I went to the best event I've ever attended (in about 15 years of LRP), and it was amateur run, before that, my top event had been professionally run.

People are generally more willing to run at a loss if they're amateur, AND they don't need to write their cost of living into the event cost.

But in theory, professionals should be able to designate more time (and also have more experience) to writing the event, communicating with players and making props.   I'd love to know whether most people running LRP professionally work 9-5, 48 weeks a year (or the equivalent in shifts).  I'd guess some do, and some don't - but most small business owners work longer hours than those, especially when they're first setting up.  Many of them also fail - do people go into the professional side for a love of the hobby or to make money out of a business opportunity?

I have no issue with people feeling ripped off, but rather than *just* moaning, vote with your feet and/or try and do something better.

If you factor in fuel and food costs, then add another 30-40 quids worth to the cost. Call it 50 to be generous, the last event I went to I paid about £60 on food and booze because I had decided to IC provide lunch for everyone (it was a political thing).

Lets round it up to £100 cost. Thats still only £4 per hour.

What else should we consider? Costume, weapons, props. Its hard to atrribute costs accurately or fairly because these are re-usable. So maybe an average of £50 and thats possibly being generous. That takes us to £150 for a weekend, or £6 per hour.

Still pretty good value. A couple of weekends ago, David and I spent the weekend in a hotel with my parents, total cost for the weekend was about £280. None of it was re-usable.

LRP events haven't changed price significantly over the last 8 years, a lot of people still expect to pay around £40 for events, which makes it very difficult for organisers to buy props, costume, hire sites, etc.

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It is not a competition. It is a web forum.

Any change in quality and price needs to be slow - maybe adding a couple of pounds a year and making a concerted effort to imnprove at least one aspect of the game each event.

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The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God...

Ruins of Empire

1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester

Most tickets are £30 and you have to do two bits of crewing.  Or you pay £60 and don't have to crew at all - the extra money is allocated to extra kit and subsidising food and travel for getting extra crew.

Your PC can rest, make stuff etc while you crew - so there's no noticeable advantage IC to doing 'play only'.  It also means that for those of us who don't like playing waves of orcs, we can pay more for the event to avoid it!

I think that's a great way of doing it.

Well, y'see there's a little place in Wales called Candleston. It's near Merthyr Mawr. It's booked up through open season almost exclusively by LRP groups and massive plans are afoot to make it into the best LRP site in Europe, it's already regarded as one of if not the best in the UK.

It has a fort, it has a fighting pit, it has caves... soon (assuming Steve's mayherestinpeace plans are stuck to) it'll have a hamlet, and a forge (not functioning mindyou), and a temple and a ship.

Ascendancy LRP: Redvers Fenn-Cooper

Crimson Requiem: Crew

Real Life: Doug McKerracher

Quis custodiet ipsos custard?

Maybe they don't understand labour costs and profit margins, but I guarantee that if their employer suggested halving their wage, because they had to cover the cost of materials they'd soon find another job.

Traders charge the minimum they can in order to compete and if we want to buy quality product then we should accept the prices (if you want a cheap sword-then make it yourself, but don't then try to tell me that the resulting cricket bat is comparable to my replica sword).

There are  a lot of talented people in this hobby many of them don't sell commercially- interestingly most of them don't think that the crafts people who service the hobby are making a killing either.

When I was at uni, larping was my life, I would spend most of my free time larping/making kit/props/writing stories. These says I tend not to bother.

Why are larpers s tight?

well, put simply most people tend to be selfish fucks who want as much as possible for the minimum effort, and larpers are no different.

It doesn't just come down to money, many larpers are just as tight with their time and effort as they are their money.

The club I used to attend is pretty damn bad in this respect. Looking at the players, they're (nearly) all got lovely expensive weapons, armour and props. Despite this they don't ever pay any money into the club, so the club kits is next to nothing, and what is there is all old worn out cast offs. (which no-one ever maintains).

I do think that the hobby suffers for this.

You could offer someone the chance to larp on the LOTR quality, and charge the absolute bare minimum to break even, and people would still bleat that it could be done cheaper by their mates.

fuckwits.

/endrant.