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Behind the Scenes, Mandala's Minion 0

Catering Events

By Leah @AmabatLeah · On September 10, 2015

I have catered a range of events and banquets. The right food adds to the atmosphere of a game. If you’re trying to evoke 1950s America then hotdogs and burgers are part of that. They’re much less part of a group who’re mainly influenced by oriental themes.

I walked around Empire as a NPC and for several camps you could tell who they were by the smell of cooking food. Daily life taking place in camps adds huge amounts of atmosphere. Mealtime rituals also help to tie a group together and add to a coherent flavor. It’s not just getting the right flavours that adds to a game, but the way you prepare and the way you eat the food.

I enjoy catering events for the same reason I like running them. The challenge of getting large amounts of food prepared and fed to a large group of people really pays off in terms of that feeling of accomplishment. Creating that situation for people is important. It gives them another way to expand on their character, and as it’s a much more controlled environment you can usually create a much more ic atmosphere with it.

You must tell your players what food you’re providing.

With the SciFi events we ran we often wanted an army feel. We wanted players to have ration packs. These are expensive and divisive. We’ve tried making food packs that similar, which people didn’t like, and buying some ration packs but getting the players to supplement (we told them what we’d got and let them bring other stuff). If we were doing this again we’d just tell them to bring their own ration packs. As this was for the Drakelow Tunnels event we didn’t want them using flame based heaters (our monsters wouldn’t see them). We got them heating packs so that they could use these and it would be a bit safer. This worked quite well. It meant those with coffee issues could control their own problem. We told the players exactly what we were going to do.

We always have a separate catering team. Following feedback they tend to have NPC characters and at times are a key part of plot. Their main focus is food. They are responsible for getting food cooked and to players. They are in charge of the kitchen area, and potentially also the dining space. We don’t always expect them to cook in an IC space, usually they have a scout hut style catering kitchen.

As for shopping, we’ve found that Tescos ends up a similar price to Costco, although using both is the cheapest option, and butchers aren’t always more expensive. Game makes for interesting, IC and different meals and is often inexpensive, and that people never have enough room for pudding. We always over cater custard, but it’s a nice flexible foodstuff and is hilarious when you’re exhausted because you’ve been cooking all day.

(Via: Mandala’s Minion)

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Leah

I spend most of my free time involved in LRP in one way or another. I part own and run Mandala Studios in Coventry and have been running games through them for 5 or 6 years. I also crew Empire LRP. I have catered a variety of events and banquets and the events I run are a mix of genres (SciFi, Fantasy and stupid - next year I'm running a dinosaur event).

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  • Feedback for LRP events | LARP.GUIDE says: September 17, 2015 at 8:45 am

    […] made and the effect they had on the players. One of the big things with the Alone series was food. We really value IC style food.  Unfortunately our players would like food that is actually edible (so picky). Reaching a balance […]

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  • September 2015 Recap | LARP.GUIDELARP.GUIDE says: December 16, 2016 at 8:35 pm

    […] also had a few thoughts about catering events – something that is becoming more and more common now at games is for organisers to provide […]

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