Help dig us out of a well of bureaucracy!

For many of us, weekend-long Live Action Roleplaying Games provide a small window of escapism, to set our worldly problems aside and become a heroic character for a little while. They allow us to socialize and grow with a community that shares our interests.

 

However, saying that finding a place to host a LARP is logistically challenging is a little like saying 2020 wasn’t a great year for most people- Dramatic understatement.

 

Where you play a Live Action Roleplaying Game is a tough question, especially if you’re running your game for more than a couple of hours. Arranging food, beds, warmth, a location for medical incidents, a large enough outdoor space for exploration and encounters and more are challenging enough without the bias against LARPs making certain sites completely inaccessible.

 

Two incredible members of our community, Chantelle and Wolf, set out to fix that problem with Middleground. They sacrificed a lot to buy a beautiful package of land, spent countless hours cleaning it up, breaking trails beside community volunteers, and filling it with exactly the amenities LARP runners need to make their visions happen.

 

Beautiful water features and an inviting forest create a picturesque and immersive setting for any LARP. It’s also served as a wedding venue, a birthday venue, and generally, a place where nerds can be nerds.

 

 

 

They weathered the covid shutdown that occurred essentially the same month they opened up, and they held on to the property and its substantial costs through patreon donations, loans, and a lot of difficult personal financial sacrifices.

 

And now that Larps are starting up again, they’ve been hit with yet another unforeseen difficulty. Anonymous complaints were registered with the county about the site - its safety, coding, and permitting. While this normally would have been something that Wolf and Chantelle could have addressed quickly in its early stages, the complaints actually started back almost two years ago, and in all that time, the county contacted the wrong people. All calls, mail, and notices were sent to the estate of the prior property owner, and the first notice that Middleground had that anything was amiss was them suddenly being informed that a stop work order was going to be posted.

 

Besides the stress, countless hours of phone calls, meetings, and paperwork that Wolf and Chantelle have tackled to try to undo the stop work order and avoid further fines, they’re back to being closed with no income while also having to pay the thousands of dollars it’s costing for engineering specialists and the filings required by the county for Middleground to prove that reported issues are not a concern and be allowed to re-open.

 

It goes without saying, of course, that the pandemic’s impact on businesses like LARPs means that Middleground hasn’t been raising enough profits to offset this kind of financial threat.

 

I’m starting a GoFundMe donation drive, and I need your help. Between lawyers, necessary experts, and other fees associated with this most recent challenge, I’m aiming to drum up $7,500 to help offset this burden. Middleground is a locally run business. It represents a huge logistical step forward for LARPs in the Pacific Northwest, and needs our help to get re-opened as quickly as possible, so we can all get back to larping.

 

Every donation, big or small, can help us hit this goal. We know times have been harsh for everyone, but even $5 can help us raise a little more visibility and get this campaign in front of more eyes!

 

Please consider donating to this extremely valuable cause. Middleground has been working so hard to provide all local LARPs a safe site to host their players; one that is knowledgeable of and services their needs, as its owners are larpers as well, working so hard to keep the site going despite Help keep LARPing awesome- Donate today!