THE PORTAL 8 PROGRAMME
The organizers reserve the right to amend or change the programme.
We will do our best to avoid either.
Please arrive before the programme item you’d like to participate in begins.
Thursday, March 5
Terrible Lair (Podolje 10, Zagreb)
17:30 Doors Open
18:00 – 24:00 Campfire Stories (we get together and casually hang out, talk about LARPs and everything related to them)
Friday, March 6
Terrible Lair (Podolje 10, Zagreb)
16:30 Doors Open
17:00 Bleed Effect and What It Means to be an “Enemy” in LARP – Nikola Sekulić
A brief explanation on the bleed effect and how to use it along “Play to win” mentality to become a good opponent/”enemy” to others in game while uplifting the game and motivating others to become better at LARP. This will be an interactive lecture.
18:00 Mind the Gap: Barriers to Larping Faced by People from Backgrounds of Structural Poverty – Kol Ford
Larpers that come from a background of structural poverty face significant barriers when attempting to fully participate in larps. This talk looks at the challenges faced by such individuals both as participants and as organisers as well as presents the strategies developed by poorer larpers to enable their own participation in larp. By looking at the strategies that are already being adopted, we can see what we can all do as a community to make our larps easier for individuals with a variety of backgrounds to take part in. Existing larp structures, such as subsidised tickets and crewing, work really well, but a lot more can be done!
The talk is aimed at larpers who are interested in doing what they can to help larpers from poor backgrounds to participate. The goal is to open a discussion about what we can do to help more people feel welcome and included in our hobby. We will talk openly and frankly about the difficulties that we face as participants and organisers, as well as explore ways in which larpers are already addressing the above described problems.
In practice, the talk will present examples of larps that allow engagement of people from poor backgrounds, looking at how organisers have overcome challenges to participation. We will further explore common barriers faced by the various types of poverty, the unique problems faced by their different circumstances, and the benefits of widening participation to include people from poor backgrounds. Most importantly, we will propose what we can do as a community and as individuals in the form of practicalities to help issues of inclusion.
19:00 – 24:00 Campfire Stories / Games (we get together and casually hang out, talk about LARPs and everything related to them, and we play some games)
19:00 Transiberrian Express (15-20 players)
A week after the Russian Revolution, a train is departing from Moscow to Novosibirsk. Aboard are members of the Romanov family, former capitalists, deserters from the Red Army, artists, as well as American and Russian intelligence agents, all traveling incognito and trying to secretly pursue their objectives before the train reaches its destination.
Run by: Odysseus Dallas, Angie Bandhoesingh, Elektra Diakolambrianou, Zbyszek Janczukowicz
You can apply for this game here.
21:30 Primogen Elections (10-14 players)
Zagreb by Night crew will guide you down the paths of high vampire politics and personal horror. You will have a unique opportunity to experience the rigid social rules and navigate one of the pivotal events in many Vampiric societies. Join our chamber LARP game as a leader of an ancient Vampire clan and elect the new Prince of Zagreb.
Run by: Zagreb By Night
You can apply for this game here.
Saturday, March 7
Terrible Lair (Podolje 10, Zagreb)
9:30 Doors Open
10:00 Writing for Participation – Mike Pohjola
Mike Pohjola is an Emmy Award winning writer and interaction designer. He has taken what he knows about larp and roleplaying, and turned it into participatory transmedia projects that have both Hollywood and NASA. Now he talks about that worked, and how larp design can be utilized in writing for participation.
11:00 How to Run Larps and Not Go Broke – Simon Svensson
A practical talk on how to sustain an organization both in terms of money, people and players, as well as creative energy and sanity.
12:00 Edu-larp – Design Differences – Josefin Westborg
What is an educational larp, edu-larp? What is the difference in designing an edu-larp compared to designing an ordinary larp? How do you game master an edu-larp compared to an ordinary larp? In this talk Josefin Westborg will share her knowledge from working full-time with edu-larps the last eight years and a chance to ask questions that you have about the subject.
13:00 EduLARP Within Erasmus+ – Zbyszek Janczukowicz
Tips on writing successful project applications, focused on technical matters of joining a LARP and a Youth-Exchange into one event.
Zbyszek Janczukowicz will present three different worlds (post-apo, medieval, fantasy) that were created especially for such occasion, will point out pros and cons and give some advice to those who would like to do so at their own peril.
14:00 – 15:30 Lunch Time
15:30 Round Table: LARP, Politics and Civic Engagement
Presentation of two eduLARPs (SuperHero Union and School Council) designed to promote political participation and civic engagement, accompanied by a general discussion on how LARP methodology can be used in this context.
16:30 LARPs in Tourism – Daniel Fidelman
Fidelman will present a few models used by Sambation Adventure Games to reach and engage a wide public with larp inspired models
17:30 Business Side of larps – Miroslav Wranka
A panel about businessification of our favourite pastime with a short overview of the Hungarian and Croatian scene as an introduction.
19:00 – 24:00 LARP Jam Light / Campfire Stories / Games (we get together and casually hang out, talk about LARPs and everything related to them, and we play some games, and we make some, too)
19:00 – 21:00 LARP Jam Light
Larp Jam Light is a workshop where participants work in groups and use improvisation methods from story games to create nano larps, larp scenes or larp poems. It will be run by Nandor Laklia.
You can apply for this at the PoRtaL 8.
19:00 Orient Express (18-20 players)
Eccentric British millionaire Reginald O. Bigsby died suddenly in mysterious circumstances in Istanbul. You are among relatives and friends whom he named in his will as persons in charge of distributing his valuable property after his death.
Peculiar as he was, Reginald gave instructions to do this while his remains are being transported to the place where they will be placed to finally rest. So here you are, boarded on the famous Orient Express train, traveling from Turkey to London.
But before you reach the heart of the Empire, a legacy debate must be completed in an hour, no more than two. If there is no agreement between various parties everything Reginald owned shall become the property of the British Crown.
Therefore, you must make every effort to ensure that you and your loved ones get the most of his estate.
Everything you will need for the game shall be provided for by the organizers. We encourage you to do dress up accordingly, in line with the fashion of the ’20s and’ 30s of the 20th century. A suit or business suit will do just fine.
Run by: Terrible Creations
You can apply for this game here.
21:30 Blade Runner 2020 (20 players)
A cyber-punk chamber larp concerning trust relations between people, institutions and machines. Every player around may be an android who pretends to be human. Or vice-versa. How can you tell the difference? How can you tell the victim from the hunter? These questions will be served within a proper cyberpunk background: merchandise of human rights, over-powered corporations, grass-root rebellions, eugenics, electronic implants and ecological collapse.
Run by: Elektra Diakolambrianou, Zbyszek Janczukowicz
You can apply for this game here.
Sunday, March 8
10:00 Internationalization of larp – Esperanza Montero
In this lecture Montero will address the process of Spanish internationalization in larp and specifically the NotOnlyLarp process of internationalization. You’ll get to hear all the mistakes they made and all the important lessons they learned these years in safety, communication, plot and production.
11:00 Building, Growing and Maintaining Community and Audience – Nandor Laklia & Balint Mark Turi
Nandor and Balint, the founders of Parallel Worlds Foundation, will talk about their experiences in building a community around Nordic inspired chamber larps in Hungary. Their talk will address some practices they used to reach a new audience for chamber games, some methods they tried to energize the players and organizers and will give insight to some of the floating islands of the Hungarian larp scene.
12:00 Applying Bartle Taxonomy of Players in LARP, Formal Game Design and Community Trends – Christos Panagiotopoulos
The Bartle taxonomy of is a spectrum of player behavior based on what they seek in their experience of playing a game. The talk will familiarize the audience with the core consepts and delve on how to apply them for better game design and community management. The focus will be on continuing games and not one-offs
13:00 Technology in Fantasy LARP – Ilina Konakchieva
Demonstrating the continuity in Portal conferences, Konakchieva will share her experience inspired after Portal 7 in Kyiv – how she and her crew started implementing technology in fantasy larps starting from scratch and what lessons they have learnt. Special focus will be on technology and immersion – how technology can be used to improve it or be misused and affect it negatively.
14:00 LARP as a Tool for Personal Development and Psychotherapy – Elektra Diakolambrianou
A presentation of the various implementations LARP methodology can have in the context of psychotherapy and personal development, as well as the therapeutic elements of recreational LARP.
15:00 Hugs and Goodbyes