LARPers Gone Wild: Fallout 2 in Russia!
When I was younger and had more time on my hands I used to LARP a couple of times a month with House of the Unknown at CMU. We never really did anything terribly elaborate - I was one of the few who dressed up because my character was sufficiently different from me, but a lot of folks just wore whatever they happened to have handywhich suited. I also used to go to anime conventions and cosplay a bit, though I never really put the kind of effort into any of my costumes that most folks do. I certainly never did anything like this when I was younger: the Albion Workshop of St. Petersburg, Russia put on a massive game set in the world of Fallout 2. Approximately 300 people participated in the two day game and spent months beforehand converting an abandoned air defense base into locations from the game. A number of replica military bases were constructed, a couple of plotlines were written, and they seem to have had an excellent crew of storytellers managing everyone and keeping the story coherent. Just in case anything went pear-shaped they also had a squad of emergency medical services personnel on site. As you can see from the LiveJournal entry (untranslated from the original Russian) their costumes are nothing short of exquisite, their props would make any three cosplayers (to say nothing of the local police) turn white with astonishment, and the sheer diversity of game locations constructed is impressive. From the pictures you can see that they made a bar, a strip club (SFW), bunkers, the fringes, and they made good use of the old buildings and woodlands surrounding the site. The combat armor from the game looks great, and I'd love to sit down and talk shop with the folks who took part in the game. It looks like they even had a couple of NERO-style "I hope you can really pick locks" puzzles in the game.
I may be wrong but it's possible that they even had a wedding take place near the Silver Spring silo.
Awesome work, folks. I can't wait to see what you have planned for next year.