors that accomplish this is good budgetting.
If the financials of the event are well handled you can lower your registration fee and thus giving your participants more bang for their bucks.

I've always went for strict budgets when I've organised a larp. Always asking: do we really need to spend money on X or Y?
My main rule of thumb has always been: "do we already have something in our stock that we can re-use for the same effect instead of buying/making something new?"
That of course led to the fact that on the Manticore larp we never had a new monster for each event. This while others were able to offer that to their participants.
On the other hand, you don't have to have a new monster each single event. Although I do understand how this anticipation of new monsters can make people keep participating.

The same goes with food, you can spend a lot of money on catered food, but having a volunteer kitchen crew can also bring the costs down and still give people quality food.

A location is always something difficult. I've organised larps on locations that were super-expensive and on locations that were almost free. One of the reason why it's good to stick with your participation fee is that when you choose a cheap location, you save more money. That money can then be invested when next time you go for a more expensive location, without having to raise the participation fee.

So why am I talking about this? Well, some people have been saying that they don't want to attend some Calam larp events because they thought it too expensive.
This gave me a mixed feeling as I've always thought Calam was a larp that gave the most bang for its buck: €80 euro (player), including food and drinks. But then I've discovered another larp, Nara, which offers almost the same for €55. That's a big difference!

So when you compare those prices Calam is indeed more expensive. Until we take a closer look.
Nara's participation fee is without drinks. So if we take €15 for drinks that brings the price at €70, still €10 lower than Calam.
So it's understandable that €10 is a big difference. Although when compared with some other larps at €105 the difference is minimal.
But I've seen that at Nara the price is €45 for NPCs (excluding drinks), while Calam asks €40 (including drinks).
So maybe we are not that different. Players pay a premium at Calam, but our NPCs pay less. This is mainly so because NPCs have to play a role written by the organisation, while players can play however and whatever they want (within the game world).
The reason why Calam has a lower participation fee for NPCs is that NPCs have always been a problem the last years in larps. Events have had it more and more difficult to find sufficient NPCs to fill their game world. Today the price at Calam for an NPC is almost 100% the cost of food and drinks that we provide them with.
Of course one can argue that an NPC is also having a lot of fun during a larp, which I personally hope they have. And that they therefor should also pay more. But sometimes a NPC has to play numerous roles during a weekend, he or she has to die numerous deaths, etc. This all to make the PC feel like the hero.

So in short larps can be organised cheaply (see Calam and Nara) while still providing quality for the participants. At least I hope people enjoy the quality we provide at Calam :-)

On the other hand organisations need their events to make some profit in order to pay for stock-rental, new props/costumes, maintenance of existing props/costumes etc.

In Belgium our hobby is facing a decline in attendance for each event. This is mainly due to the abundance of larps we can choose from. Where in the past there were maximum 6 events/year in whole Flanders there are now easily more than 20 events/year (check Larpkalender for their, not yet complete, overview of 2013).
Participants have become more picky, rightfully so, because they have more choice. So we all need to do our part in keeping our participants happy.
Some do it with low prices, some with very high quality, some giving exclusivity(1), etc.
But here in Belgium there is a thin line. One bad event can be enough to loose a lot of participants.

Anyway, no matter what type of larp you offer, budgetting is something important for any larp to survive. Bad budgetting can lead to negative financial results and/or people feeling cheated in paying too much for the delivered quality. The main question to ask yourself while budgetting your event is: "Do we need this, will this make the event better?"

Happy larping.

(1) Heroquest larp in UK charges up to £500 (5 day event), but has only 10 PCs and a lot of (non-paying) NPCs, making their PCs really the feel of a band of heroes on a real adventure.

A lot of tidbits

2012 was, for most of it's part, a great year for me in larping.

We had for the first time 2 Calam events which were in general well received. I furthermore attended 4 UK larp event (3 Dumnonni Chronicles events and the last ever Maelstrom event), having a blast at each of these.
Next I attended Conquest of Mythodea in Germany and lastly 4 larp events in Belgium (2 of Poort and 2 of Saga)

Man, seems I did 11 larps last year :-)

Saying goodbye to some events

While I had a great time on most of these event I was sadly very disappointed in one. A larp that used to have very high standards in decorating an ugly modern building into a nice in-character building. The last year those standards just were not present. I'm talking about Saga, an Arabian Nights style larp that was really one of the best in Belgium.
At their last event the best decorated area was one done completely by players, any other decoration was almost non-existent. If that was the only thing missing I might still continue, but for myself I was really bored and even thought of going home while the event was still going on!
I never really felt myself part of the game the last 2 events. This in contrast to the past where I was very often really highly immersed in the game. Combine this with the fact that I do 10+ larps a year and you can understand that I'm no longer going to Saga.
This really saddens me as I have very good memories of great roleplay at their events in the past. But sometimes you have to make a choice. And since the last year didn't live up to the standards I came to expect from it I have to say goodbye to some very good memories.

This year I'll most probably will also say goodbye to Conquest of Mythodea (CoM). The reason for this is that I only go to CoM to meet some friends, have a good time, do some shopping and enjoy the atmosphere. I'm not going there for the roleplay. Although I still make sure that I'm part of the game. But the thing is that (a) I have to take 3 days of holiday for this event, (b) it's a bit expensive considering what you get in exchange for your money, (c) it's a long drive and (d) I'll be going to more UK larps this year.

New events in 2013

While I'm saying goodbye to some events I'm also going to a new one. I'm talking about EMPIRE.

This new larp is a product of Profound Decisions, the company behind the Maelstrom larp I attended a couple of times.

I've been following the news of this new larp over the past year and it looks really promising. They really want to raise the standards of UK larping and go for high immersion, high costume standards, high roleplay standards, light rules, etc.

I've planned to go to their last 2 events of the year (July and September).

For the rest I'll keep going to Poort and Dumnonni Chronicles. And I'll keep organising Calam.

Larp kit plans

With Empire coming up this year, I'll be needing to make some new costumes.

This year I'm planning to make:

• new leather armour for my Wood-Elf at the Poort larp
• brigantine + new costume for my Empire - Marshes character
• new tunic for my bard at Dumnonni Chronicles
• chests and chairs for DC and Empire

If I have time left I'll also try to make a new portable IC tent that I can carry on my back during a larp.

Anyway, 2013 looks like a very promising larp year for me. There will be one Big Goodbye to CoM, but in return I expect a blast at Empire.

Keep larping

Calam V went the extra mile for larping

While I've been rather silent on this blog (what else is new? :-P ) I've been rather busy with larping.
I went to the UK for some excellent larping at the Dumnonni Chronicles larp (best larp after Dragonbane), having your own IC village really helps getting the mood right :-).

I also prepared for the first Calam event of the year, which took place a week ago. Well, Calam V was awesomely great! :-) Everybody who was present had a great time, telling me that they bring more people next time.

One of the things I was extremely happy about was how the inn-personnel handled the inn. While at Calam IV we had a great inn, that looked good (including the curtains we put up), where food was served in a real fashion, we now went the extra mile.
At Calam IV people could only choose one item on the menu and food was served at fixed times.
This time however food was served all day round AND you had a choice of 4 dishes. YES, we had a real-feel inn at Calam V! :-)
When at Belgium larps food is provided by the organisation it's in all cases typical camp-style => no choice in food, food served at fixed times, people line-up to get their plate filled, people have to clean their own plate and store it themselves. As we can all agree this is not really in-character, it breaks the game.
That's why I'm so happy with my kitchen crew (aka the inn-personnel) that they made it this awesome and really in-character => a real menu, no line-up, you don't need to have your own plate, eating at ANY time of the day, no cleaning of plates, ...

Of course Calam is still a small larp (25-ish players), but still, we are (as far as I know) the first larp (in Belgium) that offers this kind of realism. The only things we still miss to make our larp 100% in-character would be that all participants have IC shoes and our game area has 100% IC buildings. But well, small steps at a time will (hopefully) get us there, no?

Calam was great :-)

Two weeks ago the next installment of Calam ran. While we had some drawbacks with people having to skip this event (due to an abundance of larps going on in September), the event itself was great.
People liked our approach for this event and the fact that the inn had a real feel was wel appreciated.
The real feel was one of the main items that I wanted to test this event. We had decorated the inn to make it look good and real, and then we provided service to make it feel good.

Ordering food was done by asking the barkeeper of the waitress for food. They would go into the kitchen, fill a bowl on serve it at the table. No more queing and doing dishes as all other Belgian larps (that I know) ask of the participant. No, we went for the real deal :-)

There were of course some things that could go better, we had this time somewhat more fights than during past events, but everybody agreed that they fit the world. But we'll see how we can dimish them and keep the Calam athmosphere that people are liking.

In the meantime all of the crew is in favor for running 2 events per year, so keep out an eye for 2 events starting 2012.
I'll see that I'll post some pictures this weekend.

Ragnarok larp

Last year I was rambling on the Avatar larp forum, about the fact that they could take some hints from the Conquest of Mythodea larp in Germany. This resulted in a PM from Thierry who was already working (behind the scenes) on a new mass larp for Belgium: Ragnarok. Having read my posts he wanted me to join the crew.
So I went ahead, helped out where I could and ended up as a referee during the game.

So how was Ragnarok? Well, as a referee I had not much to do, 2 battles to supervise, some easy questions to answer, so all in all I had an easy time. But what about the game itself?

Well the looks were great! They made some wooden buildings for the 'official' places of the in-game Harapan city where the larp took place. They even had a beer brewery :-)
All the players and npc's looked great. It reminded me very much of the Maelstrom larp in the UK.

Ragnarok goes for the What You See is What You Get approach. Which means that people wanting to craft items, will have to do it (or at least make it look like their doing it). This resulted e.g. in players wanting to learn the brewing skill, to actually having to brew a beer for real :-). Pretty awesome, no?

Everywhere you went or looked it all had a real feel to it.

From what I saw, all players enjoyed themselves at the event, so that part they got going good. I especially loved the resources hunt each morning. That was really a splendid idea :-).

But there are some places that they'll need to improve.
Since they want to give all the players so much possibilities to create different kinds of stuff, the organisers are giving themselves a lot of work to do during the event. Each crafted items needs a laminated card and that means you'll need people to make those cards, hand them over and such. In my Manticore larp (max 80 players) we do the same and it's a hassle. If you do it for 500+ players (as were present at Ragnarok) this means you have a lot of adminstration to do. And it seems that this is something that could be done better. I heard a number of times that people had to wait in order to create stuff as the papers were not readily available.
Maybe they should use the Maelstrom approach: make stuff between events => all the laminated cards can be made in the months between events and put in the player envelope to hand out at the check-in.

What I never really liked is the 'paper-work' in order to fight between two armies. I hated it at Avatar and I sure don't like it a Ragnarok :-)
I understand it's done to give referees (like me) the ability to be at the fight and supervise if needed. But if a larp of 6000+ players like Conquest of Mythodea can do without this paper-work and have major battles, Ragnarok should also be able to do without.
Each faction has their own referee, so if faction A attacks faction B you'll already have 2 ref's present. If needed they can call in some backup if the fight is really big.
This would lead to more instant fights making it more fun, and also more tactical. Faction A can then attack the camp of Faction B if those people are going in a big group to the 'city' or such, leaving their camp almost empty...

They could alsodecrease the distance between the camps/city. It took at least 5 minutes to get from the city to the nearest faction camp. That is in my opinion too far. You want the camps closer to the city, so that people will visit the camps and cities more quickly instead of 'planning' the trip.

Final remark is one that I'm sure is not needed to say, but still: more toilets :-) I hate chemical toilets and I hate it even more when there are not enough so that they are full by Saturday afternoon. But like I said, I'm pretty sure the organisators know this one :-)

Here are some things that would improve the game even more:
- give free entrance for people who can play live music, give fireshows etc. They will have to perform X hours per day and in exchange they get drink/eat tickets and free entrance. That's how they do it at Conquest of Mythodea and it results in a great atmosphere.
- lower the price of the NPC's to e.g. 20 euro => the NPC faction will become huge and can bring lots of fights to the players :-) This also means that you lower the hurdle for people wanting to test out the larp without breaking their piggy bank :-)

So all things considered Ragnarok larp is a larp with a huge potential. If they can fix the minor beginer's errors they will have a larp that will attract a lot of people.
Everybody who stopped going to Avatar because it was no longer fun, to much munchkins or such should give Ragnarok a chance, you won't be disappointed.

The people behind the larp

There is never a larp without the (mostly few) crazy people willing to spend A LOT of their SPARE TIME to organise an event. They spend days, weeks, even months thinking of a good scenario, creating props, writing character roles, decorate the site, manage the event and afterwards cleanup the site.

When an event is good these people are happy and know that all their hard work meant something. But beware if the event is not as good as they hoped or even if it was right out bad. Then these people ask why they put in all the effort if the feedback afterwards is: "the event sucked", "I won't be back", ...

I've been running events for more than 10 years and I've had those moments. When I said 'this is it, I'm stopping', but each time I came around and continued on.

I remember Manticore 12, for me one of the worst as a projectleader, I told myself on the last day of the event that I would quit because I was breaking down (body and soul). But during the cleanup of the site people came up and told me that they loved the event. Suddenly all my reasons to stop were gone, as all the work did mean something!
Manticore 14, it's Sunday 22.30, everybody has already left. I'm cleaning up the mud in the corridors of the building we rented. After 15mins it's still not very clean. I remember thinking "This time it's for real! I will stop and spend the time thus saved on other stuff". Well, that never happened, along came Manticore 15 with me still in charge.

Now why am I all saying this? Well, last weekend we had Manticore 19, the pen-ultimate event before our grand finale of the current storyline. And while I'm not giving up (I plan to at least start the new storyline) I had mixed feelings of this one. My main storywriter is stepping down and I'm not blaming him.
The event received mixed reactions (people are saying that it was great, but those same people also say that is was "so so"), but in the end it was not the event that failed, it was I who failed as the project lead.

I saw from miles away that things in the team were not 100%, but I decided not to intervene, as these problems have always been present and they always solved themselves without my intervention.
But this time it was different and I didn't intervene at the right moment. My main concern with intervening is that the team consists out of volunteers who are also my friends. I find it personally difficult to criticise them if they do something wrong. I don't want to loose them as a teammember and certainly not as a friend. But my hesitation to intervene has cost me one team-member that I did not want to loose before the grand finale. Oh, he'll still be around and has promised to help out and such, but he won't take the lead in the storywriting anymore.
In order to keep the rest of the team going, to deliver at least an awesome finale, I'll have a talk with them in order to smooth things out and to lay down some rules. This to make sure that noone oversteps their function within the team.

Larping is fun, organising a larp can also fun, but like Mark Horstman (of Manager Tools) always says: from the moment you put two people in the same county you have a conflict. I just need that conflict to lead to great results :-)

Forest

Well as always it's been awefully quiet here :P
But there's been a lot going on. People knowing me, know that one of my dreams has always been to have a piece of land with buildings specifically made for larp. Well, that dream might become true.
I'm in the process of buying a nice big piece of forest just over the Belgium-Netherlands border. It's part of a bigger forest so lot's of opportunities for great larps.
Of course it's not as easy as a piece of cake, but I'm confident that all will work out fine.
Once all has been concluded and I'm ready to build I'll put some more info here.
In the meantime keep larping ;)