LARP Census

[NERO Aeon]

The question of "How many LARPers are there in the world?" has been floating about the industry for a while. I am looking for feedback as to what you feel is the best way to get Census information for LARPers around the world.

What will this information do? Census information is generally used to help games look at their numbers, prices, and services. With the information from a Census they can look at modifying their costs/prices so they can offer a game that their customers/members can afford and will not bring the game into bankruptcy. It can also help with those running games to offer the style of game that people in their area are looking to play.

Any thoughts would be helpful.

Kevin Tjia
NERO Aeon
www.neroto.com

[Redfeild]

Its all MET down here. Like to try some thing else some time.

I would like to run or play...
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer
*Cthulhu Live aka Call of Cthulhu
*Deliria

I'd like to try...
*Passion Play aka Fading Suns
*Game of Powers aka Nobilius

[NERO Aeon]

Redfeild,

That information would be good on a census (an advanced one, for example) but would be relatively useless without other information also attached. Census information would normally be things like:

Do you LARP? (the basis of our census)
Sex:
Age:
Country:
State/Province/Principality:
City:
Household Income:
Are you married?
Do you have kids?
If Yes, how many?

An advanced LARP Census may include:

How often do you LARP?
What do you pay on average each time that you LARP?
What LARP Systems have you played?
Rate each system's rules from 1 - 10:
What is your favorite LARP Genre?

Or similar questions that have to do with the industry.

For the moment I am looking for feedback on what may be the best way to collect this information. Preferably I would like to see this information available for all LARPS to use, as it is difficult enough to run one on a constant basis as it is.

The problem is getting the information in the first place, and then finding a way to share it appropriately without violating anyone's personal information. Will people want to share their personal information such as income with their LARP? Or another LARP they have never played but is asking for this information? Are there certain Laws that need to be adhered to? For example, here in Canada we have a law that prevents me from providing my customer's names to any other company without written approval.

Now, for the basis of a census I could say "35% of my customers are woman" which is not personal, but I could not get into specifics.

There are a lot of little things that can become big things, expecially when dealing with a World Wide audience.

Kevin Tjia
NERO Aeon
www.neroto.com

[Merten]

For the moment I am looking for feedback on what may be the best way to collect this information. Preferably I would like to see this information available for all LARPS to use, as it is difficult enough to run one on a constant basis as it is.

I can't comment on the legal side of things, not really knowing much of international laws for collecting somewhat personal information. But one of the biggest problems, if you want to make the survey international, would be to reach the audience. In most places, the live-roleplaying community does not exist as such; it's more like lots of isolated, small communities. Getting a somewhat comprehensive result would probably be very challenging; not to mention taking the cultural differences into account.

For example, in the sample questionnaire there are questions related to LARP systems. From what I know about Scandinavian games, very few of them use any kind of published systems. I'd think just about the only exception is MET which might be used as heavily modified version. Then again, I don't know if this would be a statistically relevant thing.

As for reaching the target audience, some countries have some kind of central organisation of LARPers (Sverok in Sweden is a good example of something that has potential to reach a lot of players in that region), and it would probably be a good idea to search them out and contact them.

Finland's own organisation seems to have around 800 members, so I'd think the total amount of somewhat active LARPers is somewhere around thousand people.

[Jiituomas]

Finland's own organisation seems to have around 800 members, so I'd think the total amount of somewhat active LARPers is somewhere around thousand people.

Probably much higher, actually. We're no Denmark (where 11% of teen-agers listed larping as one of their top 5 favorite outdoors activities; Source: Gade, 2005), but the number of registered players is still probably a minority. For comparison, on Feb 14th this year, the Finnish Larp portal had 2453 registered members, the leading Danish one 3110. So extrapolating from that data, the active numbers may be way above the suggested 1000. And most of these aren't really visibile on the net.

Kevin, I recommend you contact some activists in the Danish larp scene (http://www.liveforum.dk), and ask how they've handled research into the non-organized masses. They should probably have some very good ideas that you can use. Leave a forum post over there and ask.

[Merten]

So extrapolating from that data, the active numbers may be way above the suggested 1000. And most of these aren't really visibile on the net.

You're most probably right; I was going to suggest something closer to 2000 as a gut reaction, but couldn't find anything backing that up. Since, well... There hasn't been a census. ;)

[NERO Aeon]

Thank you for your input so far. I'll see what I can do with the links provided. If anyone else has any other links that they might have to assist I would appreciate it.