Running a LARP in the age of COVID is complicated. To mitigate this, we have the following policies as our baseline policies.
All attendees must be fully vaccinated and boosted if eligible. (Submit Proof Here) [Photos will not be retained, we will note necessary information and delete files]
All attendees must have a negative test(rapid or PCR) either the Friday(PCR only) or Saturday of game. We will try to have rapid tests available at game, but budgetary limitations mean we can't have them available for everyone. Bring a photograph on your phone and try to test as close to game as possible.
Masks will be available and can be worn at player's discretion.
If you do have a known COVID exposure within 5 days of game or are experiencing symptoms of COVID, do not come to game. (We are working on a remote option for quarantined folks using magic mirrors)
In the event of COVID related surges, we may move to a mandatory masking policy or cancel individual game sessions.
These are our baseline COVID policies, we may institute more stringent ones based on conditions, but will not relax them beyond these.
If you test positive shortly after a game session, please inform the ST list. We will share with all players that there was a positive at game. We will not share your name or any details.
A Note about Testing Fraud
Just don't. We have tests at game. If we catch you doing this, it's a lifetime ban from Fifth Star Productions games, because seriously, if we can't trust you to abide by free public health procedures, then we can't trust you period.
If you've tested positive within the last two weeks of a game session, then please test during the days leading up to game, Thursday and Friday, if those tests continue to come back positive, let us know you will need to skip game.
We have gotten some questions, so I want to share the reasoning behind us choosing the COVID strategy that we did. A lot of thought went into this and it is designed to meet the needs of this specific game, not other games or events. We are taking an approach informed by social science.
Pre-Surveillance instead of policing.
Our focus is on keeping COVID out of the game space rather than trying to prevent spread in game space. We have mandatory testing before game sessions to catch cases beforehand. If people do not come to game with COVID, then they are unlikely to transmit COVID to others at game. While rapid tests are not perfect, they are a good gauge of contagion, and given the short nature of the event(<5 hours), they should be adequate.
Closed Group
This game is going to have no more than 50 people in the game space at maximum(<40 players, 4 STs, a few NPCs and contracted performers). All of these people will be in contact afterwards to allow quarantining and testing in case of exposure. Mandatory masking is an excellent strategy for situations where contact tracing is impossible, but this is a closed group of people with a regular communication method. If someone does test positive, everyone will be notified of potential exposures.
Personal Mitigation
Masks are not forbidden in the space. Those at greater risk or those who wish to maintain higher levels of protection are certainly welcome to wear masks. We will have masks available for people to wear and there will be no stigma in making that choice.
No Rug Pulls
These are our baseline policies. We will not announce a policy for game and then relax it. We may increase mitigation strategies based on conditions, but we will not reduce our stated policies above during the run of the game.
Endemic COVID is different from pandemic COVID
From a public health standpoint, things aren't changing currently. COVID isn't going to go away if we up our mitigation strategy, but also, the general impact of COVID has been seriously blunted by vaccination, increased treatment options and broad availability of testing. During times of low transmission, when the likelihood of an individual participant having COVID is low, then we should be able to run unmasked. We will be monitoring local numbers to identify periods of heightened risk and adapting accordingly.
Note: We will be mandating masks for December and January games, because holiday travel makes that a time of greater community spread. There will be more details related to food and safety mechanics for those games closer to the time.