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Shade's Live Action Role Playing (LARP) List: Forums
Shade's LARP List :: View topic - My eyes have been opened! Renting vs Owning.
Joined: Sep 19, 2004 Posts: 9 Location: New Hampshire, USA
Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 7:11 pm Post subject: Loss leaders
Sorry for the delay in posting... I bought a house last Thursday.
In my opinion, taking 20% off vendors sales is the wrong way to approach things. I'm getting this from experience and also from economics research.
If you want to take 20% off of (say) a costume vendor's sales then either they have to increase their prices by 20% or take a 20% hit in profits. In my experience, costume vendors aren't making much profit to begin with, and could not afford to take the 20% hit in profits. That leaves raising prices.
Everyone tries to get the best deal on purchases, but in my opinion LARP goers are a bit more frugal than typical. If someone is on site and there's a vendor who is charging 20% more than usual, they will think to themselves "Oh, I'll just wait until after the event and then get it through <some-other-vendor>. There's no incentive to purchase on-site so the vendor makes no sales at all, you don't make any profit, and there's no incentive for the player to stay.
We had vendors at Legends on occasion (that's the game I ran, BTW), and one happened to mention to me that he never comes to an event (any) unless he does at least $600 in sales. It makes sense: after his expenses and trouble, he needs at least that much just to break even. The "on occasion" part seemed to work out well, because if he was there every event he'd have made much less.
Now let's reverse the situation. Say you *paid* the vendor 20% just to come and sell his wares. 20% of the above-mentioned $600 is $120. That may seem like a lot, but you're getting much in return.
1) If the vendor reduces his prices by 20%, it'll draw people to the site. Instead of buying their wears elsewhere, they'll actively come to get the better deal. This will benefit the vendor.
2) When they come for the better deal, they'll be presented with your game. Where are they going to use medieval costume other than at a game? There's one right there for them to explore. The people who will want to come to the vendor are exactly the kind of people you want to present your game to. This is well-targetted free advertizing.
3) Suppose an average larper plays the game for 3 years. (That seems about right, and remember, we're talking average here.) The amount of money you will make from having that one extra player far outweighs what you had to pay to the vendor. And the extra player will mention the lower vendor prices to his friends and so on.
If it were my game, I'd give anyone who is registered (paid) for the upcoming game a 20% discount on the vendor. Take the above-mentioned case in terms of a single $600 purchase. Someone will register just to get the discount, then they'll probably try the game out since they've already paid for it. Once they're on-site, it's up to the GM to keep them coming back by running a good game. How many times do they have to come back to account for the loss of $120? Six? That's only a year's worth of games.
=============================================
Putting this into practice:
When we took over the game, the original owners were dead-set against putting the rulebook up on the internet. They wanted the profit from rulebook sales, and didn't want to give it away for free.
What we discovered was that putting the rulebook up on the web encouraged people to come to the game. Sure, we lost $4 on each unsold book, but the hassle of making the printed booklets, lugging around the tubs full of booklets, dealing with payment and such were *far* outweighed by having a single new player who got interested because he could peruse the rules beforehand. It was a no-brainer. $4 per book times, what, 40 books sold per year (lots more than we actually did sell) is again only $120.
We had (in my opinion) the best tavern in any LARP game I've ever seen. We never made any money on it, and in fact we lost money on most events. But ya know, being able (as a player) to walk in and get a bowl of hot stew and a sandwich for $3 is a big draw to the game. It could be raining out and we'd have only 10 NPCs, but people could still hang out in the tavern and roleplay with each other and have fun. And having a bellyfull of hot stew makes it easier to run out and kill hobgoblins. Yep - lose $3 on the meal, but the player paid $70 to come to the game. Again, a no-brainer.
Identify your core business and stick to it. Ours was running the game, and we didn't want to get involved with vending or printing rulebooks or anything else. We just structured things so that people would come and play the game. And that worked out very well.
So, my plan for a LARP friendly site is to charge pretty-much what other sites are charging for games (roughly $2000 per weekend, here in the Northeast) and then pack it with benefits. Free website. Get a merchant account, and link it to the games so that players can pay for events by CC (that's a big draw, BTW). Free software (which I have) which allows players to manage their own player stats. Free onsite storage. Free use of site props. That sort of thing.
Structure it so that the nickels keep rolling your way.
Joined: May 30, 2002 Posts: 1 Location: Herndon, VA
Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 12:40 pm Post subject: 200k? that's cheap
Hey, I generally don't post but I had to chime in. The $200k shouldn't be too hard to raise, and you can definitely rent out to other LARPs, SCA Groups or other organizations. Every time i've worked out the math, it's far far more than 200k just to get the land, let alone build anything on it. Maybe because i'm focussing on the NY/NJ corridor where everything is ungodly expensive.
If anyone knows of approx 100 acres +/- available anywhere in NJ for a non-insane price, let me know. I am definitely interested. We're currently starting up a new LARP in central NJ near the coast, but i'd shift gears in a heartbeat if I could find the land.
Unfortunately they have some weaknesses to the site.
First, they made the decision to go for expensive insulated cabins. So they can run cold weather events but the cabins are very small.
Second, they don't have enough bathroom facilities. Two toilets (tavern and monster camp) can be supplemented, but the single monster camp shower is the killer for me.
Plus, they are expensive for what they offer because they have to pay off the camp. I hope they make it because I want to believe it is possible. For a smaller game the site is great. Once you climb to > 60 players the facilities become a liability.
On the other hand they offer on site storage and have the makings of 2 or 3 great moduling areas. For a smaller game of hard core LARPers the site would be good, if a tad expensive.
A LARP park is a great idea, but hard to make economically feasable without a TON of work for probably small returns.
The idea of creating a general medieval setting for the use of various groups seems the most sound. Ideally you'd have a town set up with cabins that would look like small medieval houses. You could also have an artificial dungeon built using plaster to create your stone work. In this would be a system of camouflauged doors which could be opened or closed to create different dungeon layouts. You'd also want effects engines such as fog machines, lighting, possibly even a discrete sound system which would use several "cells" for different sound environments, and the whole place would be wired for sound.
The main tavern would have a medieval kitchen with wood stove to keep food warm, with an attached yet concealed "proper" kitchen to satisfy the health codes for a commercial food service.
The ideal location would be in mountainous terrain, and a stream or small pond on the land would be even better.
Parking would be completely out of view of the game area, and shuttle service (if too far away) would be readily available, hopefully by way of a disguised method of transportation.
Facilities would include flush toilets and heated showers, but again housed in a building which won't mess up the ambience.
The thing is, this is a pipe dream for probably all of us. If I won hundreds of millions of dollars in the PowerBall, I'd do it. But since I don't pay the tax on people who can't do math (I don't buy Lotto tickets) that won't be happening. Although I think I will keep an eye on it and buy a ticket if it goes over 100 mill.
Then somebody would probably stub their toe and sue me for everything I own and I'd be back to where I am. (One hundred million dollars and he didn't hire a lawyer to write the waiver?) _________________ Edgar(at)realmsoftracon.com http://www.realmsoftracon.com
Joined: May 22, 2002 Posts: 48 Location: Minnesota
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 1:51 am Post subject:
Wow. We can easily accomodate 60 or so players on 746 acres (most of it part of the adjoining state park system), with full tavern facilities, showers & bathrooms, heated cabins -- only drawback is inefficient parking. And we rent at about 1/10th of what's been bandied about above...
Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 7:38 pm Post subject: Inside LARPs
I have worked in HUGE warhouses before at the plants but nothing compared to some of the ones I have seen in larger sities. Being an eternal dreamer I had this idea.
Many of these warhouses are empty and unused. Rent may be cheap if the property is making NO income. Buying it would most likely be out of the question. What about building and entire set inside a warehouse? Make it a complete maze where you can never get from point A to point B without circling around the entire place. Build shops and homes on the old shelf frames. Use the offices for a dungeon.
If you have a forty foot ceiling build multiple layers of places to explore.
If you can't have the place to look like an outside area have the story set of people that are living underground. Giant mushroom forest!
Think Arx Fatalis or Alice (PC GAMES) for ideas of what I am talking about.
But if you can make fake forest how cool would that be? _________________ I know the pieces fit! I watched them fall away!
Joined: Jul 12, 2002 Posts: 1060 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:55 pm Post subject:
I was thinking of something similar recently. I wondered if you could take a warehouse and have a grid of attachment points on the ceiling and floor, then create almost any environment in there using temporary walls hoisted between the floor and ceiling.
SO IF you had let's say a 100 acres of wilderness with a few abandon buildings and a million dollars...
WHAT kind of LARP park would you build?
What would you do to make it a real business that would not close down in a few years?
I would first make a barrier road all the way around the outside of the property and then have the entire property fenced off.
I would set up a few areas called "stages" or clearings with many trails. very few would criss cross as I want the players to be lead on LONG walks and paths. Of course wizards and rangers would have access to the ways and shortcuts.
Build the frame for a village using a telephone pole company so I could have huge buildings in the future. This would save me from having to frame up buildings. For one story building I would have the same company wack in some creosote post.
I would build the tavern/feasthall first, the mayors house and the temples as well as many homes and shops.
In one corner I would build a admin area and monster camp. Have a complete printing press, make up area, costume, prop, and weapon factory.
During off seasons I would set the place up for medieval weddings and possibly have corporate confidence building courses.
I would also rent out the feasthall. _________________ I know the pieces fit! I watched them fall away!
I have taken a serious look at the expense ratio of owning vs buying as well - in fact a company that I am involved with is going through that right now.
It is my opinion that owning (when done properly) is far more economical than renting.
Taking a look at Ye Ol' Commons they are booked SOLID from Jan 3 until end the November at $2500 a weekend.
That's roughly $112,500.00 a year just in their rental fees. Cost for catering/food is paid by the LARPers on top of the $2500/weekend cost.
I'm not going to guess at what their mortgage is but figuring out almost everything else isn't that hard.
I'm also not going to say that this will work for everyone, but I will say that it is pretty clear that game owners are willing to pay for the right kind of LARP site.
Use it for your game once a month (making sure to 'pay yourself the rental fees as if you were any other LARP), and rent it out the other weeks/weekends.
Make it a viable rental business on it's own - if that isn't possible then owning land might not be the best option. _________________ Kevin Tjia
Just throwing this out there PA has a lot of open area that's wooded, partially cleared and partially wooded (there's a difference). Because I had the same idea about building my own place to play/run games .... and just camp out and have a good time.
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