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Second week of the summer holidays
Aug. 1st, 2019 06:06 pmWe're back from the annual Drachenfest. Like last year, it happened to be held during the hottest (so far) week of the year. By "so far" I mean both that we had the hottest temperatures in Germany ever since we started systematically noting temperatures, and that hotter weeks may yet come, considering that the dog days are not yet over. We managed to bear the heat slightly better than last year, due to a couple of factors:
- our tent was further down the hill, i.e., closer to the edge of the forest, which provided some shade in the morning. Last year, the tent grew unbearably hot at around 6:30; this year, it remained more or less bearable until nearly 9. So we got somewhat more sleep.
- the kids got a lot more out of DF this time. Felix had fun trying to find in-game herbs, although he didn't show any interest in brewing potions until it was too late. Julian wanted to sell something after a couple of girls (identical triplets!) went around selling cookies for in-game coins. Eventually I gave him our apples, and he and Felix went around selling an apple a copper. They left with seven apples and came back with 13 coppers. They found two friends who were camping with nearby families and played together, mostly constructively. For his birthday, Felix got to choose his present from the in-game market. After first finding nothing and being generally mopey, we went back another day and he found a stall that had little treasure-boxes with different symbols on them. He picked one with an owl (the symbol of Grey camp) and asked to buy it. Turned out the merchant only spoke English! Felix switched languages nearly effortlessly: "I want this one, please!" He later bought a bottle of grey ink from the same merchant because he was so proud of having accomplished nearly the whole transaction in English. I had to ask whether the ink was also available in silver (it wasn't) but after that he took over again. At Julian's nudging (!), he also decided for a pair of LED-lit poi. Then he generously let Julian have one of them. And he actually managed to handle his (singular) poi very well, experimenting with different moves and coming up with his own choreography! After dancing in the dusk with his poi for a while, someone came from the neighbouring camp and handed him a copper coin, saying "Thank you for the beautiful entertainment!" He was so shocked that you could make money with what for him had just been playing around that he didn't even know how to respond.
On the last day, Felix cried a little because he would miss his DF friends. They were his first holiday friends - so far, other kids were either ignored or a nuisance to him - so it's a big deal.
- on my way off the site, I talked to my fellow head gardener (who currently has to do most gardening-related in-game stuff because I'm with the family). I feel always slightly guilty (even though I do most of the OOC stuff, such as growing, storing and bringing the actual (!!) plants), but he was very positive about families with kids at DF. "It's such a unique setting. Naturally, I think it's great when kids just grow into LARPing and the parents don't have to giev up their hobby, but beyond that, I'm sure it's such a valuable experience for the kids." Which it is. You won't find that many people camping in one spot peacefully (!!!) unless you attend a big scouting jamboree (which is a lot more expensive) - there's a LOT more trouble at rock festivals etc., at least in Germany. Kids role-play all the time and here, the adults whole-heartedly do it, too. There's a lot of diversity, too (both OOC, with players coming from all over Europe, and in-game, with characters coming from all kinds of backgrounds and peoples). By the second day, Felix was navigating it all quite confidently, and I'm fairly sure that's a useful life skill.
- the adults were more pragmatic about the weather this time. Last year, some people (especially outside our camp!) had insisted on doing the full Drachenfest program of challenges, battles and plot quests, with the result that others either refused to participate (to preserve their health in the heat) while others tried to do twice the work and ended up collapsing (quite literally). This year, there was an official no-battle policy during the hottest hours of the day (which, unfortunately, feels like most of the day) and everything else just seemed to run more smoothly. Maybe because people had by now developed strategies for coping with the heat, such as the valuable concept of the siesta. Even when the water supply broke down on the hottest day (Felix' birthday, incidentally) for four hours in the afternoon, people managed. (To be fair, after one hour the first desaster management water trucks arrived, so after that we had drinking water, just no toilet flushing water.) I didn't have much play - I took part in the three initial camp-intern rituals, picked some in-game herbs with Felix, and was gifted one exclusive plant for the garden - and only found out some part of this year's politics through the closing ceremony. But as a family holiday, it worked better than before (although I still have the lionesses' share of packing and preparing, grr!).
The most succesful merchants were a slush ice stall and an Italian ice cream truck that wasn't actually part of the in-game town but loyally came there every day and probably sold more ice cream in those six days than he normally does all summer. XD
In conclusion, it still was a lot of effort and the heat was still oppressive (or more oppressive, since it was both hotter and more humid), but it was nonetheless a succesful Drachenfest this year.
Here, have some pictures!
Outside the Quast, the festival site (you can see the field that's used as a parking space on the right). Can we appreciate that wheat is normally that ripe in late August, not mid-July.
Our extremely professional camp. Also, Felix acting camera-shy.
Or maybe he was moping because Julian was annihilating him in Hus?
The official botanical garden of the Grey camp, my pet project.
Due to safety restrictions, we had to re-plan the layout of the camp several times (during the week before DF). We ended up being squished between Blue and Gold camp (and Blue already generously gave up a lot of space to us so we could have a gate at all!). As a result, the Blue put a sign on their gate: "Receiving department. For sieges, please use the door on the left."
(Since they in their turn were squished right into the in-game town, they put up another sign by the road saying "You are now leaving the free city of Aldradach and entering the Blue sector." I have a weakness for meta jokes in LARP, so this made me laugh out loud. Forgot to take a picture, though.)
Unspecified troop movement during the final battle
Obligatory Quast sunset
- our tent was further down the hill, i.e., closer to the edge of the forest, which provided some shade in the morning. Last year, the tent grew unbearably hot at around 6:30; this year, it remained more or less bearable until nearly 9. So we got somewhat more sleep.
- the kids got a lot more out of DF this time. Felix had fun trying to find in-game herbs, although he didn't show any interest in brewing potions until it was too late. Julian wanted to sell something after a couple of girls (identical triplets!) went around selling cookies for in-game coins. Eventually I gave him our apples, and he and Felix went around selling an apple a copper. They left with seven apples and came back with 13 coppers. They found two friends who were camping with nearby families and played together, mostly constructively. For his birthday, Felix got to choose his present from the in-game market. After first finding nothing and being generally mopey, we went back another day and he found a stall that had little treasure-boxes with different symbols on them. He picked one with an owl (the symbol of Grey camp) and asked to buy it. Turned out the merchant only spoke English! Felix switched languages nearly effortlessly: "I want this one, please!" He later bought a bottle of grey ink from the same merchant because he was so proud of having accomplished nearly the whole transaction in English. I had to ask whether the ink was also available in silver (it wasn't) but after that he took over again. At Julian's nudging (!), he also decided for a pair of LED-lit poi. Then he generously let Julian have one of them. And he actually managed to handle his (singular) poi very well, experimenting with different moves and coming up with his own choreography! After dancing in the dusk with his poi for a while, someone came from the neighbouring camp and handed him a copper coin, saying "Thank you for the beautiful entertainment!" He was so shocked that you could make money with what for him had just been playing around that he didn't even know how to respond.
On the last day, Felix cried a little because he would miss his DF friends. They were his first holiday friends - so far, other kids were either ignored or a nuisance to him - so it's a big deal.
- on my way off the site, I talked to my fellow head gardener (who currently has to do most gardening-related in-game stuff because I'm with the family). I feel always slightly guilty (even though I do most of the OOC stuff, such as growing, storing and bringing the actual (!!) plants), but he was very positive about families with kids at DF. "It's such a unique setting. Naturally, I think it's great when kids just grow into LARPing and the parents don't have to giev up their hobby, but beyond that, I'm sure it's such a valuable experience for the kids." Which it is. You won't find that many people camping in one spot peacefully (!!!) unless you attend a big scouting jamboree (which is a lot more expensive) - there's a LOT more trouble at rock festivals etc., at least in Germany. Kids role-play all the time and here, the adults whole-heartedly do it, too. There's a lot of diversity, too (both OOC, with players coming from all over Europe, and in-game, with characters coming from all kinds of backgrounds and peoples). By the second day, Felix was navigating it all quite confidently, and I'm fairly sure that's a useful life skill.
- the adults were more pragmatic about the weather this time. Last year, some people (especially outside our camp!) had insisted on doing the full Drachenfest program of challenges, battles and plot quests, with the result that others either refused to participate (to preserve their health in the heat) while others tried to do twice the work and ended up collapsing (quite literally). This year, there was an official no-battle policy during the hottest hours of the day (which, unfortunately, feels like most of the day) and everything else just seemed to run more smoothly. Maybe because people had by now developed strategies for coping with the heat, such as the valuable concept of the siesta. Even when the water supply broke down on the hottest day (Felix' birthday, incidentally) for four hours in the afternoon, people managed. (To be fair, after one hour the first desaster management water trucks arrived, so after that we had drinking water, just no toilet flushing water.) I didn't have much play - I took part in the three initial camp-intern rituals, picked some in-game herbs with Felix, and was gifted one exclusive plant for the garden - and only found out some part of this year's politics through the closing ceremony. But as a family holiday, it worked better than before (although I still have the lionesses' share of packing and preparing, grr!).
The most succesful merchants were a slush ice stall and an Italian ice cream truck that wasn't actually part of the in-game town but loyally came there every day and probably sold more ice cream in those six days than he normally does all summer. XD
In conclusion, it still was a lot of effort and the heat was still oppressive (or more oppressive, since it was both hotter and more humid), but it was nonetheless a succesful Drachenfest this year.
Here, have some pictures!
Outside the Quast, the festival site (you can see the field that's used as a parking space on the right). Can we appreciate that wheat is normally that ripe in late August, not mid-July.
Our extremely professional camp. Also, Felix acting camera-shy.
Or maybe he was moping because Julian was annihilating him in Hus?
The official botanical garden of the Grey camp, my pet project.
Due to safety restrictions, we had to re-plan the layout of the camp several times (during the week before DF). We ended up being squished between Blue and Gold camp (and Blue already generously gave up a lot of space to us so we could have a gate at all!). As a result, the Blue put a sign on their gate: "Receiving department. For sieges, please use the door on the left."
(Since they in their turn were squished right into the in-game town, they put up another sign by the road saying "You are now leaving the free city of Aldradach and entering the Blue sector." I have a weakness for meta jokes in LARP, so this made me laugh out loud. Forgot to take a picture, though.)
Unspecified troop movement during the final battle
Obligatory Quast sunset
