Arisia Report - Part 1
Part 2 will be posted friends-only. Sorry, general public, but there's things I don't want to discuss with the whole world.
Arisia 2008 was by any rational measure very successful for me, for Intercon, and for Alleged Entertainment. Some highlights:
The Intercon H Party on Friday night (room 832 at 8:32)! This year's con theme (and party theme) was Heaven and Hell. learnedax made some excellent and witty decorations - road signs on the "Highway to Hell". laurion and I put together Heaven and Hell-themed playlists for the party. As per tradition at Intercon parties, we had snow cones in abundance. This party really came together at the last minute, and was amazingly successful considering that. A good time was had by all.
10 Bad LARPs: Remix! on Saturday night. We weren't really sure what to expect in terms of player numbers going into this. Generally speaking, our past experiences playing and running LARPs at Arisia had been somewhat mixed, both because of unpredictable turnout and general chaos. But not this time! We not only filled Remix, we overflowed it. This is partly due to a show of support from our friends at Immortal Sociopaths and our new friends at Mythical Journeys: Future Imperfect, as well as a host of new and experienced LARPers who came out to play. It was a blast, and we went home elated.
Welcome to Sunnyvale on Sunday morning. I really, really wasn't expecting anyone to show up for an 8:00 AM LARP on Sunday Morning - and I was really, really right. At 8:15, I decided the best course of action would be to post a sign on the door announcing that the LARP had been postponed until 10:00 and compressed to 2 hours in length. So I did, and went upstairs and ate a very nice breakfast at the hotel restaurant. (Mmm, strawberry smoothies.)
When I got back downstairs, I noticed two things: first, that the yoga class that had been scheduled from 8:30-9:30 in the next room over had moved into the room I was using, and that people seemed to be taking notice of the sign. In fact, most people hadn't even been aware there was going to be a LARP in that room, and noticed that it said "LARP" on the door in big letters. This meant that not only did the game fill - I actually had to turn one person away!
The game ran quite well. I'm always impressed by Welcome to Sunnyvale - zapf and Sage really did a great job writing this one. It's a really good example of minimalism in LARP writing: it only takes 11 pages and 4 index cards to print out this game (including GM materials), and it runs for 4 hours for 8 players. The only bad thing I would say about this run is that it did suffer somewhat from the time compression - I wish people had had a longer time to figure out their puzzles.
(UPDATED TO INCLUDE) The Care and Feeding of Gophers panel, moderated by Intercon's own laurion. In case it's not clear, the title refers to the kind of "gophers" that volunteer at your convention. The discussion was really interesting and got me thinking about some stuff we could be doing at Intercon as well.
The Radio Dramas Red Shift and Second Shift did a live performance at 2:00 on Sunday. I'd never heard Red Shift before, but it was totally awesome. Definitely going to need to start listening to it. The Second Shift actors did a great job as well. I wish I could have stayed to hear all of the Second Shift episode, but I had to leave to go to...
The Intercon Meeting on Sunday afternoon. The meeting ran a bit overtime, but IMO that was mainly because there was a lot to talk about! Intercon H is coming up on us really fast. And, the big news: I have been elected con chair of Intercon I (in 2009)! You may all proceed to taunt me now.
I played in Clue, Impaired on Sunday night. I played a straight-up parody of a well-known videogame character who happens to be an Italian plumber. I had a lot of fun with the character and was also really impressed by the other players, who did a great job at acting and characterization. Also, many thanks and kudos to the Immortal Sociopaths GMs, who ran a well-organized and fun game under difficult circumstances.
After the game, bleemoo, wired_lizard, mllelaurel and I went to IHOP for midnight snackage. Hilarity, awesomeness, and excellent LARP discussion ensued. You guys rock.
Arisia 2008 was by any rational measure very successful for me, for Intercon, and for Alleged Entertainment. Some highlights:
The Intercon H Party on Friday night (room 832 at 8:32)! This year's con theme (and party theme) was Heaven and Hell. learnedax made some excellent and witty decorations - road signs on the "Highway to Hell". laurion and I put together Heaven and Hell-themed playlists for the party. As per tradition at Intercon parties, we had snow cones in abundance. This party really came together at the last minute, and was amazingly successful considering that. A good time was had by all.
10 Bad LARPs: Remix! on Saturday night. We weren't really sure what to expect in terms of player numbers going into this. Generally speaking, our past experiences playing and running LARPs at Arisia had been somewhat mixed, both because of unpredictable turnout and general chaos. But not this time! We not only filled Remix, we overflowed it. This is partly due to a show of support from our friends at Immortal Sociopaths and our new friends at Mythical Journeys: Future Imperfect, as well as a host of new and experienced LARPers who came out to play. It was a blast, and we went home elated.
Welcome to Sunnyvale on Sunday morning. I really, really wasn't expecting anyone to show up for an 8:00 AM LARP on Sunday Morning - and I was really, really right. At 8:15, I decided the best course of action would be to post a sign on the door announcing that the LARP had been postponed until 10:00 and compressed to 2 hours in length. So I did, and went upstairs and ate a very nice breakfast at the hotel restaurant. (Mmm, strawberry smoothies.)
When I got back downstairs, I noticed two things: first, that the yoga class that had been scheduled from 8:30-9:30 in the next room over had moved into the room I was using, and that people seemed to be taking notice of the sign. In fact, most people hadn't even been aware there was going to be a LARP in that room, and noticed that it said "LARP" on the door in big letters. This meant that not only did the game fill - I actually had to turn one person away!
The game ran quite well. I'm always impressed by Welcome to Sunnyvale - zapf and Sage really did a great job writing this one. It's a really good example of minimalism in LARP writing: it only takes 11 pages and 4 index cards to print out this game (including GM materials), and it runs for 4 hours for 8 players. The only bad thing I would say about this run is that it did suffer somewhat from the time compression - I wish people had had a longer time to figure out their puzzles.
(UPDATED TO INCLUDE) The Care and Feeding of Gophers panel, moderated by Intercon's own laurion. In case it's not clear, the title refers to the kind of "gophers" that volunteer at your convention. The discussion was really interesting and got me thinking about some stuff we could be doing at Intercon as well.
The Radio Dramas Red Shift and Second Shift did a live performance at 2:00 on Sunday. I'd never heard Red Shift before, but it was totally awesome. Definitely going to need to start listening to it. The Second Shift actors did a great job as well. I wish I could have stayed to hear all of the Second Shift episode, but I had to leave to go to...
The Intercon Meeting on Sunday afternoon. The meeting ran a bit overtime, but IMO that was mainly because there was a lot to talk about! Intercon H is coming up on us really fast. And, the big news: I have been elected con chair of Intercon I (in 2009)! You may all proceed to taunt me now.
I played in Clue, Impaired on Sunday night. I played a straight-up parody of a well-known videogame character who happens to be an Italian plumber. I had a lot of fun with the character and was also really impressed by the other players, who did a great job at acting and characterization. Also, many thanks and kudos to the Immortal Sociopaths GMs, who ran a well-organized and fun game under difficult circumstances.
After the game, bleemoo, wired_lizard, mllelaurel and I went to IHOP for midnight snackage. Hilarity, awesomeness, and excellent LARP discussion ensued. You guys rock.