So while everything is in a weird flux moment of lockdowns and coronavirus, I wasn’t sure if LarpCon was going to go ahead this year. But, lo and behold, they held a Kit Fair!
I found out about it a little while ago on Facebook, when they were tentatively gaining interest. Since then, they gained more and more traders and vendors, and were given the go ahead by the local council a few weeks before the event.
They had, of course, made a few changes due to coronavirus. Firstly, the event was going to be much smaller than in previous years – usually, they would have Larp companies come and showcase their events, but they decided against it to reduce numbers. Secondly, the event was held outside, due to restrictions on how many people were allowed indoors at the same time. Thankfully, we had good weather on the day (which I will get to soon!). Thirdly, the event was ticketed by time slot, so they could ensure they did not have too many people at the event at the same time. Lastly, and most obviously considering the state of the world, masks were mandatory (unless you were exempt) and hand sanitiser was freely available and encouraged, and you were expected to stick with your car “bubble”.
Due to previously made plans, my LarpCon party were limited to attending the morning slot on the Saturday between 9am and 1pm – the other slots being Saturday afternoon (2pm to 6pm I believe) and Sunday.
And who was in my LarpCon party, I hear you ask. Well, it consisted of myself, my partner Gareth, a friend of ours who was somewhat new to Larp (Cassie) and Will (aka LarpAnalysis). Will came to stay with us the night before, as we had to leave fairly early in the morning to make our time slot, while Cassie lives along the way to LarpCon.
So, off we left at 8:30am, taking Will with us and picking Cassie up on the way. We arrived at Coalville’s rugby field at around 10am as we had to make a couple of pit stops along the way to get some cash out. Straight away, we actually bumped into a few people we’d larped with before! We had a quick catch up with them before we signed in.
Once signed in, we were allowed into the Kit Fair “street”. All of the vendors had set up their tents and wares in a U-shape, so you could walk up and back down and see everything. There were about 20 or so shops there, as well as a food truck near the entrance. There were also toilets nearby in the rugby club’s building that they had access to.
As a group, we decided to walk around all of the shops before making any major purchases, which I find is usually the best tactic for any kind of convention or fair. We bumped into a couple of other Empire players, who it seems we may have befriended (despite us being Dawnish and them being Marchers! Haha).
But the real question is, what did we get? Everyone wants a haul post! I will leave out Will and Cassie’s haul, mostly because I don’t necessarily have access to the items to take pictures of them, so this will be based on mine and my partner’s purchases.
Firstly, from Darkblade LARP, I bought an Alchemist’s Arsenal bag! Complete with potion bottles, ointment pots, a mortar and pestle, and much space for extra gear. On his website there is an option to buy chemispheres with it, to attach to the sides, but I bought mine without – for £90. My partner bought a 3″ weapon ring for £5 as well.
At Irregular Props, we bought a gift for a friend who wasn’t able to attend due to work. Their birthday had recently passed, so we decided to buy them a rod for their future Empire character. We sent them a few photos, and decided on a 42″ crystal rod in purple (as it’s their favourite colour) for £75.
From Having A Larp, my partner bought a new green gambeson (£90) and a gold embroidered blue kaftan (£50), and we joint bought a shortbow (£60) and a few arrows (three at £9 each for a total of £27). We do plan on getting more arrows, as well as a quiver, but it wasn’t quite in our budget on the day to buy anything more.
There were also a few things that I bought that weren’t necessarily Larp related – we stopped for about 20 minutes for lunch from The Good Honest Food Co’s food truck, the burgers were particularly good. I also bought some fudge from Fudgit, in vanilla, unicorn barf and lemon meringue flavours; and some bat wings to attach to my boot laces from Treasure Knot.
And that was that! We left a bit earlier than our allotted end time, but as mentioned, my partner and I had plans for the afternoon that we needed to get back for. All in all, it was a wonderful day. I got to see friends – even get recognised from Twitter! – and do something that could pass for getting back to normalcy.
I had a lovely time, and I felt secure with the coronavirus measurements that the LarpCon team had put in place for the event. If you attended, I’d love to hear about it!
Happy (Future) Larping!
Featured Image from LarpCon Kit Fair’s Facebook page.
Want to know more about Larp and any related events? Follow the blog!
Want to know about anything I’ve talked about here? Here are some links you can visit:
Live, LARP, Love 