I think it's very easy for me to get defensive if I'm discussing DUTT vs other small local clubs (e.g. FnH, Vampire, Dark Fables, etc), or LT vs Maelstrom.  I don't feel inclined to get defensive about DUTT vs Maelstrom.

  Possibly this is another peculiarity of the university larp system- students have more free time than most people, and DUTT is cheap enough that if you struggle to afford it then you probably shouldn't be aiming to attend big fest events anyway.  Also, DUTT doesn't run any IC events outside of university term time (which is when Maelstrom usually runs.  I think in 2005 there was one Maelstrom event in the run up to summer exams, which wasn't ideal for us, but that was Maelstrom competing with work rather than with DUTT).

  We do run one larger weekend camping event in the summer- if that wound up running on a Maelstrom weekend then I think we could expect problems getting high enough attendance numbers.  But it's only one event per year, so it's relatively easy for us to schedule it for a non-Maelstrom weekend, and no one I know has expressed any problems with trying to attend both. 

  I can see how if you ran more weekend events over summer which aimed at large attendence then competing with Maelstrom might be more of an issue, but I don't think it is at DUTT.

  We might do, but my perception is that we don't to any meaningful degree. 

  It's always hard for us to work out what does and doesn't work recruiting-wise (as you say, you can pump existing players for feedback on why they joined, but you can't ask everyone else what put them off).  In 2006, the current social secretary made a particularly big effort to produce some new recruiting posters.  I thought the designs were very good, although obviously they were just black and white photocopies.  I have no idea if they actually made a difference or not- none of the new recruits have mentioned them particularly as something that influenced their decision to join.

  It seems like generally the most important thing we can do to get new players is to have a stall at Freshers' Fair with people fighting with shiny weapons and a mixture of people in shiny kit and people in unintimidating OC clothes.  It also helps to make sure that the people on the stall are charismatic and good at explaining larp to someone who's never heard of it.  A substantial proportion of female members on the stall doesn't hurt.  Most people who wind up joining at the fair seem to be drawn in by the fighting and/or kit, supplemented by the explanations of how the roleplay works.  Then if you get a high number of people at Freshers' Fair, you can expect them to pull in some of their friends.  So again, I could be wrong, but my perception is that any promotional material we distribute is mostly important due to the fact that it has our email and website addresses on it, and the date and time of events.  The designs or shininess seem to have relatively little effect compared to how good the stall is.

  That's good to know- it sounds like a much healthier approach than the one I thought you were advocating for a minute there.

  It's hard for me to compare DUTT to other clubs when I've never been to any.  I'm attached to the campaign in the sense that there are currently bits of it that I like very much and would feel annoyed if anyone tried to change OC.  I like the rules system in the sense that it makes a lot more sense than the old system used to, and we're constantly working to improve it (although we're limited by the fact that the change is generally pretty incremental- there's relatively little opportunity to rip everything up and start again).  But I wouldn't call the DUTT campaign a single 'artistic creation', mostly because there's so much turnover in the ref team that no one person has the chance to impose their vision on the game for very long.  As Iasus says, we've been running for 25 years ago now, but it's a bit like the Grandfather's old axe- since we're constantly changing little things, I expect that it would be hard to recognise the original DUTT and the current one as the same club.  Since we recruit mostly new larpers, I think there's a tendency for everyone to feel most loyal to the way things were done in their first year, but the nature of university larp means that membership turnover is pretty high (due to people moving after graduation).

  If I tell a Durham student about larp, then ideally I want them to join DUTT rather than turning around and joining the Newcastle Vampire game, or whatever.  But I'd prefer that they joined a different larp group than not joining any larp group at all, and if they genuinely prefer Vampire or Maelstrom or whatever over DUTT then I'd prefer that they go to the system they enjoy most rather than coming to DUTT while feeling dissatisfied with it.